monotony

this season stands now at the gates of the dog days, that seemingly endless and frequently languid run of baseball that stretches out to the horizon like a long and narrow highway through the desert for a losing ballclub like the cubs. deprived of purpose, these coming weeks will encourage distraction in the repetition of the game, every day bringing another pitch, another swing, and more often than not another loss. this is a time when many a casual baseball fan finds reason to drift into other affairs until the giddiness of october grows nearer in time if not in proximity to the cubs; and many a dedicated fan takes refuge in the monotony of the game, in much the same way as the faithful of a far better stripe find solace from the weary world in the chant and ceremony of daily liturgy -- letting the tolling bells of the wins and losses mark the days as the matins and vespers once did, a bastion to stand against the sordid awareness of that which exists beyond the bounds of intimate comfort.

this is not to say nothing will happen. major decisions will face the management of this club as the july 31 trading deadline approaches, to say nothing of the ownership. the drama of kerry wood will take another turn, echoing the cautionary words this page, pushing him to the bullpen and even perhaps ending his star-crossed career. mark prior's future will be the subject of fits of intense frustration and speculation short of any resolution. derrek lee will struggle to progress with his rediscovered hand. and a hundred other acts will rise, play out and fall from the stage to form the discourse of the spontaneous drama that we will call the season of these cubs.

but all of them will flow suffused in the slow and broad current of time -- surging, ebbing, eddying in its course through the channel of the year, encouraging a heavy eye and a drifting hand. concerning oneself directly with the outcome of the day becomes a pointless task, as momentum is built only to be dissipated, a mere vacillation of the breeze.

what can be of greater and more purposeful interest now than the transient tactics is the strategy of the franchise -- how will it (or will it try to?) extricate itself from this deep and terrible mire of chronic failure and gradual decay that has overcome the administration of andy macfail? it is to this, dear reader, that this writer would attract what attention and criticism you can muster -- for there is little else afoot that at all matters.