When Your Baseball Team Gets Its Doors Blown Off But You Aren't Cursed Anymore

I was in my third year of following Major League Baseball in 2003. The Chicago Cubs having a then-95-year championship drought was something that I was aware of, but I didn't really get it. I broadly knew that the Cubs were lovable losers and that all my St. Louis Cardinals fan family members made fun of the Cubs, and me, because of it. 2003 was the first year of my fandom where the Cubs were any good, and it was the first year I followed that they made the playoffs. They went a pedestrian 88-74, but won the Central Division. Despite their modest record, they were contenders because they had a two-headed dragon --Mark Prior and Kerry Wood-- atop their pitching rotation that they could use every couple of games. Case and point, they took out the Atlanta Braves in the National League Division Series three-games-to-two, winning Games 1, 3, and 5 --the games Wood and Prior pitched: Kerry Wood: Game 1: 7.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 11 K. Game 5: 8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K Mark Prior: Game 3: 9…