The Cubs Won't Win the 2015 World Series, and It's Mean to Pretend They Will

Let's get this out of the way up front: as a born-and-raised Chicagoan, I want the Cubs to win the World Series every year. No February goes by without me staring at their MLB.com depth chart and saying, "you know, if X, Y and Z break right, this team might have a chance."

That's why it hurts me so much to say it won't happen this year, and why it hurts when you say it will.

Unlike a lot of winters, this year a lot of folks are saying that. The Sporting News picked the Cubs to win the 2015 World Series. Sportsbook.ag lists the Northsiders behind only serious contenders - among them the favored Dodgers, powerhouse Nationals and rival Cardinals - in World Series odds at +1500. Pop-culture enthusiasts won't stop beating us over the head with Back to the Future II demands it.¹

(Heads up, genius: Back to the Future II also demands Miami move to the American League so the Cubs can meet them in the Fall Classic. We get it. Decades-old predictions are funny. Shut up.)

In more-analytical corners, however, folks are speaking the truth. Fangraphs projects the Cubs will finish in the middle of the pack at 83-79. Buster Olney of ESPN omitted the boys in blue from his offseason top 10 starting rotations and top 10 batting lineups. Members of the team aren't talking about the World Series; they want to win the NL Central, itself an ambitious goal for a 73-89 team that, even after a strong offseason, still lacks rotation depth and established hitting.

I know what you'll say: Be flattered. Enjoy the attention. It's all in good fun.

It's really not, though. For fans like me, who know that 2015 is going to be a .500 season or close to it, hearing so much talk about the Cubs bathing in champagne this fall isn't fun. It's depressing. It's patronizing. It's bitchy.

It says "the Cubs are so enduringly terrible I can't think of anything more implausible than them ever doing well." It shouts "I can get a bunch of traffic by catering to these sad sacks!" It ignores the forward-thinking approach this fanbase has clung to through the longest Cubs playoff drought since the late 1980s - six years and counting - in favor of the "next-year-is-here" idiocy that got us here.

So, please, as a long-suffering Cubs fan, I beg you: Have some class. Give some compassion. Show a little basic human decency and leave us alone.

We know this team hasn't won a World Series in 106 years; we know it's getting better; and, rest assured, we'll be the first to know when a championship is coming.

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1 No, I'm not linking to any of these hacks.

Big Hero 6 is Sloppy, Underwritten and Super Fun

Big Hero 6 doesn't care about a lot of things that make good movies.

The plot is sloppy. Major characters make very stupid decisions for no reason other than "because the script said so" (spoilers behind these footnotes)¹, important revelations are withheld until they feel perfunctory² and the entire enterprise feels driven by narrative tropes.

The script needed a lot more attention. Clunky info-dumps pepper the first several minutes, most of the characters are razor-thin stereotypes and many of the film's most entertaining moments are nakedly stolen from better movies.

But damn if it isn't a great ride anyway.

In the first moments of the film, the colorful skyline and landmarks of San Fransokyo - a near-future amalgam of San Francisco and Tokyo - put a smile on my face, and it seldom left during Big Hero 6's almost-brutally efficient 102 minutes. Just when a moment feels bland and forgettable, something else rockets onto the screen to wipe it away.

Hiro and Baymax save Big Hero 6 from its script.

It all starts with Hiro, a preteen prodigy who could easily be an insufferable know-it-all but shows so much life, humor and compassion that he's likeable in his darkest, most pubescent moments. He's an unlikely but compelling quarterback for the titular hero team, which adopts him in a believable way.

Hiro's biggest problem might be that his story, which is as predictable as it is well-executed, shoehorns out anything interesting his teammates could do with some screen time. Each has a memorable nickname; a costume, most of which work; and his or her own powers that make great set-piece moments, but only one, Fred, has any backstory to speak of. (Hang around after the credits for more from him.)³

The film's biggest star, though, is Baymax, a cuddly "health care companion" who emerges as both a consistent comic presence for what could have been a bland action film⁴ and a marketing orgasm waiting to happen. The latter has its own drawbacks⁵ but I'm certain millions of kids will join me in finding a plush version to alternately hug and take for adventures.

Simply-put, this is blockbuster filmmaking, animated or no, at its finest - so energetic, so beautiful and so clever that a generic storyline and half-baked writing can't sink it. Sit back and enjoy.

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1 Really, Tadashi? You're running into a burning building? Callaghan is right to call you a moron. (Side note: Pretending this is equivalent to venturing into a collapsing portal is ridiculous. Firefighters are a thing.)
2 Would have appreciated knowing Callaghan's backstory BEFORE he was revealed behind the mask, thanks
3 And Stan Lee!
4 No, Fred doesn't count.
5 This is a franchise-starter, a Disney movie, a Marvel movie and a robot character. OF COURSE HE'S NOT DEAD.