Well, as expected, the Cubs lost last night. In the ALCS, the Red Sox forced a game seven, which they will probably lose, thus setting up the marquee matchup between the Yankees and the Marlins. New York vs. Florida. The state where New Yorkers are born vs. the state where New Yorkers die. I can�*yawn*�barely contain my excitement.

As for this curse thing: before the Red Sox forced a game seven, I was not terribly convinced that the Cubs or the Red Sox were cursed. To me, they were just historically shittay teams that were still bound up in past glories. Are the Clippers cursed? Are the Bengals cursed? No. And of course, people will argue that those teams don�t have the rich history that the Cubs and Red Sox have. They�ve just been fairly craptacular for their entire existence, save a brief stretch or two. (The two Super Bowl appearances for the Bengals, the Bob McAdoo days for the Clippers when they were the Buffalo Braves, for instance.) Fair enough. What about the Detroit Lions (or Tigers, for that matter) or the Cleveland Browns?

So I don�t buy the curse, or at least I didn�t. However, if the Red Sox do indeed lose game 7 against the hated Yankees, you gotta suspect that there�s some cosmic mischief afoot. Only a god with a wicked sense of humor would take these two franchises�who fancy themselves to be so historically significant that their poor performance for the last 50-odd years must be due to bad voodoo�to the brink of the promised land and have them both lose in a game 7.

One last thing: For those Cubs fans pointing to the kid who allegedly cost you the deciding game, know this. Any athlete or coach worth his salt will tell you that no series comes down to one play. The Cubs had the game before and the game after to make it to the World Series, and a fan didn�t cost them in either. They simply blew it. So leave the kid alone. He made a boneheaded mistake and owned up to it. (Not that he had much choice.) Why not go after the players who lost game 5 and game 7 instead?