Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Tolstoy curse.

Many years ago, watching the old This Week with David Brinkley show one Sunday morning, I heard George Will remark that the Chicago Cubs, of which he is a rabid fan, had not won a World Series championship since ”two years before Tolstoy died.” It was a funny line then, twenty years ago or so. And it’s a scream now, the Cubs having recently concluded the 2008 campaign by losing three straight in the NLDS against the putatively inferior Dodgers. That’s a sweep, Jack. And this after a 97-win season buoyed by the widespread conviction that 2008–the 100th year since that last title–was “the year.”

I would note that also among the living at the time the Cubs last ruled the ballyard were Henry James, William Dean Howells, and Mark Twain. As were Winslow Homer, Gustav Mahler, Clara Barton, and Algernon Charles Swinburne. Thomas Hardy, author of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and The Mayor of Casterbridge, among other Victorian masterpieces, would live another twenty years. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Friedrich Nietszche–two more luminaries of the century before last–lay in their graves but twelve and eight years respectively. Without doubt a goodly cohort of Cub fans, and a number of the players on the 1908 squad, were still mourning Emile Zola, just six years gone. 

Not widely reported by the Progressive Era MSM, however, was the fact that Tolstoy, James, and Twain hooked up for game five (the clincher). It was kind of spur-of-the-moment. Here’s a snap of the three of them and a few other dudes horsing around in the bleachers on that unforgettable day.
 

Posted by Tom in 04:55:40
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