If They Did It
New Cubs book rewrites the past.
FANTASY BASEBALL Imagine if you will, emotionally scarred Cubs fans, a world in which the phrase maybe next year is only punctuated by we’ll win it all again! In this clever slice of revisionist sports history—a comedic riff inspired by O.J. Simpson’s never-released hypothetical If I Did It—the Cubbies never choke. Steve Bartman doesn’t try to glove that infamous foul ball; Bill Sianis’s billy goat curse is reversed by the Army Corps of Engineers; even Ozzy Osbourne is there to save the day in ’69, biting the head off a black cat before it crosses the Cubs bench. With If They Did It, the jokesters behind the National Lampoon–esque Blackhawks zine The Blue Line have transformed the perennial losers that Chicago has come to know and (for some perverse reason) love into 100-year World Series champions. For brokenhearted bleacher bums, the book implies, the best medicine might just be a potent dose of lies. Available for $7.95 at Chicago Comics (3244 N Clark St, 773-528-1983), the Comic Vault (1530 W Montrose Ave, 773-728-2001) and Uncle Fun (1338 W Belmont Ave, 773-477-8223)
See how we envisioned a world where the Cubs won it all in 2008 at timeoutchicago.com/whatif.
