Could this week get any better for the Chicago Cubs? I mean, they got the snot beat out of them by the Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs, getting swept for the second straight year. It was a devastating blow to Cubs fans all over, as I have a few friends who have slipped into catatonic states over it, and has even caused some to put their loyalty up for auction.

Of course, if whoring yourself out isn't your style, you could always just do what everybody else is and blame Kosuke Fukudome. It can't be that the Dodgers were just the better team, after all, there has to be something to blame. Whether it's a player, a goat, a black cat, or Steve Bartman. Well, I have some news for you Cubs fans out there that you might find a bit shocking. It's not a curse or any other stupid reason why you haven't won a title in one hundred years. There's something far more powerful at work here.

God hates you. Seriously. He hates you and your team with a passion. Don't believe me? Check this out.

Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol suffered minor injuries in a car accident early Tuesday in the Dominican Republic.

A truck hit a car carrying Marmol, a cousin and a friend in his hometown of Bonao near 2 a.m. The All-Star right-hander had just arrived in the Caribbean nation after the Cubs were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs.

At FanHouse, one man's trash is another man's treasure. But only the few raise to the level of Notable Moments in FanHouse Commenting.

Are you an angry man? Are you envious? Do you get envious? Are you a Chicago Cub? A Chicago Cubs fan? A resident of Chicago? A fan of Lake Michigan's beautiful shores and scenic vistas and countless recreational opportunities?

Are you the center of the universe? Are you Chicago? (Is it possible that the two things are the same?) Are you ... president George W. Bush? If you answered yes to any of the above, "Larry," today's Notable FanHouse Commenter, believes you suck:

It doesn't matter who the Cubs have of their roster, they will never win the World Series. They lose because they suck and so do their fans. In fact, the city of Chicago sucks also and so does that polluted lake they have. If you wanted to go to the center of the suckiness in universe, that would be in Chicago. I'm surprised that George Bush isn't from Chicago, cause he sucks as well.

I have heard many things in my life "suck." I am 23, prime age for the doctrine of "suck," where everything either "sucks" or "is lame" or, most egregiously, "gay." Never, ever have I heard someone apply these adjectives to Lake Michigan. How dare you, Larry. Apologize, at once.

Or don't; Lake Michigan has been here for millions of years. What have you ever done?

As would be expected, Chicago Cubs fans haven't been the happiest people the last couple of days. You can't really blame them, as for the second straight year they had to watch their team have an excellent regular season only to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs. They've now lost nine straight postseason games, and they've now gone 100 years without a World Series title.

Of course, they wouldn't be so unhappy had the Cubs actually managed to put up a fight against the Dodgers instead of just rolling over. In fact, the Cubs played so horribly in the series that it's caused at least one fan to give up his loyalty to the team. He still needs a team to root for, though, and if you think your team could use another fan you can always buy his allegiance on eBay.

I hate to say it, but I think the time has come. What time, do you ask? Time to place another hex on the lowly Chicago Cubs. Granted, I've only suffered through 30 useless seasons of our "loveable" north-siders, but I've taken all I can take.

So, I have a proposition. In the interest of sparing my emotions from one more gut-wrenching season, I am auctioning off my loyalty to the Chicago Cubs. Now, since I realize that seems somewhat fatalistic, I will also make the provision that I will accept bids from ANYONE, even Cubs fans. That means that my loyalty will go to the highest bidder, even if that means I have to get my guts scooped out every year for the rest of my life (as a result of a winning Cubs bid).

It's a few days after the tragedy of a baseball team not winning the World Series, and Chicago's media is still searching for explanations to this Great and Sudden Collapse. The latest? The crumb-bums should have traded for Brian Roberts!

In the bitter end, the difference might have been Brian Roberts, after all. Maybe he wouldn't have overcome the walks in Game 1 or the errors in Game 2, but the Cubs' woeful lack of playoff hitting comes down to two big deficiencies:

Notice, if you will, the contradiction in the first two sentences. The difference was Brian Roberts! Or maybe not, really, but still!

The reasons given here are: The Cubs have no "true" leadoff hitter (yes, they do: Ryan Theriot, though it doesn't matter because Alfonso Soriano is a terrible, inflexible meanie), and the Cubs need more "respected" left-handed hitters. Maybe. Or maybe the lineup that was arguably the best in all of baseball in the regular season had a bad three games, had them just as easily as they could have had three really good ones. Maybe wishcasting for Brian Roberts sort of misses the simple nature of the playoffs: The Cubs were really good, and then ... weren't. Just like the Angels.

Nahhhhh: It was definitely Brian Roberts.

A quick word about the lack of Dugouts lately ... as it turns out, we write about baseball so much that we love baseball, and when the playoffs start we're rarin' to go with Dugout after Dugout of wacky dialects and references to Watchmen. Then, two weeks pass we haven't done anything because we've been sitting around watching the playoffs.

I personally thought the Cubs were going to go all the way, because I have brain damage and never learned basic reasoning. Four out of ten Fanhouse writers picked the Cubs to go all the way, because when we aren't running a sports blog we're picking our nose and eating paste.

Don't get discouraged, Cubs fans! They've still got a chance! Tonight's Dugout is after the jump!

Ever since the Cubs were swept out of the NLDS by the Dodgers on Saturday night, I've heard quite a few different excuses for their postseason collapse. First and foremost, there's the idiotic ones about the team being cursed, which we all know is a bunch of crap. Then there are some who just think that the team collapsed under the weight of a 100-year title drought.

While some of the excuses are viable, and others are just plain dumb, there's one explanation for the Cubs failures that rules the roost of ridiculousness, and it comes from left fielder Alfonso Soriano.

"Yeah, it's tough," he said. "We tried, but it just didn't happen. We played all year like a very good team and we expected a little bit more, but it didn't happen.

"We're a very good team for [162] games, but we don't do nothing after that. That's the difference. We're not put together for [a short series]."

That could honestly be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, and keep in mind that I have to listen to myself talk 24 hours a day.

The Cubs aren't built for a short series? That's funny, because I always thought that the most important part of a team in a short series was their starting rotation, and last I checked the Cubs had a pretty good one. Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano, Rich Harden, and Ted Lilly seem like a rotation that's built for a short series to me.

I mean, isn't the entire regular season just a whole lot of short series packaged together? They did pretty well there, didn't they?

It wasn't so long ago that Kosuke Fukudome was the king of Wrigleyville, object of the ultimate in Cubs fandom. His mixture of perceived exoticism, Opening Day heroics, and early-season success propelled to fan favorite status as quickly as one can be so propelled.

No more: After a slump so long it can barely be called a "slump" and an 0-8 postseason, Fukudome is battling the unthinkable: rumors that he'll be traded, sent to the minors, or shipped back to Japan:

But if it were up to Fukudome, would he have preferred to change planes in Los Angeles and continue westward for Tokyo? Does the Cubs' first high-profile Japanese import have the toughness to dig himself out of the hole he has fallen into? Will the Cubs give him the chance? One scout interviewed Saturday suggested a course of action that could be tough to swallow. "He has to go to the minors," the scout said. "He has to get rid of all those habits, pulling out on pitches, collapsing. He'll never hit the way he's hitting now, and this is a tough place to work out your problems. Always has been."

What Fukudome really needs is some sort of intensive swing coach, or something. Or maybe he needs to stop thinking about baseball for a while. Whatever the case may be, he'll have to have a strong spring if he plans on being in Wrigleyville much longer. Jim Hendry isn't one to dawdle when it comes to dealing formerly impressive outcasts.

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

A few weeks ago I was approaching a football field, en route to officiating a middle school football game. As I walked through the parking lot, I noticed an older gentleman kneeling down to pick up his keys. Only he was struggling. Every time he'd pick up his keys, he'd drop his sunglasses. Every time he'd pick up his sunglasses, he'd drop his keys, and so on. I noticed about ten people just walk by him without saying a word or even giving him a second look. There was a car waiting on him to clear the way, and the people sitting inside were visibly annoyed with the poor guy. I went over and helped him to his feet, and then leaned over and got his keys and sunglasses for him. It wasn't that I thought I was some sort of hero. I just don't understand why so many people didn't care to help.

He was thankful, but most of all you could tell he was disgusted with himself for needing my help. He did need it, he just didn't want it. I'm glad I was there, because most people couldn't have cared less.

When I was 18, the Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Tennessee Titans in a playoff game. The game got to overtime and the Titans lined up for the game winning kick. Joe Nedney lined the kick up, hit it, saw it was going to miss, and took a dive in to the ground as a Steeler brushed his leg. A penalty was called, Nedney kicked it again, and after the game made some snide comment about being up for an Oscar. I put a hex on him after that incident and I kid you not, the guy blew his ACL out in the first game of the next season.

I briefly considered the power that I had been imbued with and just what kind of use I should put it to (I was leaning heavily towards "evil"), before I realized that was ridiculous. Curses are not real. They might feel real, especially after your favorite 97-win team continues their franchises 100-year streak of not winning a World Series, but I assure you, they are not real.

Manny Ramirez hit well during the postseason? CURSE! Alfonso Soriano disappeared during the playoffs? CURSE! A great regular season Lou Piniella team fell well short of expectations? CURSE! When you've existed for 100 years, sometimes bad things happen. Every franchise in baseball that's existed since 1908 has their own share of black cat and Bartman moments.

The Cubs haven't gotten a good break, but that's not entirely unusual. The Red Sox and White Sox both went almost 90 years without a World Series, the Indians are up to 60. Baseball is not known for it's historical parity, but eventually things even out. The last incarnation of the Dodgers had it right: "Wait 'til next year" is much better than "The Curse of the Billy Goat."

Throughout the entire season, I attempted to convince a friend of mine that happens to be a Cub fan that the Cubs were really as good as their gaudy record indicated. I had a small legion of stats that backed my claims up. He would always dismiss them to me with three words; "They're the Cubs." In the end, maybe I should've listened to my friend. With tonight's 3-1 loss, the 97-win Cubs were swept by the Dodgers in the NLDS, ending their playoff run almost as quickly as it started.

In the end, the Cubs didn't even put up a fight. They gave up two runs in the first inning after a questionable call on a play at third and they never really even showed a pulse after that. They only mustered eight hits and one run with their season on the line with things ending as Alfonso Soriano failed to hold up on a check swing while Jonathon Broxton and company wildly celebrated.

In the next two days or so this series is going to be diagrammed ad nauseum while people search for a reason that the best regular season in the NL disappeared so quietly. In the immediate aftermath of this series, allow me to offer this explanation: the Dodgers were the better team. Rafael Furcal is back, Manny Ramirez is in the lineup, and Joe Torre is leaving Juan Pierre on the bench. The Cubs weren't even a match for them.