World Series champions or 2016 failures? Cubs ‘don’t buy that’

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Theo Epstein

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Just before the season opened this week for the Cubs, center fielder Dexter Fowler gave manager Joe Maddon two specially designed bottles of scotch, on behalf of all the players, for the purpose of commemorating what is expected to be a long, successful season.

On the label of one was engraved Maddon’s “Embrace the Target” motto for the season. On the other: a blank label to be filled out sometime next fall.

“It’s going to get engraved when we win the World Series, hopefully, at the end of the year,” Fowler said. “Hopefully, we put `World champs’ on there.”

Maddon, who called the gesture “very cool,” said he’ll keep the unmarked bottle in his office, “and I’m going to open it at the appropriate time.”

When the Cubs steamrolled the Angels in the season opener Monday night, the celebrations already were flowing across social media platforms and, presumably, in most late-night establishments within an Uber call from Clark and Addison.

“Appropriate time” has long been a challenge for most things Cub when it comes to visions of baseball in October. And World Series or Bust – championship or failed season – seems to be a growing sentiment building from the outside of a team that came within four wins of a pennant last fall, then added $290 million worth of talent over the winter.

“I don’t buy that the season was a failure if you don’t win the World Series,” said Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta, who carved up the Angels lineup for seven innings in Monday’s victory. “Obviously, the feeling overall would be that you came up short.

“Big picture, yes, we want to win a World Series. But right here right now we’re just trying to win today.”

Team president Theo Epstein, whose baseball department has spent 4½ -years rebuilding the Cubs to this brink of extreme expectations, said he’s not falling for the Steinbrenner-esque mantra that anything short of a championship is a failure.

“The expectations thing, I know it an kind of create this subtext that hangs over the club with every two-game losing streak or every game that goes wrong, or every injury, and people try to put it in the context of the ultimate goal, the World Series,” he said. “But the reality is that’s now how we feel internally.

“I feel like everyone’s on board that we have this special opportunity and that you want to make the most of it,” he added. “Nothing’s promised in this game or in life. Windows slam shut. People get run over by buses crossing the street. You can’t control everything, so you want to make the most of every day and you want to make the most of every opportunity. If you don’t get there, you want to make sure it wasn’t because you didn’t work hard enough, you weren’t aggressive enough, you weren’t committed enough. I don’t think these players have that problem whatsoever.”

The measure of success or failure is determined after the season plays out, he said. And the competitive vision is longer-term than the next seven months.

For now, “We have to go out and earn it,” Epstein said. “We have nothing. We have nothing but each other, talent, character and an opportunity. And we’re going to go out and try to prove something.”

And keep the scotch handy, for whichever direction it goes.

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