Enough lore. Enough color. The Cubs need a win today.

If you're rooting for the Baby Bears' penance to end, like I am, cling to a loved one. For this is starting to feel like the final charge up the hill in Glory.

I called my Dad, who attended the Cubs last World Series appearance as a 10-year-old in 1945, after the game. I don't believe I've ever heard him sound so quiet.

* * *

The Game 6 loss is not about the fan who may have prevented Moises Alou from catching the foul ball, but you can't not talk about him.

First of all, he was not the only one going for the foul ball. Hands were reaching in the cookie jar from all sides, but only one guy actually got, if you'll excuse the expression, caught.

So let's dial back the hyperbole about this man being the villain of the century. In particular, people like this (in Bill Plaschke's column in the Times today) shouldn't be quoted for color. They need to be set straight.

Jim Cuthbert, a longtime fan from the suburbs, was outside because he had been ejected after he dashed down 20 rows to the fan and confronted him.

"After that play, I had enough," Cuthbert said. "Ninety-five years and this idiot gets in the way? I yelled, 'What's wrong with you!' He was smirking, high-fiving his buddy.

Do you believe this story? That by the time Cuthbert made his way 20 rows to the fan, the fan was high-fiving, when his transgression was immediately apparent? That Cuthbert got close enough to see a smirk?

Or do you believe this account in the Chicago Sun-Times?

Matt Gries, 26, of Los Angeles was sitting nearby and said the man who interfered "was sad and nervous. He just looked like he wanted to bury himself in the dirt.''

It seems much more likely that Cuthbert, with or without malice aforethought, is trying to make a bad situation worse, drawing a black mustache on the Wanted poster. Villain or not, that's shooting the guy in the back.

The punishment for this fan has already begun and will continue. Let's not be ridiculous about it.

Now, let's also dial back the hyperbole saying any fan in the same position would have done the same thing.

Yes, it a natural instinct to go for a foul ball when you're in the stands. Except when you are seated in the front row. Except in a game with obvious implications. Except with the left fielder coming right at you. I don't think it takes a conscious decision for you to let the baseball player - especially the one on the team whose hat you are wearing - have the first shot at the ball. There's a common sense instinct in us as well.

In that situation, you don't go after anything. You cower. You put your hands up to protect your head and let it smash your knuckles before you try to catch it.

* * *

My sport is baseball. For a Cubs-Red Sox World Series to slip away and be replaced by Yankees-Marlins, that's joyless.

Fear and hope, my comrades on either shoulder for another day.