By Bob Markus

A long time ago, when I was the only guy, to my knowledge, ever to serve two years in the Army without advancing past the rank of PFC, one of my buddies was a big, good looking kid from Fresno, Cal., who had a favorite expression that never failed to amuse me. "I used to be conceited," he would say, "but now I'm perfect." Well, I used to be perfect, but now I'm embarrassed. I've been writing this weekly blog for a little more than a year and, to my knowledge, have not made any factual errors. Errors in judgment? Plenty. Big Brown to win the Triple Crown, comes to mind. The Arizona Cardinals to win the Super Bowl. Memphis to win the NCAA tournament.

I haven't had much feedback from readers, but the few who have responded to a column or two have generally been kind. But last week a reader with the moniker T.J. sent a reply to my blog announcing my new born fealty to the Miami Marlins after more than a half century of being a Cubs fan. "What would be worse than dying before the Cubs winning a world series?" he asked. His answer: "Swearing off the Cubs only to see them win a World Series, taking the pennant at the expense of your new favorite team." Fair enough, and I'll address that a bit later. It was the next sentence that bothered me, not that there was anything unfair about it. In fact, it was justified. "Also," T.J. wrote, "it was Will Clark, not Jack Clark whom Cubs pitchers could not retire in '89." Right you are, T.J., and wrong I was.

So I apologize not only to T.J.,but all of my readers who have the right to expect a guy who wrote for newspapers for more than 40 years to at least get his facts right. Location, location, location may be the watch word for realtors and baseball pitchers, but for a journalist the first principle is accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. After reading T.J.'s comment I did what I should have done in the first place. I looked it up in the Baseball Encyclopedia, which I consider the greatest reference book ever published, and was reminded that Jack Clark played for the Giants from 1973 to 1984 before being traded to the Cardinals, and Will Clark came up with the Giants in 1986. So it was Will Clark who had his way with the likes of Greg Maddux in that 1989 National League Championship series.

Although I recognize Maddux as a Hall of Famer and will vote for him if I'm still around when he becomes eligible in five years, I've always resented the way he left the Cubs, claiming he wanted to pitch for a team that had a chance to win the World Series. The fact is he was already on a team that had a chance to win the World Series and he was one of the main reasons they didn't. In his two playoff starts he never got into the fifth inning. In the series opening 11-3 loss he was torched for eight runs in four innings, including a Clark grand slam. He was tagged for four more runs in 3 1/3 innings in game four and didn't get the loss only because the Cubs tied the game after he left, before eventually losing, 6-4. The other thing that ticked me off was that three years later the Cubs had gone out of their way to help him reach 20 wins for the first time, giving him extra starts down the stretch. The result was his first Cy Young Award, which undoubtedly was a bargaining chip when he became a free agent after that 1992 season. Showing all the loyalty of a sea slug, Maddux signed with the Braves for the same salary the Cubs had offered.

Getting back to T.J.s message, I'm much more upset by the discovery of my factual error than I am at the prospect of the Cubs winning the World Series in the same year I jumped off the band wagon. In fact, if they get that far I'll probably root for them. I doubt they'll get that far, however, and don't much care. As for my new love, the Marlins, as the song goes, love's more comfortable the second time around. I'll probably never root for them with the passion I felt for the Cubs. But I see most of their games on television and, for the most part, I like what I see. As I write this they're on a seven-game losing streak and not much is going right for them. But they're a young team and I feel confident they'll be back in the race (in fact they were still in first place going into Tuesday night's game.) If it doesn't happen this year, I'm perfectly willing to wait until next year. Now, where have I heard that before?