Today it was announced that Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for literature. If there was ever a sign that the Cubs are gonna win the World Series, this is it.

I don’t know what they smoke in Stockholm, but I’m pretty sure it’d be banned by Major League Baseball. I mean Bob Dylan and Nobel Prize in the same sentence? Really? This is a guy who wrote lyrics like:

They’ll stone ya when you’re at the breakfast table
They’ll stone ya when you are young and able
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to make a buck
They’ll stone ya and then they’ll say “good luck”
Tell ya what, I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.

Now … maybe if he’d penned “Go, Cubs, go” I could get behind this. But as it is, and as much as I like Dylan, this one’s got me scratchin’ my head.

I’m guessin’ that the 18-member Swedish Academy had taken Mr. Dylan’s advice when they decided he should be a Nobelaureate. Who is on this committee, anyway? Cheech and Chong? Spicoli? I mean, these guys compared Dylan to Homer and Sappho. In baseball terms, that’s like comparin’ Mario Mendoza to Ted Williams. And awardin’ him the Grand Poobah of  literary prizes is like puttin’ Pete La Cock in the Hall of Fame. By the way, unlike Robert Allen Zimmerman, who changed his name to Bob Dylan, La Cock has gone through his entire life with that handle. That takes balls. (Yes, that pun was intended.) Of course maybe that’s why La Cock was never a rock star.

Anyway, I’m takin’ the Dylan Nobel Prize thing as a positive sign for the Cubs. Why? Cuz it means that whatever floats around out there in the universe that you can’t see — dark matter, gravity, Jimmy Hoffa — is in some sorta weird flux that’s turnin’ the world as we know it on it’s keister. Can you really argue with that? Does Donald Trump runnin’ for President seem normal to you? This is why I’m absolutely certain the Cubs are a lock for World Series Champs. And maybe for more than just this year. Stuff in the universe is pretty big and powerful. Like the Force. A cosmic oil tanker that’s goin’ in one direction isn’t just gonna turn on a dime, my friend. In the Nobel Prize world that means it might not be that crazy to see Sir Mix A Lot pickin’ up a $100,000 check in Sweden. But it also means the Chicago Cubs could be a team to be reckoned with for some time to come.

We’re gonna find out if this Schlombowski Theory of Relativity looks like it can hold water startin’ Saturday. Dylan might say, “The answer is blowin’ in the wind.” And given it’s Chicago – the Windy City — I think we’re gonna hear that answer loud and friggin’ clear, my friend.

Joe