What does losing feel like? Bill Simmons has described it as a “stomach-punch.” (Being Bill Simmons requires that this be turned into an actual noun: the “stomach-punch game.” I don’t care. I still like Bill Simmons.) David Foster Wallace equated it with unconsciousness, saying that failing to think created the “constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

Me? When I lose something important, I always feel deflated, like someone literally let the air out of me. It’s weird, because you never feel “inflated.” You just feel normal. And then, bam. Like your chest is sinking in on itself.

That sounds about like the Cubs 2008 playoff run. Everything good, everything fine, and then bam: deflation.

Or, as Lou Piniella would put it:

“It felt like we got run over by a semi truck,” he said.

Yep. That pretty much sums it up.

Piniella has something other notable quotables in this interview with Paul Sullivan, specifically this:

Piniella was asked if the Cubs early clinching was one of the reasons for the postseason failure, as catcher Geovany Soto theorized on Monday after winning NL Rookie of the Year honors. Piniella denied that was a reason, but later added: “One other thing that I think hurt us was everyone jumped on our bandwagon (because of) the 100th year, and I think looking back, these kids tried a little too hard.”

I don’t know if I buy that. Mentally, the Cubs seemed OK for the entire regular season, and I didn’t sense a huge bandwagon jump after the playoffs started. Had the Cubs made it deeper into the playoffs, and all that tension had started to build, I could buy it. But I don’t really know. If the Cubs think the bandwagon pressure hurt them, then it hurt them. It’s like Tylenol that way.