I don't need to bring up a sore subject, but sometimes true inspection is necessary to make a situation better. Besides, the Cubs were shining so bright under the national spotlight because of a great season, they deserve at least a little more exposure.

The Cubs did not lose the NLCS because they were under the spell of a billy goat and a dead tavern owner. The Cubs were their own curse from Game 5 on. They committed some of the most egregious crimes a winning baseball team should not make: errors, missing cut-off men, mislocating pitches and not making adjustments at the plate. The Cubs simply beat themselves and tried to shoulder their hopes and dreams on pitchers Mark Prior and Kerry Wood.

"I know a lot of people wanted to see the Red Sox and Cubs," said Marlins reliever Chad Fox on ESPN.com. "But you know what? It wasn't meant to be. You can say what you want about curses and goats. But the better team won. I'm not knocking those guys. But we did what we had to do."

It was disappointing to watch the Cubs abandon the fundamental rules of baseball to capture the glamour of the World Series. Watching Sammy Sosa overthrow the cutoff man for the umpteenth time, Wood pitching as inconsistently as in July, and Randall Simon striking out on three straight sliders was painful. These mistakes were a distant memory during the last month of the season, and they resurfaced like recurring nightmares. The diseased bullpen will probably only return Joe Borowski, Mike Remlinger and Kyle Farnsworth at most.

The simple baseball the Marlins played indicates that the Marlins did not steal the series coming back from a 3-1 deficit, but actually played their way to the World Series. Their players made adjustments at the plate and sparkling defensive plays.

An example was the gameplan of pitching away from Ivan Rodriguez. The Cubs decided that Rodriguez would be less harmful if they pitched away from him, but he started to take the ball to right field. The problem was complicated with Pierre and Castillo being held on first, which left a gaping hole on the right side.

When the Cubs changed their gameplan, he made an adjustment and crushed hanging breaking balls. Pudge was deservedly rewarded with the NLCS MVP.

The play of Miguel "Babyface" Cabrera was outstanding and took me by surprise. A 20 year-old batting cleanup in a lineup that only hit 157 home runs during the regular season is relatively unheard of in the postseason. He has a great eye at the plate, good power to all fields and plays a stellar right field. Josh Beckett emerged as the best young pitcher in the playoffs and will be mentioned in the same breath as Prior for years to come.

As a Cubs fan, I could also mention how Cubs fan Steve Bartman lost the NLCS for the Cubs, but most fans realize that a professional baseball team should be able to play through distractions off the field of play. Bartman took the concentration and focus that the Cubs had with him when he was escorted from Wrigley Field that night.

The Cubs were their own curse this time around. The Curse of the Billy Goat is a ploy. Many Cub fans did not endure the fallout of 1969 or 1984, let alone the curse of 1945. Most of our parents weren't even around during that time span either, which means that Cubs fans shouldn't believe in the lore of the goat, but rather believe in their team's improvement for future NLCS series.

Ashley A. John is a senior in materials science and engineering. He can be reached at sports@dailyillini.com