Chicago Cubs: Next Year Is the Year the Cubbies Win the World Series, Right?

It's that time of the year, again.

Cubs fans everywhere are telling themselves, the person next to them or anyone who will listen that "next year is the year."

The Chicago Cubs have once again failed to complete their ongoing 103-year World Series drought, but that doesn't stop fans from leaving hope for another year to come.

So, as I always do at this time of the year, I would like to announce that next year is the year. Is that not what I am supposed to say, right now?

Honestly, next year is not the year. And neither is the year after that probably. And that is a tough reality for Cubs fans to swallow.

The Chicago Cubs, who have been building a championship team since the early 2000s are going to be doing nothing other than rebuilding for the next few years. After so many great teams put together, the smell of success in that October air, just always seemed to fail.

How could the Cubs possibly be rebuilding, again? Did they not give piles and piles of money to their star players like Alfonso Soriano, Marlon Byrd, Kosuke Fukudome, Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano, Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee and a list that can just keep going? Did the Cubs not bring in highly-touted managers Dusty Baker and Lou Piniella? Did the Cubs not go out and get hitting guru Rudy Jaramillo? How are these talented players failing with talented coaching?

It is because players just seem to fail on the North Side. I don't know why they do, but they just seem to. I would love for them to play great. Some of them have, but ultimately, none of them assisted in bringing the Cubs a World Series. The Cubs have put together great seasons, but without a ring at this point, it has to be considered a failure.

I am really not a negative Cubs fan. I am a die-hard who has hope going into every season. I just don't know why I find myself with such high hopes before the season, to be sorely wrong come fall.

I hope that the Cubs have something figured out. The new GM will hopefully take the Cubs along a new road. Jim Hendry was an amazing GM. He made mistakes, but those contracts he gave out were deserved to those players. They just underperformed.

The North Side has promise. Starlin Castro is going to be a star. Garza is going to be the ace he was in Tampa. All the Cubs need to do now is bring in those other players who will actually produce. Under new management, including a new manger, the Cubs and Tom Ricketts have a chance to actually make something happen in Chicago.

Once they get it together, then I will be saying next year is the year for hopefully what will be the last time.