Cubs Begin Search for New Scapegoat

By: Alex Peters and Stuart Allard

With the dismissal of manager Joe Maddon on Sunday, the Chicago Cubs have announced that they have started already started searching for a new scapegoat.

“We need someone who will effortlessly take the blame for our collective mistakes, while we get off scot-free,” said owner Tom Ricketts. He continued, “It was an honor pinning all of our team’s disappointments on Maddon this past year, but the organization has agreed to move in a different direction.”

Once famed for being as lovable as they were futile, the Chicago Cubs have a proud tradition of passing the buck that spans over 140 years. Decades of bad ownership, mediocre scouting, short-sighted trades, and general malaise have been pinned on one hapless person after another.  

Maddon will join some select company, including: Steve Bartman, Leon Durham, Bill Sianis, Bill Sianis’ goat, a feral black cat, Ron Santo’s diabetes, Ken Hubbs’ plane, global warming, the Illuminati, the Zodiac killer, Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, Lee Harvey Oswald, Bill Buckner, Don Denkinger, the Five People You Meet in Heaven, and every Cubs manager since the early 1910s.

When asked for comment, Cubs fans burned a Maddon jersey in effigy, because tradition is important.