Edwin Jackson on his thrilling quest to lose 20 games.

Bill McClellan is a Cubs fan from Chicago who happens to live in Saint Louis. This makes him at best an outsider, at worst an unfathomable alien, a status that perfectly suits the vocation of newspaper columnist, which McClellan happens to be at the Post-Dispatch. I think he’s about the best there is.

This weekend finds his Cubs in Saint Louis to wrap up their season with three games against the Cardinals. The question for the Cubs is how close they will come to losing a hundred games. The question for the Cardinals is whether they’ll win their second World Series in three years.

“Being a Cubs fan in Saint Louis is almost like being the alcoholic uncle at a family reunion—most people tolerate me, some are even amused,” McClellan once told me. “I suspect it might be different if the Cubs were more successful. People here love the Cardinals, and if the Cubs were constantly beating them, the fans here would be less tolerant of me, I think.”

In Friday’s paper, McClellan reviews the Cubs’ season for the benefit of his Saint Louis readers, who he safely assumes paid less attention than they might have to the Cubs’ thrilling battle with Milwaukee for fourth place in the NL Central Division and to Edwin Jackson’s quest to lose 20 games.

It’s a fine piece of writing, so I’m bringing it to your attention. For Cubs fans basking in their sweet collective misery in Chicago, there is always next year. For McClellan, going it alone among the enemy, there is always his column.