I would describe myself as a pretty normal guy. I like to eat good food, but I’m just as happy drinking a beer or eating donuts; I like to go on long-distance runs, and I’ve even run a few triathlons, but I don’t devote my whole life to exercise; I like to write internationally acclaimed novels and short stories, but I don’t go around bragging about it or anything. And I like baseball, more as an outsider than as a fan. I guess if I liked any team, it’s the Chicago Cubs, but only because I profiled them at the beginning of the year.

So they made it to the playoffs this year. They won almost 100 games — 97, to be exact — and won their division handily, although this was more because Milwaukee stunk for the last month of the season than because the Cubs are the greatest team of all time, the way some people think. (Especially when those people can’t even spell the name "Sabathia" correctly.)

But their season is over, as quickly as a smile from a teenage girl who happens to live near you and seems to want to flirt with you but mostly her banter is just the means to an end towards surreal self-discovery. It was just that quick. One minute you’re leading the league and all your radio hosts are bragging about how liberating it will be to finally break the curse, how all true baseball fans not just in your city but all over the U.S.A. will be rooting for your team after 100 years of futility — and the next you’re on a subdued plane ride back to Chicago to clean out your locker for the year.

There is no denying that the Cubs are a great team. They have very good hitters, a few very good pitchers, and a manager who seems to know what he is doing in most cases, although I guess some people will wonder why he decided to change up the batting order and do things for the very first time in the playoffs. So on one level it is kind of silly to talk about this year being a failure. On the other hand, in baseball any year that you don’t win the World Series is a failure; it seems an unrealistic standard to me, but that’s baseball for you.

So really, if you think about it, the Cubs are really no different from any other team except whichever team wins. Then again, of course, not every team spends $118.595 million to fail. That’s almost $40 million more than Milwaukee Brewers, another of this year’s failures, and almost three times more than the Tampa Bay Rays. When you spend $118.595 million, I guess you expect better than a three-game flameout in the playoffs. I sure would.

This all reminds me of a thing that happened when I was running my jazz bar in Tokyo. I spent a lot of money to hire a well-known jazz singer to work three nights in the club. She did not even come the first night, and I had to give everyone their money back. The second night, she finally showed up, but she was so drunk that she butchered every song and stumbled offstage after only about 45 minutes. On the third night, she would not come out of her dressing room, which was locked on the inside and had no windows or other doors. When I unlocked the door and walked in, she had disappeared. After I locked the club for the night and was heading home, I saw her wandering around the streets with no clothes on. I pulled over, picked her up, and drove her home. Once we got to her hotel, I walked her inside and she said goodnight. I never saw her again. Okay, I guess that story didn’t have much to do with the events in this story.

What is next for the Cubs? Well, they have some things to think about. Do they get rid of Theriot and Fontenot and bring in some left-handed bats? Do they let their team, and dear old Wrigley Field, be taken over by this or by that group of fat-cat big-money guys?

I don’t know. Why should I? I’m no baseball expert. All I want to do is write my books, do a lot of long-distance running, listen to the Beatles and Mozart, and keep my nose clean so I can win the Nobel Prize in 10 years or so. Maybe by then the Cubs will have won the World Series. Otherwise that would just be too depressing.

Haruki Murakami has written a whole heap of books. He recently moved back to Tokyo, Japan, after a lengthy stay in the U.S.