CHICAGO (MCT) - Cubs fan Dana Murphy grabbed her chest in pain. "It hurts here," she said Saturday night at the Logan Bar & Grill in Logan Square. | Downey: Cubs needed a rewrite from Hollywood | LIVE: MLB scoreboard | MLB page

"It hurts my heart so much."

Murphy was experiencing not a heart attack, but heartbreak, as the 2008 Cubs season died on the table. And she was not alone: bars and living rooms across Chicagoland turned into trauma centers as the team collapsed, and no amount of yelling at the television-nor pleas nor prayers-made any noticeable difference.

"At the very least they could've been nail-biters," said Ann Duff. "This is a joke."

It was a joke where the punch line-and the laughter-occurred 1,800 miles away.

"It's like they don't really care," Scott Kirkpatrick of Chicago.

That perception of player indifference seemed to anger fans the most Saturday night. Few mentioned Bartman, black cats or 100-year-make that at least 101-year-droughts.

Instead the aggrieved cited the squad's regular-season strength and the fact that the Cubs had the best National League record going into the playoffs.

"I feel betrayed; like the first 161 games didn't mean diddly squat," said Bob Richter of Lake in the Hills. "And the worst part of it is I'll be watching them in Arizona come March and will be at that old North Side ball yard many times throughout next season.

"Cub fandom: It's a disease and there is no cure."

At the Billy Goat Tavern on lower Michigan Avenue, a location as intertwined to Cubs' futility as any, the few dozen patrons scattered around the bar had grown quiet enough by the late innings that there was little noise other than the play-by-play and the sizzle of the bar's grill.

There at the Goat, as it has been in so many decades past, patrons blamed a bearded bovid.

"How can we not be cursed?" asked Jeff Grapenthien. "We were the best team in the league all year, and then we turn into the Triple-A Pirates."

(c) 2008, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.