November 2, 2016: The Chicago Cubs Win the World Series

November 2, 2016: To paraphrase Shirley Povich of The Washington Post, when the Brooklyn Dodgers finally did it 61 years earlier...

Please don't interrupt, because, unless you are over the age of 110, you have not heard this one before: The Chicago Cubs are the World Champions of baseball.

In the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II, the Cubs were shown winning the 2015 World Series, against a team from Miami with an alligator logo, obviously in the American League. It was meant as a joke, a very easy and cheap joke, because the Cubs never won the World Series. They never even won the Pennant. It seemed like a wild guess about the future, played for laughs.

It became less funny in 1991, when Miami was awarded an expansion team, to begin play in 1993, and to originally be known as the Florida Marlins, for the National League, making Cubs vs. Miami in the World Series impossible. It became considerably less funny in 2003, when a Cub collapse gave the Marlins the Pennant. And it became less funny still in the actual 2015, when the Cubs did make it to the NLCS, but lost to the New York Mets.

Somehow, in 2016, they bounced back, winning 103 game to take the NL Central Division, then beating the San Francisco Giants in the NLDS, and then beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, to win their 1st Pennant since 1945. Or, as songwriter Steve Goodman, a Cubs fan who died during their ill-fated run to the 1984 Playoffs, put it...

You know the law of averages says

anything will happen that can.

But the last time the Cubs won a National League Pennant

was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.

Their opponents in the World Series were the Cleveland Indians, who had the longest World Series drought in the AL: They hadn't won since 1948. This was their 4th Pennant in 68 years. Both teams were said to be "cursed." Only one could win. Something had to give.

In Cleveland, the Indians won Game 1, 6-0; but the Cubs won Game 2, 5-1. In Chicago, the Indians won Game 3, 1-0, and Game 4, 7-2. They only needed to win 1 more to end their curse, and extend the Cubs'. But the Cubs won Game 5, 3-2. Back in Cleveland, the Cubs won Game 6, 9-3, to tie the Series.

Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, played at Progressive Field in Cleveland. One team, looking to end a title drought of 108 years; the other, 68 years. Both having made too mainly painful memories for their fans in the interim. It was time for one of them to make one more, and for the other to finally put an end to such misery.

Dexter Fowler, Javier Baez and David Ross hit home runs for the Cubs, and Rajai Davis hit one for the Cleveland Indians. But the Cubs made 3 errors, the Indians 1. The Cubs blew leads of 1-0 in the 3rd inning, and 6-3 in the 8th, and their fans must have thought that it was never going to happen, even though they had already come back from being 3 games to 1 down in this Series.

The game went to extra innings, and then it rained. And home-field advantage hadn't meant much: The Indians had taken 2 of 3 in Wrigley, and the Cubs had, so far, taken 2 of 3 in Cleveland. So each of these seemingly cursed teams had, at least in theory, an equal chance.

Kyle Schwarber led off the top of the 10th with a single, and was replaced by pinch-runner Albert Almora. Kris Bryant flew out to center, but Almora got gutsy, and tagged up and got to 2nd. Anthony Rizzo was walked intentionally to set up the double play, but the strategy didn't work: Ben Zobrist hit an RBI double into the left field corner, the biggest hit in the Cubs' 142-season history. Addison Russell was walked intentionally, and Miguel Montero singled him home to make it 8-6. Cub fans could feel it finally happening after 108 years.

But the Indians weren't going down without a fight. In the bottom of the 10th, after Carl Edwards Jr. pitched the Cubs to within 1 out of glory, he walked Brandon Guyer, who took 2nd on defensive indifference.

Davis singled him home to make it 8-7, and Cub fans were staring at the choke to end all chokes, the Billy Goatiest Curse of the Billy Goat ever. But manager Joe Maddon brought Mike Montgomery on to relieve, and he got Michael Martinez to ground to 3rd, and Bryant threw him out to end it.

Going in, I had no preference as to which team won. Both sets of fans had waited long enough, and had endured too much. I just wanted the story of the game to be a hero, not a goat (a terrible mistake) or a villain (an umpire making a bad call).

Zobrist and Montgomery were the heroes for the Cubs. This was not one of the greatest games of all time. Indeed, it was sloppy, as if neither team really wanted to win, when both teams really had to win.

But it was great theater. And providing such theater on a regular basis is why baseball is the greatest game of them all.

Thankfully, Cub fans did not follow up the end to their drought by acting like bastards, the way Red Sox fans did after 2004 and New York Ranger fans did after 1994.

It was 6 days before the Presidential election. Barack Obama was still President. There was a terrible possibility that Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton, and plunge America into 4 years of nightmare, but if the Cubs -- of whom Hillary once claimed to be a fan -- could win the World Series, then we could avoid a Trump Presidency, right?

We didn't. The Cubs' World Series win was the last good moment of a good age. Before the dark times.

One more note: Ever since the WGN-nationally-televised Ryne Sandberg and Rick Sutcliffe Division title season of 1984, even when the crosstown Chicago White Sox are doing well on the field, and the Cubs aren't, the Cubs aren't, the Cubs have had a higher attendance. The White Sox last won the American League Pennant in 1959, more recently than the Cubs' most recent NL Pennant; broke the Playoff drought before the Cubs did, in 1983; and won the Pennant and the World Series before the Cubs did, in 2005. But the White Sox have always gotten short shrift from the Chicago media and fans. Even in 2005, and in 2006, when there should have been some spillover effect, the Cubs did better in attendance.

So it should have been clear that the following move was a really, really dumb one on the White Sox' part: During the 2016 World Series, they announced that the naming rights to their ballpark had been bought from telecommunications company U.S. Cellular, by insurance company Guaranteed Rate. What had opened in 1991 as the new Comiskey Park would now be named Guaranteed Rate Field. (UPDATE: In 2025, it was changed to simply "Rate Field.") Doing this while the Cubs were in the World Series was a major public relations blunder, and reminded everyone of why the South Siders will always be the second team in the "Second City."

UPDATE: The Cubs have a team Hall of Fame. Through the 2025 season, the only figure Inducted from their 2016 team has been pitcher Jon Lester, unless you also want to count broadcaster Pat Hughes.

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November 2, 2016 was a Wednesday. No more baseball that counted until the following April. No football. But there were 10 NBA games played:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Houston Rockets, 118-99 at Madison Square Garden. James Harden scored 30 points for the Rockets. Carmelo Anthony led the Knicks with 21.

* The Brooklyn Nets beat the Detroit Pistons, 109-101 at the Barclays Center. Brook Lopez scored 34 for the home team.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Chicago Bulls, 107-100 at the TD Garden in Boston.

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Washington Wizards, 113-103 at the Capital One Arena in Washington. DeMar DeRozan scored 40 for the Raps, while John Wall got 33 for the Wiz. But, on this night, somebody beat the Wiz. 

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 109-93 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte -- not to be confused with the 76ers' former arena, which was known as The Spectrum.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 123-116 at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. For the Hawks, Dwight Howard scored 31, and Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 26, but it wasn't enough.

* The Memphis Grizzlies beat the New Orleans Pelicans, 89-83 in overtime, at the FedEx Forum in Memphis.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 118-115 in overtime, at the Talking Stick Resort (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Dallas Mavericks, 97-81 at the Vivint Arena (now again named the Delta Center) in Salt Lake City. 

 

* And the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 85-83 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles. Russell Westbrook scored 35 for the victorious visitors.

There were 3 games played in the NHL:

* The Montreal Canadiens broke a 3-game losing streak, beating the Vancouver Canucks, 3-0 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-3 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Jakob Vorasek scored the winning goal with 3:19 left in overtime.

* And the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Anaheim Ducks, 5-1 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.