Breaking my hiatus...
I know it has been a few months since I last wrote. I will write an update about what I have been up to soon, but for the time being I wanted to share my experience over the last few days. This is a long read, so bear with me:
24 hours. It has been 24 hours since the Cubs clinched the World Series title for the first time since 1908. The curses are broken and the city is still celebrating!
I have been a Cubs fan for a few years now. I won’t say it’s been a lifelong love, because that would be untrue. For a good portion of growing up I was fairly ambivalent to professional sports in general including MLB. I would cheer on whoever I felt like any given game. Toward the end of High School I decided to pick a team. Over a couple months during my senior year two things transpired that led to my loyalty to the Cubs. My Great-Grandma Loretta Brown passed away. Grandma was always a big Cubs fan, playing the games on her small TV and wearing Cubbie colors. I also decided to attend DePaul University, mere minutes away from Wrigley Field. It was the perfect combination, so I decided that the Cubs were my team, to honor Grandma and my new home, even though the Cubs weren’t particularly good that year.
Fast forward to 2015. The Cubs had actually played a decent season! I made it to a few games, and they made it into the postseason. Despite Back to the Future Part 2 predicting a Cubs World Series win in 2015, the team couldn’t pull it off.
2016. This is our year. The Cubs started off the season with some buzz - playing well. This could be the team to do it all! Long time Cubs fans were apprehensive remembering the 1969 (I think?) Cubs team that started great and faded down the stretch. We watched and waited with bated breath to see how the season would progress. Wins started piling up, eventually the team would surpass 100 wins on the season. The game I attended in early August was among the team’s home wins. By the stats, the Cubs were the best team in baseball for the 2016 season. Unfortunately stats don’t matter in the Playoffs.
The Cubs beat the Giants. One step closer. The Cubs began playing the Dodgers and were at home for the game that would potentially send them to the World Series. At the last minute I was asked to babysit for a couple that wanted to attend the game so I set aside plans to watch from outside Wrigley. After putting the kids to bed I sat in their living room with the game on the TV sound low. As I watched the innings pass I started to get emotional. As the game ended I silently celebrated and danced in the living room the Cubs had done it!!! They were going to the World Series for the first time since 1945!!! I could hear the roar of the stadium, and the sweet sound of thousands of people singing Go Cubs Go in the distance. Watching many of the Cub’s elderly fans in the stadium cry had me wiping my eyes and thinking of Great-Grandma. I feel like she would have been so excited to be there watching her Cubbies move on to the World Series.
The next seven games would be a battle. The Cleveland Indians took a 3-1 lead in the series, 3-2 heading back to their field to finish out the season. Cubs fans bit their nails and fretted as they watched the next game anxious to see if the Cubs could pull it off. If anyone could break the curse, this was the team. In the 6th game of the series, the Cubs’ offence came alive and the city began to feel electric. We had tied it up. On to game 7.
Wednesday Night. November 2, 2016.
We gathered in the living room of our Uptown apartment. We scooted chairs and the couch around to project the game on the wall so that the friends assembled could all see. I watched the beginning of the game, as Dexter Fowler hit a lead-off Home Run to start the night’s scoring. Two of my childhood friends, two of my roommates and my roommate’s sister watched with me. Around the 5th inning we parted ways, with half the group (The roommates and sister) heading to meet some friends, and my childhood friends and I heading to Wrigley. We were jubilant on our walk to the field. The Cubs were winning and we were about to witness history! The crowds were starting to swell as we arrived. We walked around the field as people leaned out their windows interacting with the growing hoards on the street. Groups bunched up in yards where homeowners turned their TVs to the sidewalk so passersby could watch the game. I wrote my Great-Grandma’s name on the walls of Wrigley where thousands of others had written their names or the names of loved ones in chalk. We walked on past statues of Cubs greats and made our way to Clark Street. We posted up in front of Vines, where we could watch the game by peeking through a fence into a restaurant where the game was being played.
The crowd periodically started up chants and yelled for no reason. We celebrated outs and hits. People climbed the street lights and waved flags. We were going to win! This was happening!!! Then the unthinkable happened. The Indians tied the game. The crowd collectively groaned. People clutched their Blue hats with despair in their faces. Were we going to come this far and lose? Did the curse still haunt us?
Shortly after this time we decided to relocate to an area slightly less crowded. Unfortunately to get there we had to pass through the worst of the crowd. At times pressed almost to the point of panic by the crowds on all sides. Everyone wanted to move but there was nowhere to go. A fight broke out in front of me clearing a ring. Once the combatants were pulled apart I sped through the brief opening rejoining my friends on the other side. In this new position we could not see the game, but befriended a small group next to us who were tracking the game on their phones. A few even periodically facetimed with friends in front of tvs so that we could watch pixelated and delayed action. The tense game seemed to stretch on forever, remaining tied. The ninth inning ended sending the game into overtime. The crowd roared. We hadn’t lost it yet! In the top of the tenth inning the Cubs scored twice, retaking the lead. The teams switched sides, and the crowd in Chicago began to chant with more fervor this time, three fingers raised in the air, “THREE MORE OUTS. THREE MORE OUTS.” The Cubs got two outs and the cheering became frenetic, “ONE MORE OUT. ONE MORE OUT.” A slight hush fell. The Indians had scored. They had a man on base. The winning run was at the plate.
The improbable happened. The officials signaled a rain delay. A tarp was pulled over the field in Cleveland. Fans in Chicago stood waiting with held breath. A few hundred left deciding not to wait out a delay that could last a few minutes to a few hours. To pass the time, fans checked the radar looking at the red mass of rain headed toward the ballgame. We settled in to wait. We didn’t have to stand around long. Play resumed after about 15 minutes. A few chants started and died as the teams took the field. We waited quietly and nervously for what was to come.
All of a sudden fans who could see a tv cheered. We started yelling. The score on Wrigley Field’s Marquee changed to CUBS WIN! The crowd went wild! Champagne sprayed, beer sprayed, High Fives were shared, strangers hugged. I saw people in the street break down in tears. After 108 years the drought was over, and we were there to witness it. Beyond the deafening cheers of the assembled you could hear the strains of music begin to sound from inside the famed ballpark, and we sang along as best we could “Go Cubs go, go Cubs go, hey Chicago what do you say the Cubs are going to win today!” Fireworks began going off from rooftops in the surrounding neighborhoods, and even within the crowd. We basked in the noise and happiness. Last night it took 45 minutes to travel the 1.5 blocks between where we were and the crowd began to disperse. As I walked home with my two good friends, we high fived strangers heading to the stadium, we waved flags proclaiming the Cubs World Series Champions. For blocks, cars honked with their passengers hanging out the windows. Teens stood out of SUV sunroofs phones up recording the historic night. People yelled and sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame the W was flown by everyone in the area with a flag.
By the time I got home it was 1 a.m., over an hour after the final out was made. As I walked into my dark apartment you could see flashes of light through our windows from fireworks which continued past two in the morning. The honks and shouts of joy didn’t end until well past 3:30 when I was finally able to settle down and fall asleep.
Even now, 24 hours later, I can barely believe it. A team known affectionately as the lovable losers were losers no more. In fact, the team is so young they might do it again next year. But for now I am going to enjoy this year. I am going to enjoy the success of a team that brought me so much joy (and more than a few gray hairs) over the course of the season. I am going to continue refreshing my Facebook newsfeed and liking every post about the Cubs because I don’t know when I will be a part of something so overwhelmingly and refreshingly positive and uniting in this city as what I just witnessed.