The Cubs won the pennant, and it happened in our lifetime.
If you were there, you’ve got a story to tell for the rest of your life. And if you weren’t there but were watching the game somewhere—literally anywhere—well, you’ve got a story to tell for the rest of your life too.
Because the Cubs won the pennant, and it happened in our lifetime.
Find a Cubs fan and, invariably, you’ll hear a tale of a loved one who fostered in them a passion for the team at an early age, but who passed away before the club could sniff the promised land, let alone reach it. The Cubs, more so than any other local sports team, are inextricable from the personal fabric that ties us all together.
And some things you just have to see for yourself, regardless of how much it’s going to cost you financially or emotionally.
Like, for instance, the Cubs potentially clinching their first World Series berth in 71 years at Wrigley Field.
That’s how I found myself at 11:30 on Saturday morning spending way too much money on a ticket to Game 6. Fourth row, Section 311 in the right-field bleachers.
I wanted to see this for myself, to exorcise the demons of the past, to make sure it was actually happening, because being there meant it was real.
With age comes wisdom and the harsh realization that the good times don’t last forever and you’d best enjoy them while they do, or else you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering why you didn’t.
The reality is, Saturday’s outcome was never in doubt based on the atmosphere in and around Wrigley.
Fans notorious for their fatalistic tendencies, leaning toward waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop, ignored those inclinations Saturday and were rewarded handsomely because of it.
Wrigley rocked. Wrigley rocked from the moment Kyle Hendricks threw his first pitch.
Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez had said in the days before the game that he didn’t know how Wrigley could get any louder. Cubs fans, with the pennant on the line and generations of frustration pent up in our souls, showed him.
Wrigley rocked the way Wrigley has never rocked in the first inning, when Dexter Fowler doubled and Kris Bryant drove him home for the game’s first run. Wrigley rocked in the bottom of the fourth, when Willson Contreras homered to put the Cubs up 4-0.
That’s when it dawned on Cubs fans that this is happening, that this isn’t 2003 despite what all the storylines leading into this series might have had you believe, that curses aren’t real and billy goats don’t care about baseball.
That’s when the tears started welling up in my eyes.
This was a happy moment, probably the happiest moment of my life to date, and I couldn’t believe it was actually happening and I was going to be there to see it.
“Everyone in the right-field bleachers just became everybody else’s new best friend,” said the guy standing to my left whom I high-fived roughly 147 times during the game and whose name I never quite caught.
He was right. We were all in this together and we all now share a bond regardless of where life takes us.
The Cubs won the pennant in our lifetime, and we were at Wrigley Field to see it happen.
The one thing Cubs fans, regardless of income, gender, race or otherwise, have in common is this: We’ve all seen a lot of really bad baseball in our lifetime. We’ve all dealt with more heartbreak caused by events that have transpired at Clark and Addison than we will care to admit.
We are all, consciously or subconsciously, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It didn’t drop on Saturday night.
Finally. There was no ghost, no demon, no goat, no curse to be found.
Immediately after Ben Zobrist grounded out to end the bottom of the eighth, I turned to look at the iconic center-field scoreboard one more time, just to make sure it was real.
I thought about my mom and how I used to curse her for turning me into such a rabid Cubs fan, for always having the game on in the house when we were growing up and quizzing me on random statistics in the sports pages, causing me to devour far more of the Daily Herald’s and the Chicago Tribune’s baseball coverage than any other kid.
I also thought about how she reacted when as a senior at Purdue in 2003, I told her that a couple of buddies of mine and I rented a car from the Purdue airport and were going to drive to Miami to see the Cubs play in Games 4 and 5 of the NLCS because we wanted to be there when the Cubs clinched a berth in the World Series.
Some parents might have said, “Hey, that’s a lot of money to spend and a really bad decision.” My mom, one of the main reasons I became such a die-hard Cubs fan in the first place, was almost more excited than I was.
Well, Mom, 13 years later, I did it. I was there, and I didn’t have to drive back to Miami to see it, I just had to walk down the street from my apartment.
Hey, Mom, the Cubs won the pennant and it happened in my lifetime.
I wish it had happened in yours.
The bottom of the eighth became the top of the ninth, and Wrigley rocked again. And when Yasiel Puig grounded into a game-ending double play, it set off the kind of bedlam at Wrigley and in the surrounding neighborhood that 71 years of fomenting frustration lifting will cause, strangers high-fiving, hugging, yelling until they were hoarse.
It was worth it. The World Series is coming to Wrigley Field for the first time since 1945. And it happened in our lifetimes.
Matt Lindner is a RedEye contributor. @mattlindner
WORLD SERIES: CUBS VS. INDIANS
All games on Fox
Game 1: at Cleveland, 7:08 p.m. Tuesday
Game 2: at Cleveland, 7:08 p.m. Wednesday
Game 3: at Cubs, 7:08 p.m. Friday
Game 4: at Cubs, 7:08 p.m. Saturday
Game 5*: at Cubs, 7:15 p.m. Sunday
Game 6*: at Cleveland, 7:08 p.m. Nov. 1
Game 7*: at Cleveland, 7:08 p.m. Nov. 2
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