The Cubs have won the World Series.
Yes, you read that right. The Cubs have won the World Series, for the first time in one hundred and eight years. They are weeping in Cleveland and dancing in the streets of Chicago.
Surely the end of days is at hand. The seventh seal has broken, some rough beast is slouching toward Bethlehem (or Washington, D.C.), pigs are flying. The Cubs have come back from being down three games to one, and that bleating you hear is the billy goat that cursed them so long ago.
Somewhere Harry Carey is saying “Holy Cow,” and Steve Goodman is singing.
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Truth be told, I’m a Mets fan. We have our own agonies, sharing a city with the Yankees. But it’s nothing like the pain Cubs fans have known. We will always have 1969. A painful memory for Cubs fans, and golden one for Mets fans. And we will always have 1986. Agony for Red Sox fans, magic for Mets fans… and especially for Parris and me, who were actually there for game six, in great seats four rows up on the first base side, so close to the field that we could see the stitches on the ball as it rolled between Bill Buckner’s legs.
But I digress. As I saying, I’m a Mets fan… but I did go to college at Northwestern (1966-1971), and did my VISTA service in Chicago (1971-1973), and lived there in Uptown afterwards (1973-1976), so I have a certain affection for the Cubbies too. I certainly enjoyed many a lazy spring and fall afternoon sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley, both in college and after. (Okay, okay, living in Chicago and being surrounded by Cubs fans as I was, I took a certain cruel pleasure from the Mets classic run in 1969, mea culpa). I’d still prefer the Mets to win it all… but if it can’t be them, I’m glad it was the Cubs. Chicago is a great city, Wrigley is a great field, and Steve Goodman was a great songwriter.
So congratulations to all my friends in the Second City. Enjoy the moment. Let’s hope it isn’t another hundred and eight years before it comes again.
There is one fly in the ointment, though. Last week, when the Cubs were down 3 games to 1, Nate Silver wrote that Trump had as much chance of winning the election as the Cubs did of winning the series.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The Cubs have won the World Series. The end is nigh.