Kris Bryant started to smile even before he fielded the ball. And with his throw to first for the final out, the agonizing “wait ’til next year” was over at last.
No more Billy Goat, no more Bartman, no more black-cat curses.
For a legion of fans who waited a lifetime, fly that W: Your Chicago Cubs are World Series champions.
Photo: AFP
Ending more than a century of flops, futility and frustration, the Cubs won their first title since 1908, outlasting the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in 10 innings of a Game 7 thriller early yesterday.
They even had to wait out an extra-inning rain delay to end the drought.
“It happened. It happened. Chicago, it happened,” first baseman Anthony Rizzo said after gloving the ball for the final out. “We did it. We’re world champions. I tell ya, we’re world champions. I can’t believe it.”
Photo: AFP
Rizzo put that final ball in his pocket, David Ross got carried off the field by his teammates and Bill Murray partied in the clubhouse.
And the whole time, blue-clad fans who traveled from Wrigley Field filled nearly the entire lower deck behind the Chicago dugout at Progressive Field, singing “Go, Cubs, Go!” in the rain.
They held up those white flags with the large blue “W” on a night many of their forebears had waited for in vain.
Photo: AFP
Lovable losers for generations, the Cubs nearly let this one get away, too. All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman blew a 6-3 lead with two outs in the eighth when Rajai Davis hit a tying, two-run homer.
However, the Cubs, after tormenting their fans one more time, came right back after a 17-minute rain delay before the top of the 10th.
Ben Zobrist hit an RBI double and Miguel Montero singled home a run to make it 8-6. Davis delivered an RBI single with two outs in the bottom half, but Mike Montgomery closed it out at 12:47am and the celebration was on.
“I think about so many millions of people giving so much love and support to this team for so many years,” said owner Tom Ricketts, whose family bought the team in 2009.
Manager Joe Maddon’s team halted the longest title drought in baseball, becoming the first club to overcome a 3-1 World Series deficit since the 1985 Kansas City Royals.
“This is an epic game. It’s epic. I can’t believe we were able to do it — 108 years in the making,” Zobrist said. “We did it.”
“They never quit, either,” Zobrist said. “They kept coming at us.”
Zobrist was among the players brought to the Cubs by Theo Epstein, the baseball guru who added another crown to his collection. He also assembled the Red Sox team who broke Boston’s 86-year drought with the 2004 championship.
From Curse of the Bambino to the Billy Goat Curse, he ended another jinx.
“We don’t need a plane to fly home,” Epstein said. “It’s fitting it’s got to be done with one of the best games of all time.”
While Cubs fans hugged with delight, there was only despair for the Indians, who now have gone longer than anyone without a crown. In the Indians’ previous World Series appearance, they were a double-play grounder from winning the 1997 title before losing Game 7 in 11 innings to the Marlins.
“It’s going to hurt. It hurts because we care, but they need to walk with their head held high because they left nothing on the field,” Francona said.
After defeating San Francisco and the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs, Chicago became the first team to earn a title by winning Games 6 and 7 on the road since the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Dexter Fowler homered on Corey Kluber’s fourth pitch of the game, 23-year-old Javier Baez and the 39-year-old Ross also went deep for the Cubs, who led 5-1 in the fifth inning and 6-3 in the eighth.
Chapman wound up with the win, and Montgomery got one out for his first save in the majors.
Bryan Shaw, who gave up a leadoff single to Kyle Schwarber in the 10th, took the loss in just the fourth Game 7 that went to extra innings.
Twenty-one other teams had won the World Series since the Cubs were champions previously. They reached the top again on the 39,466th day after Orval Overall’s three-hit shutout won the 1908 finale in Detroit. At the time, Theodore Roosevelt was president of the US, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states, and the first Ford Model T car was two weeks old.
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