Why was the Cubs winning the World Series so big?
1908 and 1945. 1945 was the last time the Cubs made the World Series, and the last time they won it was 1908. The Cubs were the laughing stock of the sports world for numerous decades because the way they lost in the few times they’ve been contenders. Look at their history, in 1969, just when you thought the Cubs would make it to the playoffs and possibly win it, they blow a seven game lead with a couple weeks to go in the season to the New York Mets. The 1984 National League Championship Series against the San Diego Padres, when the Cubs appear to be on their way to the World Series with a 3-0 late in the game. Than the Leon Durham error happened and the Padres never looked back and they came back and eliminated the Cubs.
And last, the 2003 championship series against the Florida Marlins, Cubs were up three games to two in Chicago and it appeared they were on their way and than the infamous Steve Bartman play when he tried to catch a foul ball when it looked like the left fielder had the fly ball. Following that, the floodgates opened and the Marlins came back and won game six and then eliminated the Cubs in game seven. It appeared the Cubs would never win a world series because whatever could go wrong, went wrong for the Cubs.
However, things took a major change in 2015 when the Joe Maddon became the new manager for the team, along with Theo Epstein, president of baseball operations who helped end the Boston Red Sox curse of going 84 years without a championship with winning it all in 2004, and then again in 2007. Also, young players like Javier Baez, Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber and rookie of the year Kris Bryant came up and joined this brand new and transformed Cubs team.
Even though they were swept in the playoffs in 2015, everybody knew this Cubs team was going to be a force to be reckoned with for years to come. They made a couple more acquisitions in the offseason and in 2016, the Cubs officially took off. They won over 100 games and were the favorite to win it all behind their fantastic starting pitching and the power bats of Bryant and Rizzo.
Come playoff time, the Cubs had to be resilient if they wanted to break this curse of losing. They came back big to eliminate the San Francisco Giants in game four of the National League Division series, they turned it around when down two games to one against the Los Angeles Dodgers and won their first National League championship since 1945 by winning three straight games. Lastly, they made their biggest comeback against the Cleveland Indians, who have the second longest drought in baseball without winning a championship that goes back to 1948.
The Cubs came back from a three games to one deficit and held on in game seven to beat the Indians in the World Series thanks to great offense that gave their pitchers enough to win games.
One last thing about the Cubs, it doesn’t look like they are done winning either. Pretty much all of the stars of the team are under contract for more years with this team and they are young too. Rizzo is 27, Bryant is 24, Baez is about to turn 24, Russell is 22, Kyle Hendricks, the leader in earned run average is 26, Schwarber is 23, these guys can provide much more for this franchise and city. Watch out baseball, the Cubs are here, and they aren’t leaving for a while.
