For the first time since 1947, the Chicago Cubs played for baseball’s world championship, trying to bring home the trophy for the team’s first win since 1908.
Over the course of the past 69 years, there had been a lot of heartache, failure, and determination to win the World Series.
Four years ago their fortune changed with the hiring of Theo Epstein as the team’s President of Baseball Operations. Arguably the best GM in the game of baseball, Epstein came in with a new energy to help the Cubs turn their bad luck around and get back to the top of the league. He started to draft some of the best young rookies who have since grown into MVP caliber players.
Last year, Epstein signed an extremely talented major league manager to manage the team. He signed big-name free agents, all to get him to where he is now: breaking his second major baseball losing streak. Epstein was the GM of the Red Sox when the team broke its own 86-year curse. Epstein is establishing his reputation as a curse-breaker, having left the Red Sox to lead the Cubs to the same victory.
During the 2016 baseball season, the Cubs had gotten off to a fast start and never looked back. They won their division by 15 games and enjoyed the home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. After winning both the division series and the championship series, they were back on baseball’s biggest stage.
After falling behind 1-3 to the Cleveland Indians, and having lost 2 games in a row at historic Wrigley field, the team was at a large disadvantage. The team turned to Jon Lester to help them pull through in game 5. He pitched them to victory and sent the series back to Cleveland. In game 6 the Cubs used their momentum to tie the series at 3-3.
One of the most epic endings to a world series broke the Cubs’ losing streak and helped them win the World Series for the first time in 108 years.
The Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians fought tooth and nail trying to will their team to victory. In the early part of the final game, the Cubs were leading 5-1 going into the fifth inning. The game got interesting when the Indians began to make a comeback. They scored two runs to make it a 5-3 game. The Cubs extended their lead to 6-3, but the Indians fought back with Raji Davis hitting a clutch homer to tie the game in the eighth inning.
After a tied ninth inning, the game went into extra innings, but the rain delayed the game for 17 minutes. In the top of tenth inning, the Cubs took an 8-6 lead. In the bottom of the inning, the Indians brought it to 8-7, but couldn’t clench the victory and gave the long-awaited victory to the Cubs.
The city of Chicago was finally able to celebrate the winning of the World Series.