CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN!
A 71-year wait to get back to the World Series is over as Chicago eliminates Los Angeles,
CHICAGO— The fans here leaned forward in their seats Saturday night, their hands pressed together as if in prayer. Standing seven-deep in the bars of Wrigleyville, the crowds throbbed at every image of joy that flickered across the television screens.
In the firehouse across the street, fans dressed in blue mingled with firefighters with nowhere to go, as if this city had resolved to sit still until the final out. Generational torment had taught them the folly of expecting something good.
So, they waited for the Cubs to blow it, waited for the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw to steel his nerve and crush a dream, waited for the chill of curses and billy goats and Bartmans to render it all a nightmare.
They waited for something that did not happen.
The Chicago Cubs might be lovable, but they are losers no more, champions of the National League for the first time since 1945. After beating the Dodgers 5-0 in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, the Cubs ended a 71-year pennant drought.
Now they will take aim at silencing another, the most notorious in American sports. The Cubs face the Indians in the World Series in hopes of their first championship since 1908.
Cubs right-hander Kyle Hendricks surrendered just two hits in 71⁄
3 shutout innings. And against Kershaw, the Cubs looked every bit like the 103-win juggernaut that now stands on the brink of history.
Kershaw was chased after five innings, throttled for five runs (four earned) on seven hits. Willson Contreras and Anthony Rizzo bashed homers, ensuring that baseball’s most tortured fan base could finally breathe.
The Cubs had been 0-for-6 in the NLCS when one win away from the World Series. But on this night, that lingering pain would be washed away by champagne and tears.
The last time the great Kershaw took the mound he tossed a masterpiece in Game 2. The Cubs needed seven innings to accumulate two hits. They never scored.
In Game 6, the Cubs could not wait. Fowler ripped a high slider for a leadoff double just inside the right-field line. Kris Bryant followed with a runscoring single, giving the Cubs a 1-0 lead.
Rizzo lifted a drive to left, where Andrew Toles took his eye off the ball for an instant. It was enough to invite calamity. It hit his glove and trickled away. With runners on second and third, Ben Zobrist flicked a sacrifice fly to centre. The Cubs, intent on jumping ahead, had a 2-0 lead. Kershaw needed 30 pitches to get out of the inning.