Cubs through to World Series

The Chicago Cubs dispatched the Los Angeles Dodgers with power and pitching yesterday to win the MLB National League pennant and reach their first World Series in 71 years.

The Cubs, for more than half a century viewed as the lovable losers of old ivy-covered Wrigley Field, beat the best pitcher of the now generation in Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw in a 5-0 victory that clinched the National League pennant, 4-2.

Next up, the Cleveland Indians and the Curse of the Billy Goat.

The long-suffering Cubs head to Cleveland on Wednesday (NZ time) to begin a best-of-seven for Major League Baseball’s championship with a chance to end the longest title drought in major North American professional sports – 108 years – and erase a fabled curse.

Anthony Rizzo and Willson Contreras blasted home runs to support the two-hit pitching of Kyle Hendricks and Aroldis Chapman that sent Chicago Cubs fans into delirium.

Transformed by a new management regime led by team president Theo Epstein, the Cubbies will enter the 112th Fall Classic as favourites after a major league-leading 103 regular season wins.

The Indians had their own history of sporting futility in the city on the southern shore of Lake Erie once nicknamed the ‘‘Mistake on the Lake’’, going without a World Series title since 1948.

But no club touches the ordeal of the Cubs, whose deprived fans have waited four decades longer than their Cleveland counterparts.