SHE’S BEEN WITH ’EM ALL THE WAY

Cubs fan, 108, born in last year they won World Series

If you ask die-hard Chicago Cubs fans where they were the last time the Cubbies won the World Series, they’d probably expect a punch line about the team’s historic championship drought — but not Hazel Nilson.

Nilson, who turned 108 in August and now lives at an assisted living facility in Georges Mills, N.H., would tell you she was a 2-month-old infant living on the North Side of Chicago when the Cubs beat the Detroit Tigers in Game 5 to claim their second consecutive title way back in 1908.

It was then that the Cubs, led by first baseman Frank Chance, who along with Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers formed the famed double play combination “Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance,” claimed their what would be their last World Series victory by a 4-1 margin on Oct. 14.

And now, more than a century later, Nilson — a lifelong fan who grew up within walking distance of the friendly confines of Wrigley Field — was among the millions of Cubs fans who were cheering on their beloved hometown baseball team as they battled the Cleveland Indians last night in a deciding Game 7.

“Someone has to win. All you can do is hope that your team plays well,” Nilson told the Herald yesterday, hours before the first pitch was thrown at Progressive Field.

“Some lose, some win,” Nilson said. “You just pray.”

Nilson said her neighbors at the Sunapee Cove Assisted Living facility were going to join her for a festive watch party last night.

Donning a Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series hat and holding her Chicago Cubs teddy bear, Nilson was sitting in her lucky red chair when the teams took the field.

And though she moved to Buffalo, N.Y., after college to begin her career as a physical education teacher, Nilson said the Cubs were always her connection to back home.

“All summer long and any holidays I’d go back,” Nilson said. “I always stayed a Cubs fan.”

And as she waited for the potentially history-making game to unfold, an “excited and happy” Nilson said she was prepared for a loss — but hoping for a win.

“Well, I’d feel badly (if they lose),” Nilson said. “But if they play as well as yesterday — they’ll win.”

GETTY IMAGES, ABOVE; AP PHOTO, BELOW;COURTESY PHOTO, RIGHT HISTORIC LINK: Frank Chance, above, first baseman for the Chicago Cubs in 1908 at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and right, Cubs fan Hazel Nilson, who was born in 1908, the year the Cubs last won the World Series. Below, fans at Wrigley Field after Game 6.