What a Series

Holy Cow.

I've seen a lot of baseball games. The best ones don't always come in the biggest moments. But this season's World Series is certainly going to be hard to top.

Cleveland's run through the post-season has been all about great pitching. The games they won in this series followed that script. A total of two runs given up across all three. You expect better-than-average pitching from a team that makes it to the post-season and through multiple playoff rounds, but even by that standard the Indians pitching was spectacular. But in a long seven-game series, good hitters have a chance to adjust as they see the same pitching repeatedly. The Cubs' bats came alive as the series went on, particularly in the last two games.

The Chicago pitching was plenty good during the post-season, too. I was particularly impressed with Kyle Hendricks, and not just because of his performance in game 7. This is a guy who came into the season as the 5th starter on the Cubs staff, and all he did was lead the National League in ERA and win 16 games over 190 innings. By the time the post-season rolled around, Hendricks was third in the rotation and manager Joe Maddon felt comfortable lining up his starters to put him in game 7. And he did the job, giving up only 1 earned run over 4.2 innings.

When Jon Lester took over on the mound in the fifth, that also brought David Ross into the lineup. And 39-year-old "Grandpa Ross" (as his younger teammates call him) promptly hit a home run, making him the oldest player ever to go deep in a World Series game 7. This whole year has been full of great moments for Ross, who had announced that he'd retire after this season. Can't finish off a career much better!

Aroldis Chapman has been great closing games since he came to Chicago, but in game 7 he couldn't get the job done. Maybe that's because of all the work he's been doing recently, including pitching in game 6 even though the Cubs were up by 5. I can't say I agree with Maddon's pitching change decisions through this series, but getting the win in the end is what counts, even if that happened more due to the bats than the pitching in the final game. It's fitting that Mike Montgomery ended up with the game 7 save, considering all the good pitching he's done in the post-season out of the bullpen.

For Cleveland fans, I'm sure it's tempting to write off a season as a failure when your team loses. You can't get much closer than being down to a single game for the championship, though. Especially in baseball, where a single game is such a toss-up, and particularly when it goes to extra innings! Even great teams tend to lose around a third of the time. There's disappointment in losing the seventh game of a World Series, but no shame.

For Major League Baseball overall, I'm not sure this year's World Series could have gone much better. Usually, the conventional wisdom says that you want two teams from big markets to draw in the most viewers. Chicago is big enough, but usually you want to see at least one coastal team. This year, though, the fact that neither team had won the championship in so long made it compelling viewing for sports fans from all over. Also, it's always best for the popularity of the sport when the drama is high, and this series didn't disappoint. From a tense 1-0 Indians win in game 3, to two Cubs wins in elimination games 5 and 6, to the winner-take-all game 7 that goes into extra innings - hard to draw it up any better to keep maximum interest from the fan base.

I always miss baseball over the winter, but this will be a much happier off-season than usual. It may take me until spring to get used to hearing "World Champion Chicago Cubs!"

Dear Grandma - How about those Cubs?

Dear Grandma Scott - It's finally happened. The Cubs are playing in a World Series.

I don't have a lot of memories of you, since you passed away when I was still a teenager. Much of what I do recall is from the last part of your life, when you lived with my family but were mostly confined to your own room. I didn't see much of you other than mealtimes, and not even that when your lifelong heavy cigarette smoking led to your hospitalization and eventual passing. But that was the end, and I prefer to remember earlier times.

Before the sports media explosion of the last decade or two, it wasn't nearly as easy to be a serious sports fan as it is now, particularly if you didn't live in a team's home area. There was no Internet to look up all the bits of information about every player, no streaming video to watch individual games from across the country (and world), and cable TV options were much more limited. The Chicago Cubs were an exception, though, thanks to WGN Sports broadcasting a large number of their games. Our family didn't watch a lot of TV, but when you lived with us, my mom made sure we had cable so that you could see the Cubs games.

You sitting close to that little black-and-white TV in your room, turned up loud to help you hear it, the voices of Harry Carey and Steve Stone - that's how I best remember your time living with us. I was more interested in reading and games and music than in actually sitting down to watch a baseball game, so we didn't actually watch very many games together. I still heard plenty, though. Thanks to you (and mom, who got it from you) I knew all about baseball, and in particular the Cubs. And I followed your example in becoming a life-long fan.

We all know that it hasn't been easy. Even those who know nothing else about baseball can tell you that the Chicago Cubs have a ridiculously long World Series drought. Much of the time the team was just bad, and even when they were good the playoffs never went well. From what I remember, though, the winning (or lack thereof) wasn't what you focused on. Whether the team was in contention or losing 100 games, you'd be watching. Sure, it was great when they won, but the important thing for you was hearing Harry and seeing Wrigley Field and watching the games played.

The current Cubs would be both easy for you to recognize, and completely different. Wrigley Field has gone through some changes, but it's still the same hundred-year-old park with the ivy walls. They've built up an amazing roster, largely with young players that could be around for years. There's no Harry in the broadcast booth, but his face still looks down on the field, and manager Joe Maddon is a kindred off-the-wall soul. They've always sung "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch at Wrigley, and now there's a song after every win, too.

Over the next couple of weeks, as Chicago and Cleveland (yes, the Indians made it too) play for the World Series title, I'll be watching. And I know you are, too.

Love,
Your Grandson Sam

Chicago Cubs, NL Central Champions

The Cubs have clinched the National League Central Division Championship for the first time since 2008! Time to start worrying about the post-season.

Chicago clinched the division last night, when the St. Louis Cardinals lost. Not exactly how you want to do it, since the Cubs lost their game earlier in the day to Milwaukee. A Cubs fan is almost as happy when the Cardinals lose as when the Cubs win, though - we'll take it.

It'll be at least a few more days before anyone else has a division title. The Washington Nationals and Texas Rangers could each win their divisions sometime in the next week, though it may take a bit longer. Cleveland would likely be next after that, unless Detroit gets its act together and beats the Indians a bunch of times in their 7 games over the next two weeks. The NL West and AL East might come down to the last weekend of the season.

As a Cubs fan, I'm naturally predisposed to look at ways that things could go wrong. So, here's some bad news:

• Since the Cubs last won the division in 2008, no NL Central champion has won the World Series. 
• Chicago is likely to play the wild card winner in the first playoff round. The Giants, Mets, and Cardinals are the front-runners for that spot. Cubs combined record against those teams this year: 13-16.
• The Cubs haven't won an NLCS since 1945. Four attempts, four losses. (And the less said about 2003 in particular, the better.)
• The pressure. The Cubs are actually favorites to win it all, which adds the weight of expectations to the already pressure-packed playoff atmosphere. And of course just being the Chicago Cubs, with their 100+ years of losing, is a whole world of pressure all its own.
• Home field advantage is important in the World Series. Due to the (incredibly stupid) rule that the All-Star Game winner gets home-field advantage, the American League champion will have that advantage this year.

Having said all that...this could still be the year. Expect the worst and hope for the best, always a useful attitude, and especially for Cubs fans. Bring on October!

After 99 Years...Cubs win!

It's fairly well-known that the Chicago Cubs haven't been to a World Series since 1945, and haven't won one since 1908. Much less publicized is the fact that those Cubs have spent 99 years playing in Wrigley without once winning a post-season series there...until last night.

Wrigley Field actually opened two years before the Cubs moved in, in 1914, under the name of Weegham Field. The Chicago Whales played there for two years, and actually won the Federal League championship in 1915. They didn't play a post-season, though.

Since the Cubs moved into Wrigley, they managed only one post-season series win, in 13 tries. That was in 2003, against the Atlanta Braves, but the clinching game was in Atlanta. They went on to lose the next series to the Florida (now Miami) Marlins.

This year, the Cubs played their arch-rivals in the NL Central division, the St Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals have been in 45 postseason series since the Cubs took up residence in Wrigley, and won 29 of them.

Last night, the Cubs finally won a post-season series at home in Wrigley Field. For Cubs fans, the win is the most important thing...but having it happen at home, against those Cardinals, made it just a little bit sweeter.