One hundred and seven years. The longest streak any North American sports team has gone without a championship win, and this embarrassing dry spell is sadly owned by our hometown team, the Chicago Cubs. But to our, and the world’s surprise, the Cubs had managed to make their first playoff appearance in seven years by not only winning the wild card game, but also by surpassing the number one ranked team, the St. Louis Cardinals, to advance to the National League Championship Series. The Cubs were four wins away from a World Series appearance and eight wins away from their first World Series crown in 107 years. Exciting, to say the least.
While the odds were stacked against the Cubs, being the worst ranked team left standing in the playoffs, they definitely had a chance. My confidence in the Cubs came from two factors.
First, they just beat the top team in the league, and not by a slim margin either. The Cubs beat the Cardinals three out of four games, set the playoff home run record, and had previously won their last 16 out of 20 games before their face off against St. Louis. They had momentum, a very important aspect to any game. With their recent previous success, the Cubs shouldn’t have been scared to play and should have been expecting to win; they should no longer have felt like the underdogs in the league.
Second, they had the entire city rallying behind them. The Cubs were playing with the weight and pressure of Chicago resting on their shoulder, but in a good way. The Cubs had something to fight for; a cause to play for can do wonders for a team. It gives them a purpose to win and a desire to perform. Most of the other teams still in the playoffs have been there countless times, if not multiple times in a row. The Cubs haven’t won the World Series in 107 years! They had to have been desperate to win for their pride and the city’s!
This was an opportunity of a lifetime, but to my, and the city’s, dissappointment, the Cubs didn’t break the “billy goat curse”. They actually got swept. They lost four straight games to the New York Mets and left Chicago in tears. I had hoped the momentum, motivation, and little bit of luck they contained could carry them to the top, but sometimes things are too good to be true.