The Roar
The Roar

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Baseball needs the Cubs to win

The Chicago Cubs' Anthony Rizzo. (Photo: Flickr - bengrey)
Expert
23rd March, 2015
19

Eight teams have never won the World Series and two, including my team, the Seattle Mariners, have never even been to the World Series.

However, if I had one wish for the 2015 Major League Baseball season, it’s for the Chicago Cubs to win it all.

It’s not that I like the Cubs. In fact, most of the Cubs’ fans I know in the States are insufferable preppy types who like to accentuate their blue hats with pressed striped Oxford shirts, khakis and Sperry Top-siders.

They may or may not be real baseball fans.

But with Major League Baseball struggling to keep up with the NFL and the NBA, the sport needs good storylines that will enthral the nation. When the Boston Red Sox ended their 86-year drought in 2004, it became a national story and television ratings soared.

A Cubs’ World Series win – even an appearance – would put baseball back on the front pages in the middle of the NFL season.

Let’s stop right here and mention a name: Teddy Roosevelt. He was the 26th President of the United States and his face is one of four on the famous Mt. Rushmore monument.

He was also in office the last time the Cubs won the World Series. That, believe it or not, was 1908. World War I was still six years away. Baseball games wouldn’t be heard on the radio for another eight years.

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And the Chicago Cubs won the second of back-to-back World Series with a 4-1 series win over the Detroit Tigers. Although they’d make seven more appearances in the Fall Classic, the last in 1945, the Cubs haven’t won it in 107 years.

You think the Red Sox were cursed? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Perhaps some of you reading this have seen the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Catching Hell, the film on Cubs’ fan Steve Bartman, who may (or may) not have cost his beloved team a berth in the 2003 World Series.

Bartman’s interference with Chicago outfielder Moises Alou was a key part of a Cubs’ collapse that saw them turn a 3-0 lead into an 8-3 loss to the Florida Marlins in Game Six of the National League Championship Series.

The Marlins would go on to win Game Seven (and the World Series), earning Bartman death threats and continuing a line of conspiracy theories that date back to 1945 when, as the story goes, tavern owner Billy Sianis was asked to leave Wrigley Field with his pet goat and allegedly said something like, “The Cubs they ain’t going to win any more.”

Call it a curse, call it a coincidence, call it a lot of bad baseball, but the Cubs haven’t been relevant for a while. They did make the post-season in 2007 and 2008 but were eliminated both times without winning a game. They haven’t had a winning season in five years and have five consecutive last place finishes in the National League Central.

So why all this World Series talk?

Well, Chicago has been slowly building a pretty good squad. They’ve got some tremendous young talent – infielders Kris Bryant and Javier Baez and outfielder Jorge Soler – to blend with players like first baseman Anthony Rizzo and shortstop Starlin Castro.

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They’ve also signed a couple of key veterans, including former Red Sox starter Jon Lester and ex-Diamondbacks’ catcher Miguel Montero.

But the thing that has the fans on the north side of Chicago excited is new manager Joe Maddon, who did a brilliant job in Tampa Bay.

Maddon, who’s been wearing thick-rimmed glasses as long as any inner-city hipster, is known for his unique approach to managing. He had his teams dress up like nerds for a road trip and once met the media with a cockatoo on his shoulder.

Those antics, however, belie his status as one of the game’s best managers, who is adept and handling both emerging talent and experienced stars.

Maddon is a two-time American League Manager of the Year and guided Tampa to the World Series in 2008. In the power-packed American League East, Maddon’s Rays were in the playoff hunt nearly every year.

He and his team have some hard work ahead of them, especially in the National League Central, which includes two ready-made playoff teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

And while it’s a big ask for the Cubs to win the division, let alone the World Series, fans in Chicago are excited. If the team has a good season – as most expect – the national media will surely turn its attention to Wrigley Field.

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If that happens, the only bad thing will be the sudden appearance of thousands of Cubs hats – in the US, in Melbourne, in Sydney – and it might be hard to tell the hardcore Cubbies from the bandwagon jumpers.

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