Before the insanity of next Tuesday night, a different kind of American history will be made tonight.
If Cleveland (sorry, not using their racist team nickname) wins Game 6 of the World Series tonight, it will be their first championship since 1948. If the Chicago Cubs force Game 7 and come back to win the World Series, it will be that team's first title since 1908. No other sports franchise has ever had such a long drought between titles. It already is history for Cubbies fans, since this is the first time their team has even played in the World Series since 1945.
This is the beauty of baseball and of this year's Fall Classic in particular. There are so many stories in the rich history and bottomless data of baseball and these two teams, even before getting to the current players swinging for eternal glory.
The Cubs play in the best ballpark in baseball, sorry Boston Red Sox fans. Wrigley Field is a gem. Two years younger than Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley has been home to the Cubs since 1914, featuring a scoreboard that still needs to be changed by hand and a pitching bullpen, for both home and visiting teams, that's just off the foul lines and in the actual field of play. It's better than Fenway because of the ivy that covers the brick wall in the outfield, because they sing Take Me Out To The Ball Game during the seventh inning stretch at their home games, rather than the ridiculously patriotic God Bless America and because the Cubs couldn't play night games until 1988 since there were no lights installed at the park until then.
The list of players who are in the Hall of Fame as Cubs goes from Andre Dawson (always a Montreal Expo but The Hawk was a National League MVP in his first year in Chicago), Greg Maddux and Ryne Sandberg to Fergie Jenkins, the first Canadian and the first Cub pitcher to ever win the Cy Young Award handed out to the best pitcher of the season in the two respective leagues.
Cleveland's list of Hall of Famers is shorter but no less impressive, anchored by two great pitchers, Bob Feller and Bob Lemon, who delivered that last championship in 1948. Cleveland's current first base coach is Hall of Famer Sandy Alomar Jr., one of the best catchers of the 1990s. One of his teammates in Cleveland, also immortalized in Cooperstown, was the sparkling shortstop Omar Vizquel.
The storylines continue to the present day.
Prince George residents have seen Cleveland pitcher Trevor Bauer before. He pitched for Team USA at the 2009 World Baseball Challenge. His current teammate, Jason Kipnis, grew up a short drive from Wrigley Field and dreamed of playing for his hometown Cubs. Before the start of Game 3 in Chicago, he tweeted a picture of himself standing with a bat against the outfield wall ivy, writing "Say what you want. I'm living a dream."
On Saturday night, the dream for Kipnis included a three-run homer for Cleveland.
He got to keep the ball because the Cubs fan who caught it in the outfield stands threw it back onto the field in disgust. Cubs fans don't care where he's from if he's not wearing blue.
On the Cubs side of the ledger, Chicago's closer, Aroldis Chapman, is no mere pitcher. Other mortal men throw a baseball, Chapman hurls hellfire. No other current major leaguer except for Chapman can routinely make their fastball top 100 miles per hour. Half of all the pitches in baseball last year that hit 100 were thrown by him. Chapman is the world record holder with a 105.1 mph pitch in a game. The Chicago Tribune calls him "a math problem in a baseball uniform."
According to their story, there were 702,307 pitches thrown in all of Major League Baseball last year. Chapman took the fastest 77 pitches all for himself. This regular season, he pitched 58 innings, struck out 90 and only gave up two home runs. As a viewer, never mind a batter, blinking just before he releases the ball means the pitch, in its entirety, from his hand to the catcher's mitt, is invisible.
It is literally faster than the bat of an eye.
Nobody needs to be a baseball fan to appreciate that kind of physical power. Combine that with the past and present team storylines and this is drama on a grand scale.
Next Tuesday, Americans will elect either their first woman or their first reality TV star as president. Meanwhile, Harry Truman was president when the Cubs were last in the World Series, as well as the last time Cleveland won the Fall Classic.
Now that's history.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
