The Chicago Cubs have won their first World Series since 1908. That is a 108 year absence since the teams last victory. To put it in even further perspective this was the 112th year ever of the existence of having a World Series.
There have been multiple generations of Cubs fans who have endured heartbreak and dread with mostly mediocrity and even the greatest despair of watching their Southside rival Chicago Whites Sox win a World Series before them in 2005.
This World Series contained so many layered storylines that even the most casual of baseball fans likely tuned into the deciding game 7. The Cubs were facing a Cleveland Indians franchise that had not won a World Series of its own since 1948. Only several months earlier the City of Cleveland finally had its 50 plus year streak of none of its major sport league teams winning with the Cavaliers win over The Golden State Warriors in this past NBA Championships.
In the World Series the Cubs found themselves down 3-1 in the best of seven format, with the prospect of Cleveland having the final two games at home. The only thing certain was that millions of fans from one of the respective long-suffering teams was going to suffer continued, immeasurable heartbreak. Ultimately Cleveland fans suffered, as the Cubs did the improbable, becoming only the 6th team to overcome a 3-1 World Series deficit, and the first team since 1979 (Pittsburgh Pirates) to win the last two of those games on the road, in extra innings no less.
The dramatic ending was highlighted by images that only come from sporting events in America. A packed stadium of forty thousand plus inside Cleveland’s stadium, with ten thousand plus additional looking on screens outside the stadium. That imagery was mirrored by Tens of thousands around Wrigley Field in Chicago, whose numbers only swelled with the celebratory news of the curse of the Cubs finally ending.
Sports championships are the only time in America where, besides death, we accept Grown Men crying. The athletes are commended for the emotions of giving it all in championship settings and emotions of any and every kind are acceptable within a short window. That not only applies to the athletes on both sides, but often to the fans, whose patronage is often worked into the narrative of a team’s victory.
For so many, sports are the great escape. For three hours many use sports as the preferred distraction to the monotony and stress of personal and societal woes. Exhausted with the divisive talk of the upcoming presidential election, mass shootings, racial and civil unrest and terroristic threats; sports will not alleviate any of those issues, just provide a temporary reprieve to the noise that accompanies “real life”.
So much of our love and passion for sports is learned behavior. Either we played and had some type of professional dreams, or more commonly developed our love for the game and team from demographic roots and indoctrination from an older generation who either taught you Yankee championship pride or Cubs tortured pride. The lessons and passion were often passed down.
If people took half the time to teach their kids about empathy and compassion for others as they do how to love the Dallas Cowboys, America could really be great again. Sports evokes the kind of sustained emotion and passion that we do not generally see in the United States with other issues, regardless of the actual social relevance.
That is why, as nonsensical as it may be, so many hate for our athletes to be human and remind them of the woes of the world. How dare the Colin Kaepernick’s of the world use their platform to remind us of the social injustices that must be acknowledged and eradicated. The sports fans came to mindlessly forget reality…so just throw the ball…entertain me…and win…
People admire a winner. There will be a parade with over a million people celebrating a game that kids play, won by grown men. No one, beside me, will overanalyze the misplaced priorities of a city that is ravaged by gun violence and death, coming together, united, for a team victory that will not have any true tangible effect on their lives.
None of that will matter because for the first time in 108 years the Chicago Cubs are World Series champs and for at least a few days the problems of Chicago will disappear. They will not go away, just be suspended in animation in which their reality is overshadowed by the collective joy of the majority.
Congrats to the Cubs. Congrats to the city of Chicago. My pragmatism will not overshadow my willingness to understand that the darkness of the everyday reality for so many needs to have a counterbalance of joy and positivity. The media emits so much negativity and despair in its reporting, that potential for distraction and joy is why we love and embrace sports.
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