“We’re so lucky to be alive in 2016,” said nobody who pays real close to attention to current events ever.
Until the Chicago Cubs reached their World Series for the first time in 71 years. A pennant coming to Wrigley Field for the first time in seven decades, with an opportunity to end a century plus drought, that’s all it took to knock the most depressing and disgusting Presidential election in United States history off the home pages.
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/793652945892040708
Although the Cubs had already accomplished more than anyone had ever expected, hoped or dreamed already this season, if you came this far, you got to close the deal. It was all done in such Cub like fashion too.
SO MANY PLOT TWISTS AND TURNS!!
THE STRESS!
Pretty much exactly like this election cycle, there’s always another October Surprise coming…and after that another one.
Being down 3-1 in the Series (Five Thirty Eight.com gave the Cubs just a 15% chance to win the series at that point), the nail-biter, pins and needles game five, all the blown opportunities in game three, and of course game seven’s blown three run lead in the eighth inning, and rain delay dragging out a game that already reached extra innings.
You can see why this World Series was one of the highest rated series of all time.
Here’s video of the big moment!!! Yes, we were right down there wedged in that Wrigley Field sea of humanity:
Classic. Fans waiting for Wrigley Field sign to announce winner was throwback to time before television. #CubsWin pic.twitter.com/VzEOPuVqNB
— Movie Bungalow (@moviebungalow) November 3, 2016
And it’s not everyday, you get a Twitter shout-out from a man who commanded the anchor desk on ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight.”
This Tweet was actually the very first incoming congratulations message that I saw. Then seconds later…there was dozens and dozens of Texts and Tweets and messages and all that other stuff.
Congrats @PaulMBanks celebrate like never before! #WorldSeries
— Adnan Virk (@adnansvirk) November 3, 2016
There was only one place to be, in the whole wide world, at the moment when hell froze over, pigs flew and the world turned upside down (Sort of…kind of…remember the Cubs were the favorites to win the World Series in the preseason.
They won 103 games this season, more than anybody else in the Major Leagues. They were also the overwhelming favorites to win it all once the postseason began.)
That one place to be, was 1060 W. Addison right at the world famous marquee.
Yes, you have to fight through and endure the “mosh pit,” “gang bang,” and numerous situations that frighteningly reminded me of the Hillsborough Disaster.
Then again, there was also such a steadying police presence and there’s no safer place to be when near mob action than the police.
Also, there was a man in a wheelchair right up by the Wrigley Field marquee, and he seemed safe and secure from what I could see. So the crowd wasn’t all a situation of dangerous anarchy.
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/794033036744478720
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/794014474248273920
Still this was a world of difference from attending game three with a ticket.
Joining me on this masochistic mission was the leader of Instagramers Chicago, and I really could never have done this without her. (We actually first met over a story I wrote about the installation of the Ernie Banks statue in 2008). When we got briefly separated for a moment I jokingly yelled “STAY ALIVE! I WILL FIND YOU!”
Which prompted people behind me to say “Rose, you will go on!” and commence singing Celine Dion’s love theme from “Titanic.”
Wrong movie guys, it was “Last of the Mohicans” that I was quoting.
The stuff you overhear in the crowd at these kind of things though…so much unintentional entertainment value.
While an overwhelmingly majority of the Chicagoans and Cubs fans were good, noble people with wholesome intentions, you had more than a basket of deplorables scattered about amidst the sea of humanity.
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/776647447405797376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/794025026831859712
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/794020462304997376
(I think she was trying to say Jalalabad, which is in Afghanistan, because Islamabad is actually in Pakistan)
There were also at least two or three douchebags who wore White sox gear to provoke a fight, and believe they found people to scrap with. Pretty much every box was checked on your negative Wrigley Field and bad Cubs fans stereotype list. Quite a few people puking in Wrigleyville! Someone next to us having to have the basic rules of baseball explained to them by one of their friends.
Ugh! It was all on display at Wrigley Field late Wednesday night.
Still, there’s nothing like learning the game was now tied at 6, with the 3 run lead vanquished, from just some guy telling everyone on the street from his third floor apartment. It was all worth it to “be in Times Square when the ball dropped” though.
Encountering and dealing with what gets caught in the skimmer of the gene pool was worth it to be at ground zero for the big event.
Well worth it. If given the choice, I’d do this again every single time. When the special moment occurred, champagne got all over my hair, and I have no idea where that came from.
Steve Goodman’s “Go Cubs Go” started playing, and again I have no idea where the source of that originated from.
As Homer Simpson said about Larry Burns’ street celebration, “it’s a party Marge, it doesn’t have to make sense.”
And since I was with an Instagram expert…these are the Instagram postings of a lifetime right here
Overall, there was merry-making all surrounding Wrigley Field and Wrigleyville. Impromptu singing of “Go Cubs Go” and “Take me out to the Ballgame” on an overcrowded red line. Paraphrasing Clark W. Griswold, we were all the jolliest bunch on this side of the nut house.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.