Chicago Cubs are headed to the World Series!

[shakespeare]

The late Harry Caray sings "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.

I've waited my entire life it seems for this moment or I should say 34 years (when I became a Cubbies fan).

Now I can say that I've officially witnessed each of my favorite pro sports teams -- New York Knicks, New Orleans Saints, Chicago Cubs -- play for their respective championships.

[BXGuy]

I like the Indians.
Francisco Lindor is the best SS in the MLB.

[shakespeare]

Lindor and Correa, both, are in the conversation for best shortstop, in my humble opinion.

Who the hell is Corey Kluber, though? Mannn. Wild Thing.

[shakespeare]

Let's go Cubs!

[shakespeare]

Kluber is a BEAST.

Don't see how Cubs can overcome this 3-1 deficit and win the series.

[shakespeare]

There will be a Game 6.

[thewatcher]

I hope they give you a birthday present tonight

[shakespeare]

Thanks, Watch. I appreciate it.

I'm happy the Cubs extended the series to 7 games, but Kluber will be tough.

If the Cubs win, it'll be a miracle. We'll see.

[shakespeare]

This one's for you Harry Caray. They did it.

2 of my fave three sports teams, the New Orleans Saints and now the Cubs, have won championships during my lifelong fandom.

Still waiting on the Knicks.

[Irv]

As a real lifelong fan, congrats to you shakes, but your bandwagon brethren are primed to be even more obnoxious douchebags than they already are. This is worse than dealing with post-2004 Red Sox fans. Between this, the election, LeBron bitching and whining his way to a title on Kyrie Irving's coattails, I would like for 2016 to be nuked from the history books.

So yeah, as a White Sox fan during the Frank Thomas era and a current fan of the Wilponzi business venture known as the New York Mets for some unknown fucking reason, fuck the Cubs.

[shakespeare]

Thanks, Irv.

And love the sense of humor. To see the Cubbies reach the World Series (let alone win it all) was a dream come true. I thought we had a solid chance in '84 and of course '03 ('89 and last season were mission impossibles), but the outcomes left me feeling like the franchise was truly cursed. And yes, I agree the bandwagon Cubs are worse than bandwagon championship winning-Miami Heat fans.

and a current fan of the Wilponzi business venture known as the New York Mets for some unknown fucking reason

Hilarious.

One of my best friends is a diehard Mets fan (only sports team she's ever followed) and it burns her soul to see the franchise in ruin. All I've heard is how much the franchise continues to lose millions of dollars, yet the Wilpons refuse to sell? They blame the Madoff situation, but that was like 8 years ago.

[Irv]

The Cubs put together a really good team and they have the talent to not just be a one-hit wonder, though I'm sure even a one-hit wonder would be sufficient satisfaction for such a long drought.

Truthfully, I don't mind the Cubs as a team, and the worst case scenario this postseason actually would have been the Nationals winning it all.

I hope wherever Steve Bartman is, he's having the time of his life. No fan of any team deserves it more than him. If social media were big in 2003 or if his moment of infamy occurred last season, he most certainly would have been doxxed and have required a 24/7 security detail. What his fellow "fans" did to him was disgusting. Knicks fans? We'll just settle for the crying Porzingis draft kid to never be given air time on TV ever again.

As for the Mets, they have the most miserly ownership of any large-market team I've ever seen apart from the LA Clippers under Donald Sterling. How do you make the World Series last season and decide that there's no pressing need to improve the team to have a better chance this year, instead cheapening out on your best postseason performer and letting him go to a hated rival only to put up the best numbers of his career? Now Cespedes will become a free agent and you can't bank on another miracle re-signing, David Wright is done, and you can't pitch Syndergaard every game. What are you going to do, pin your hopes on unproven guys who aren't even on the major league squad yet and hope that their young players that slumped in 2016 can revert to their 2015 forms, when you still don't know which version of them is real?

I refuse to believe Mets management has any semblance of a plan. Bartolo Colon and a bunch of burnt out ace pitchers is not a plan. The Wilponzis took away the title of Worst New York Sports Owner from James Dolan for nearly a decade now. It's just taking many people way too long to realize it. For the last 40+ years, I used to think the Knicks were the worst chokers in New York, then I thought it was the Jets, but honestly, it's the Mets. They were just lucky that the 1986 Red Sox choked harder.

I hate my fucking sports teams.

[shakespeare]

How do you make the World Series last season and decide that there's no pressing need to improve the team to have a better chance this year, instead cheapening out on your best postseason performer and letting him go to a hated rival only to put up the best numbers of his career?

I definitely feel you. I currently look at the Saints in the same light. Although we won the Super Bowl in 2009, the following offseason (and every offseason afterward) was spent letting key players go to other teams in order to pay Drew Brees his small fortune. I sat and watched the likes of Reggie Bush, Darren Sproles, Jimmy Graham, Jonathan Vilma and others be shipped away for lesser talent. It's sorta like what's happening with the New Orleans Pelicans, Saints' owner Tom Benson's NBA team, where you've one star player surrounded by cast-offs. To me, the star player's talent is being wasted.

Not sure what happens with Cespedes, though. I think he's gone (possibly to those same Nationals) if another team offers him a long-term deal. I like New York's pitchers; if healthy, they're one of the league's best. If Yoenis re-signs (which would shock me due to the Mets debt with creditors) and the Mets bring another bat like Justin Turner into the lineup, then they should be in the hunt. It seems to me that every playoff run generates more money, so it's in the best interest of the owners to field a team that's able to make playoff runs. Alas, I hated the Mets during all of my childhood years, cause they were so good and outlaw. But there's no dislike for them at this point.

As for the Cubs, I agree, they're poised to return to the World Series within the next 3 years, if not next season. Heyward, Bryant, Baez, and Schwarber are key batters. Arrieta, Hendricks, and Lester are key pitchers. I'd resign Chapman, but not Fowler. Fowler is solid, but can be replaced via Almora. Like last season, I honestly figured the team was too young this season to reach the World Series, let alone win it. I felt like next season might be the one.

[shakespeare]

The Cubs will offer Steve Bartman forgiveness. He shouldn't accept it. http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/the- ... -it-110316

Bartman isn't to blame, I agree.

Alou overreacted and caused a scene that apparently broke everyone's concentration and then the wheels fell off. That said, it would've been nice to see what might've happened if Alou was allowed to make the catch.

But Gonzalez bobbled an easy out that hardly anyone mentions. And years later, I'm still unable to discuss the following Game 7 devastating loss.

[Irv]

I feel like that article sums it up perfectly. Bartman doesn't owe a damn thing to all the people who made his life hell, and he doesn't owe a damn thing to the franchise that did nothing to stop it. Some fans will always pose a united front and choose to blame the media instead of acknowledging that a lot of their fans suck, but Cubs fans are just the Yankees fans of Chicago without any of the success to back the trash talk. Now that the script has changed, bandwagon Cubs fans are writing revisionist history about how Bartman wasn't actually treated badly by other Cubs fans.

Don't believe that I couldn't envision this happening from Knicks fans as well, but it wouldn't reach the same magnitude. Basketball isn't inhibited by decades of idiotic superstition and unwritten rules, and no amount of Knicks bandwagoning could ever become as obnoxious to lifelong Knicks fans as Linsanity. After that whole debacle, I get the sense that Knicks fans are far more willing than ever to keep fellow fans on a short leash and kick fake-ass fans to the curb with haste.

[shakespeare]

Cubs fans are just the Yankees fans of Chicago without any of the success to back the trash talk.

Agreed. There are some annoying Cubs fans in the world. But the Dodgers fans are truly intolerable, though.

If and when the Knicks win the NBA championship, I believe we'll be able to tell the diehard fans from the bandwagon fans and act accordingly. Like you said, it won't trump what we witnessed during Linsanity as far as how cheering for the Knicks became a popular fashion. But we'll definitely have to deal with the onslaught until not one of them will be able to tell us anything about the Knicks outside of that particular NBA Finals.

[BXGuy]

if you guys played baseball before, a fan should get out of the way when the ball is in play. This goes for the others that tried to reach for that ball because Alou was right under the ball.

Listen, life is tough. Bartman got everything he deserved, the bad and the good. He's been offered almost over 200,000 dollars of money to appear in commercials and interviews, turned them all down. He's handle it like a champ and should be privileged he was apart of history, whether it was a bad or good memory.

[shakespeare]

Obama welcomes World Series Champs Cubs to the White House http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/1848 ... icago-cubs

Both the Cubs and the Saints won their respective championships while Barack Obama held office.

[shakespeare]

I don't expect Chicago to repeat as champs, there are too many exceptional teams in the mix this season, although anything is possible.

Like the superb pitching performance from Kyle Hendricks during Game 1 of NLDS versus Washington https://www.google.com/amp/www.chicagot ... y,amp.html

[shakespeare]

What more could the Chicago Cubs ask for than to be up 2-1 in the series with the next game played at Wrigley, smh.