Written by Tyler Kepner at New York Times
It was 71 degrees at game time — which was 7:10 p.m. back in Chicago — when Josh Tomlin threw a baseball with 108 stitches to Dexter Fowler. This was the start of Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday, when the Chicago Cubs faced elimination against the Cleveland Indians.
Of course, every baseball has 108 stitches, but not every baseball team has gone 108 years without a championship. Only one team has. Only one team has gone 71 years without a pennant. This is a franchise supposedly cursed by a billy goat and a black cat. Silly omens matter.
It was the Cubs’ night, from start to finish, as they thumped the poor Indians, 9-3, to set up the 37th winner-take-all game in World Series history. The Cubs’ Kyle Hendricks will face the Indians’ Corey Kluber.
“If you’re a fan of baseball, this is the best outcome that you could possibly hope for in a World Series anyone’s been alive for,” said the Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo, who had a homer among three hits Tuesday. “A couple of years ago, it went Game 7, but the Indians not winning since ’48 and us since 1908 — it’s gonna be good. History’s gonna be written tomorrow one way or another, and we’ll be a part of it forever.”
The Cubs coasted to a playoff berth with 103 victories in the regular season, eight more than any other team. But their path to Game 7 has been pocked with strife, and so far they have survived it all.
They needed a ninth-inning comeback, down by three runs, to escape the first round in San Francisco, against a Giants team with three recent titles. Their offense disappeared for 21 innings in the National League Championship Series, which they trailed, two games to one, in Los Angeles. Then they routed the Dodgers the next three games, beating Clayton Kershaw in the finale.
The biggest test has come in the World Series. The earlier trials have helped.
“I think for sure they did,” Rizzo said. “It wasn’t no cakewalk for us facing the three-time champions in the first round, and the Dodgers with Kershaw and the way they’ve figured out ways to win all year.”
In the Indians, the Cubs have faced a team that tore through the American League playoffs, losing just once in eight games, and a manager, Terry Francona, who started his World Series career 11-1.
After splitting the first two games here, the Cubs charged into Wrigley Field last week with a chance to win it all at home. That went away in a 1-0 loss in Game 3, and then they lost to Kluber — again — in Game 4.
That raised the dispiriting possibility of a visitor’s winning the World Series on the Cubs’ grounds. It happened in 1945, when Hal Newhouser pitched the Detroit Tigers to a Game 7 victory at Wrigley and sent the Cubs into a World Series hibernation that lasted seven decades.
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