Dexter Fowler sensed a different, yet special feeling Saturday as soon as he walked into the Cubs' clubhouse.
"I could tell the guys wanted it now," Fowler said.
Never was that mission so apparent Saturday night as Kyle Hendricks pitched 7 1/3 innings of two-hit ball and a resurgent offense knocked out Clayton Kershaw after five innings to put an exclamation point on a 5-0 victory to capture the National League Championship Series before a delirious Wrigley Field crowd of 42,386.
The Cubs outscored the Dodgers 23-6 in the final three games to win this best-of-seven series 4-2 and claim their first NL pennant since 1945
The ultimate mission of the 2016 season — winning the World Series — starts Tuesday night against the American League champion Indians at Progressive Field in Cleveland.
"I don't have to be anywhere until Tuesday," quipped Chairman Tom Ricketts, who hired President Theo Epstein five years ago to build sustainable success for the franchise.
The Cubs' fundamental blueprint was executed to near perfection from the start, as they outplayed a fundamentally challenged Dodgers outfit.
"We carried out (manager) Joe Maddon's mission to win every inning," said hitting coach John Mallee, whose pupils were relentless in attacking Kershaw until the three-time Cy Young Award winner was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the sixth.
In the first inning, second base wizardJavier Baez chased Andrew Toles out of the baseline to start a double play in the first inning.
Then, in the bottom half of the inning,Kris Bryant poked a low, outside pitch into right field to score Dexter Fowler for the first run. The Cubs capitalized on Toles' error in left field to score their second run on Ben Zobrist's a sacrifice fly, marking the first time Kershaw allowed two runs in the first inning this season.
Unlike Game 2, when the three-time Cy Young Award winner needed only 32 pitches to get through the first three innings, the Cubs tested him early as Baez fouled off three two-strike pitches before popping out. Kershaw needed 30 pitches to get out of the first.
The resurgent Addison Russell led of the second with a double and scored on Fowler's two-out single, and the Cubs added home runs from rookie Willson Contreras and Anthony Rizzo in the fourth and fifth.
"To perform this well on this stage with all the pressure says a lot about this group," Mallee said.
The renaissance became more convincing when Contreras led off the fourth with his homer and raised his right hand while running to first.
The Cubs' looseness was evident from the start, as Russell imitated riding a motorcycle after hitting a leadoff double in the second, and Baez stepped in front of the much taller Rizzo at first to catchJosh Reddick's popup in the fourth.
For his part, the soft-throwing Hendricks, who emerged from his fifth-starter role as arguably the Cubs' most dependable pitcher with 16 victories and a major league-low 2.13 ERA, limited the Dodgers to Toles' single on the game's first pitch until Josh Reddick singled with one out in the eighth. Hendricks then gave way to Aroldis Chapman despite throwing only 88 pitches and walking none while striking out six.
"It has been a storybook year for him and the entire team," fellow pitcher Jake Arrieta said.
Curse of the Billy GoatFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Curse of the Billy Goat is a sports-related curse that was supposedly placed on the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise in 1945 when Billy Goat Tavern owner Billy Sianis was asked to leave game 4 of the World Series against the Detroit Tigers at the Cubs' home ballpark of Wrigley Field because the odor of his pet goat (named Murphy) was bothering other fans.[1][2] He was outraged and allegedly declared "Them Cubs, they ain't gonna win no more," which has been interpreted to mean that there would never be another World Series game won at Wrigley Field. The Cubs did not play in the World Series from 1945 until 2016 when they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League championship to advance to the World Series. The Cubs have not won a World Series championship since 1908. Origins of the curseThe exact nature of the curse differs in various accounts of the incident. Some state that Sianis declared that no World Series games would ever again be played at Wrigley Field, while others believe that his ban was on the Cubs appearing in the World Series, making no mention of a specific venue. Sianis’ family claims that he dispatched a telegram to team owner Philip K. Wrigley which read, “You are going to lose this World Series and you are never going to win another World Series again. You are never going to win a World Series again because you insulted my goat.”[3][4] Whatever the truth, the Cubs were up two games to one in the 1945 Series, but ended up losing Game 4, as well as the best-of-seven series, four games to three. The curse was immortalized in newspaper columns over the years, particularly by syndicated columnist Mike Royko. The curse gained widespread attention during the 2003 postseason, when Fox television commentators played it up during the Cubs-Marlins matchup in the National League Championship Series (NLCS).[5] According to an account in the Chicago Sun of October 7, 1945, the goat was turned away at the gate, and Sianis left the goat tied to a stake in a parking lot and went into the game alone. There was mention of a lawsuit that day, but no mention of a curse. Sianis' goat was named "Murphy." In the 2015 National League Championship Series, this was referenced by fans of the New York Mets, who joked that Daniel Murphy, the Mets second baseman, was "not the first GOAT (Greatest of All Time, in reference to Murphy's postseason heroics to that point) named Murphy to keep the Cubs out of the World Series."[6] Attempts to break the curseSam Sianis, nephew of Billy Sianis, has been brought out onto Wrigley Field with a goat multiple times in attempts to break the curse: on Opening Day in 1984 and 1989 (in both years, the Cubs went on to win their division), in 1994 to stop a home losing streak, and in 1998 for the Wild Card tie-breaker game (which the Cubs won).[7] In 2003 (incidentally, the Chinese zodiac's Year of the Goat), a group of Cubs fans headed to Houston with a billy goat named "Virgil Homer" and attempted to gain entrance to Minute Maid Park, home of the Astros, division rivals of the Cubs at the time.[8] After they were denied entrance, they unfurled a scroll, read a verse and proclaimed they were "reversing the curse." The Cubs won the division that year and then came within five outs of playing in the World Series, but were undone by theFlorida Marlins' eight-run rally immediately following the Steve Bartman incident. The Cubs then lost the following game and with it the series. (The Marlins went on to win the World Series against the New York Yankees). Further salting the wound, the Astros earned their first World Series berth two years later. On February 26, 2004, at the Harry Caray Restaurant in downtown Chicago, the Bartman baseball was electrocuted in an attempt to break the curse, leaving nothing but a heap of string behind. In another bizarre twist, it was reported that a butchered goat was hung from the Harry Caray statue on October 3, 2007, to which The Chicago Sun-Times noted: "If the prankster intended to reverse the supposed billy goat curse with the stunt, it doesn't appear to have worked."[9] While the Cubs did win the NL Central division title in 2007 and 2008, they were swept in the first round of the postseason in both years: by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2007 and the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2008. The elimination by Arizona came on October 6, the same date that the goat appeared at Wrigley Field in 1945.[10] In 2008, a Greek Orthodox priest sought to end the curse during the 2008 playoffs with a spraying of holy water in and around the Cubs dugout to no avail.[11] The act was repeated before the home opener in 2009, this time a goat's butchered head being hung from the statue. The act was futile as the Cubs were eliminated from postseason contention on September 26, 2009.[12] Cubs fans have also brought in priests that have blessed the field, stadium, and dugout. On April 1, 2011, a social enterprise called Reverse The Curse, dedicated to bringing innovations to poverty by giving goats to families in developing countries, was initiated.[13] The goats provide the family with milk, cheese, and alternative income to help lift them out of poverty. Reverse The Curse has expanded into reversing the "curses" that afflict the world's children in education and obesity. On February 25, 2012, a group of five Chicago Cubs fans calling themselves Crack the Curse set-out on foot from Mesa, Arizona (home to the Cubs' spring trainingfacilities) to Wrigley Field. They brought along a goat named Wrigley whom they believed would be able to break the Curse of the Billy Goat upon arrival at Wrigley Field. Additionally, they attempted to raise $100,000 for the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Facility.[14] On April 10, 2013, a severed goat's head was delivered to the Cubs in a possible effort to lift the curse on the team. It was addressed to the club's owner Thomas S. Ricketts.[15] On September 22, 2015, Patrick Bertoletti, Tim Brown, Takeru Kobayashi, Kevin Strahle and Bob Shoudt consumed a 40-pound goat in 13 minutes and 22 seconds at Taco in a Bag in Chicago.[16] On October 22, 2016, the Chicago Cubs prevailed over the Los Angeles Dodgers 4 games to 2, winning their first pennant since 1945. [17] Bill Buckner incidentBill Buckner played for the Chicago Cubs for seven seasons before being traded to the Boston Red Sox halfway through the 1984 season. The Red Sox were at the time also considered a cursed franchise, and had not won a World Series since 1918. Buckner and the Red Sox advanced to the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets, and took a 3–2 series lead coming into Game 6. In one of the most famous baseball errors of all time, Buckner allowed a ball to pass between his legs at first base, allowing the Mets to score the winning run in the 10th inning and win Game 6. Later analysis of a photograph of Buckner walking off the field after his blooper showed that he had been wearing a Cubs batting glove under his glove at the moment he committed his error.[18] Former Cubs who won a World Series title elsewhereAnother factor that may play a role in the curse is the number of players (42 of them are listed below) who won World Series titles after leaving the Cubs (known as theEx-Cubs Factor). These players include Andy Pafko (who, coincidentally, played in the 1945 World Series as a member of the Cubs), Gene Baker, Smoky Burgess,Don Hoak, Dale Long, Lou Brock (whose first title was in 1964 after a mid-season trade to the St. Louis Cardinals), Lou Johnson, Jim Brewer, Moe Drabowsky, Don Cardwell, Ken Holtzman, Paul Noce, Billy North, Fred Norman, Bill Madlock, Manny Trillo, Greg Gross, Rick Monday, Burt Hooton, Bruce Sutter, Willie Hernández, Milt Wilcox, Joe Niekro, Dennis Eckersley, Joe Carter, Greg Maddux, Joe Girardi (as both a player and a manager), José Vizcaíno, Glenallen Hill (after his second stint with the Cubs; his title came in 2000 after a mid-season trade), Luis Gonzalez, Mike Morgan, Mark Grace, Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, Scott Eyre (whose title came in2008 after he been traded from the Cubs during the season), Tom Gordon, Matt Stairs, Jamie Moyer, Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot, Ryan Theriot, Ángel Pagán, and, in 2013, Ryan Dempster. Dontrelle Willis and Jon Garland were traded as minor leaguers (coincidentally, the former won a World Series ring with the Marlins team that defeated the Cubs in the 2003 NLCS). Tim Lincecum, who went on to win three World Series titles, was originally drafted by the Cubs, but he did not sign with them.[19] The Cubs' 2016 seasonThe Cubs ended the 2016 season with a 103-58 (.640) record. It was their first 100-win season since 1935 (100-54, .649), their best since 1910 (104-50, .675), and the sixth 100-win season in franchise history—the others being 1906 (116-36, .763), 1907 (107-45, .704) and 1909 (104-50, .675). The Cubs won their first National League pennant in 71 years with a 5-0 shutout against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Wrigley Field on October 22, 2016—the 46th anniversary of Billy Sianis' death.[20] Book referencesPopular fictional character Harry Dresden, wizard, discovered the "true" story behind the curse. Author Jim Butcher shared the tale in "Curses", included in the short story collection Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy by Ellen Datlow published in 2011. Wizard Dresden discovered the goat at Wrigley Field was actually Welsh mythological figure Gwyn ap Nudd disguised as a goat, and the baseball fanatic King of the Tylwyth Teg issued the curse when he was not allowed to watch the game. See also
References
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