Chicago Cubs: Ranking the best moments of the 2016 season

A win at Wrigley punches Cubs’ ticket to the World Series

It was too simple.

Leading 5-0 with National League Cy Young contender Kyle Hendricks in control for much of the game, that’s the only question I kept asking myself: “When would the collapse come?”

It never came.

Yasiel Puig grounded into a game-ending double play and a fan base found satisfaction for the first time since 1945, a National League pennant. The win was so perfect. It was more than a series-clinching victory; it altered the course of an entire franchise.

No more ‘Lovable Loser,’ comments or tales of an October collapse. After being blanked in the first two games of the series, including a masterful Clayton Kershaw performance in Game 2, the odds were bleak.

That’s when the bats came to life. Miguel Montero clubbed a pinch-hit grand slam in a rout and the Cubs were off and running toward their first title in 108 years. It was made even more perfect by the setting: Wrigley Field in late October.

Sons and fathers cried together. I watched anxiously from a Chicagoland bar, holding my breath as the ball went from short to second to first and a 71 year drought was ended.