Chicago Cubs: Just ask the Dodgers – winning a World Series isn’t easy
For all the Chicago Cubs fans questioning moves made by the front office ahead of the 2016 World Series title – you cannot take a championship for granted.
When the New York Yankees steamrolled their way to their first American League Championship Series since 2017, Chicago Cubs fans on Twitter were, erm, not happy.
I was floored at how many people were second-guessing the Cubs trading for Aroldis Chapman. All it took was Gleyber Torres playing well for the Yankees to make fans completely dismiss the fact Chicago won a World Series championship. Somehow, just three years later, that seems to carry significantly less weight with way too many people.
Don’t get me wrong. I bought into the hype post-2016 as much as anyone and this year, in particular, stands out as nothing short of a failure. But what’s happened in the wake of that historic season does not matter. Because at the end of the day, the Chicago Cubs won a World Series.
Not feeling thankful for it anymore? Need a reason to appreciate what we all bore witness to? Take a look at the franchise the Cubs knocked out in the 2016 NLCS in the Los Angeles Dodgers – who won their seventh consecutive division crown this year only to see it all go wrong in October.
Chicago Cubs: Thankfully, 2016 team finished the job in the postseason
Three years ago, Chicago rolled through the regular season – winning 103 games, their most since 1910. The offense broke out in each postseason series after coming out cold and it ended with millions of people lining the streets in Chicago for a World Series parade in early November.
But that doesn’t always happen. This season, Los Angeles won a franchise record 106 wins, absolutely dominating the National League West. Dave Roberts‘ club led its division by at least nine games for every single day post-June 1 this season. They led all of Major League Baseball with a dozen walk-off victories.
“The expectation from Day 1 was to win the World Series,” Los Angeles infielder Kike Hernández told MLB.com after the game. “We lost the last few years in the World Series and one didn’t hurt more than the other. This one sucks. Winning 106 games in the regular season and going home after one round, it sucks. Maybe down the road when we all retire we can look back on all the records we broke as a team this year for a historic franchise like the Dodgers. For us to be one and done, it’s tough. I don’t think anyone in this clubhouse expected us to be going home this soon. It sucks. There’s no other way of putting it.”
All season, it seemed to be a foregone conclusion – the Dodgers and Astros would match up in a rematch of the 2017 Fall Classic at season’s end. Now, the Dodgers are cleaning out their lockers at Chavez Ravine and Houston’s chance at another crown comes down to a win-or-go-home Game 5 Thursday against the Tampa Bay Rays.
You can’t take anything for granted in this game. If you don’t believe that by now, there’s nothing I can tell you to change your mind. But there’s something you should hear if you’re a Cubs fan.
Chicago Cubs: Change is here- but we can still appreciate the past
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In the last two weeks, we’ve seen the end of an era. As fall descends on the Windy City, change is also in the air.
Joe Maddon is out after perhaps the most successful five-year run for any manager in franchise history. The team’s young core – once viewed as a potential dynasty – might be broken up as Theo Epstein looks to shake up a roster that won just 84 games in 2019.
So, yes, things are going to be different moving forward. But regardless of what the coming offseason and years bring to us, there’s one thing we shouldn’t ever lose focus of: we saw the Chicago Cubs win a World Series. At the time, a lot of us viewed it as a near-guarantee.
The team shocked the baseball world the year prior, eliminating the rival Cardinals in the NLDS and coming within four games of the sport’s biggest stage. For much of the season, it felt like a sort of destiny – despite the Cubs’ longstanding suffering as a franchise.
Chicago then rolled through the regular season and we all just felt like this might, finally, be the year. And indeed it was. Next time you’re sitting there, wallowing in your unjustified self pity as a Cubs fan, try to take a step back and see the bigger picture.
Winning a World Series isn’t easy. It can’t be taken for granted. Whatever trades and moves were made that culminated in Maddon hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy in Grant Park were (clearly) the right call – no matter what has transpired in the years that followed.