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Related: About this forumThis Is The Cubs’ Best Chance Yet To Break Their Curse
?quality=100&strip=all&w=773Seeing the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series is a little like seeing a four-leaf clover its uncommon, but nature does allow it from time to time. And after holding off the St. Louis Cardinals for a 6-4 win on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, Chicago has stumbled across the rarest of shamrocks a legitimately dominant Cubs team on the cusp of the World Series.
Three earlier Cubs teams have breathed the crisp, autumnal NLCS air: the 1984, 1989 and 2003 teams. (The league championship series format was introduced in 1969.) Those three squads lost their respective series, but according to our Elo ratings, this years NLCS-bound Cubs team is the strongest of the bunch. And even though theyll cede home-field advantage to either the New York Mets or Los Angeles Dodgers,1 the 2015 Cubs have the best chance of any of their predecessors at winning the NLCS and advancing to the World Series. Our ratings give the Cubs a 60 percent chance of reaching the World Series; it would be the teams first appearance there since 1945.
COMPARING THE NLCS CUBS TEAMS OF THE PAST....
More: FivethirtyEight
JeffHead
(1,186 posts)They are only going to get better. That's the scary part.
marym625
(17,997 posts)I want to go to Wrigleyville like you wouldn't believe!
Stellar
(5,644 posts)too costly to get in.
Have a brat at my favorite place on Waveland and Clark, get a bleachers ticket like any self respecting Cubs fan, then go for a drink at a few different bars.
marym625
(17,997 posts)mikeysnot
(4,772 posts)Go Cubs!
ColesCountyDem
(6,944 posts)The Cubs not only outplayed the Cards, but it was quite apparent that the Cubs wanted to win more than the Cards did-- I've seldom see such enthusiasm, both on the field and in the stands, and I've been watching for over 50 years.
Go Cubs-- win it all!
villager
(26,001 posts)I wonder, as my own "Buster Posey era" team inexorably ages, and yours hits its stride (!), if the two of us may yet meet in an NLCS...?
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)He told his friends "You know the law of averages says:
Anything will happen that can"
"But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan"
"If the Cubs were to win (The World Series) it would be a coronary event for me." - Steve Goodman
Some history and full lyrics here: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_cubs.shtml
Stellar
(5,644 posts)That was beautiful.
This woman brings her dad's ashes to the Cubs game for luck.
http://wgntv.com/2015/10/13/woman-brings-fathers-ashes-to-cubs-game/
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)I attended the University of Chicago from '69 to '73. Steve, John Prine, Tom Dundee and a bunch of other singer/songwriters were in the prime of their careers. They did concerts on campus or we'd go up to the Earl of Oldtown for shows. It was a great time to be there.
Of course Steve is best known for writing the first song to be played on the moon: The City of New Orleans. Of course, NASA played Arlo Guthrie's recording for the astronauts because he had the hit...but Steve wrote it.
As to ashes at the cubs games:
She brought her fathers ashes in a pill bottle, as she has done with many games.
I have the safety cap on so he doesnt spill everywhere.
I hope that safety cap is blue:
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)When we saw the sign for the turnoff to Kankakee, we also saw a passenger train on the railway tracks by the road. We both spontaneously started singing "City of New Orleans" ("We're out on this southbound odyssey/And the train pulls out of Kankakee"
Here is the Goodman song that no one has yet mentioned
Gamecock Lefty
(708 posts)I live now in west St Louis County and thank you, thank you, thank you for shutting up these self-anointed best fans in baseball, Cardinal fans. October is the worst time of year living here, but Tuesday night was just wonderful.
With both the Cubs and Royals winning their series, it's just icing on the cake.
Go Cubs!
Stellar
(5,644 posts)for fear I would jinx them. But I hope they win also.