Joy in Wrigleyville as revelers celebrate Cubs World Series conquest
CHICAGO -- The fans of the most cursed team in professional sports are no longer backers of Loveable Losers.
The city erupted on Wednesday night as the Chicago Cubs ended their 108-year championship drought with a 8-7 win in a Game 7 of the World Series that will go down as one for the ages.
Rebounding from a 3-1 Series deficit to complete one of the most remarkable comebacks in history only added to the moment for long-suffering Cubs fans who have been waiting for a championship since Theodore Roosevelt was finishing up his second term in the White House.
The Cubs didn't make it easy for their fans, blowing a three-run lead in the eighth only to win it in the 10th.
"That game took 10 years off my life," Cody Colbert, 25, a lifelong Cubs fan who traveled from Tuscaloosa, Ala., to be in Wrigleyville for the clincher. "What I am feeling right now is unreal. There are no words."
Along Clark Street for several blocks in either direction of Wrigley Field, the streets were a sea of humanity.
Tens of thousands of fans packed the neighborhood streets to celebrate perhaps the most anticipated moment in Chicago sports history — a day many thought would never come. They swigged from bottles of champagne and chugged beers as they made their way through Wrigleyville.
As fans sang “Go Cubs Go” — the Steve Goodman ode that has become a Cubs fan anthem — and waved their W flags, there were also plenty of tears of joys shed by Cubs faithful for their loved ones who didn’t live long enough to see the Cubs crowned champions again.
Laurie “Monk” Gragnani, 57, his wife Tina and two of their adult children made a pilgrimage to Wrigley Field hours before the first pitch in Cleveland to honor several family members.
They scrawled messages in chalk on the exterior red brick walls of Wrigley’s right field bleachers, and Gragnani taped up the funeral cards on the Wrigley wall from the services of his father, mother, uncle and a close family friend whom he counted among those who helped build his love for the team.
“My mother would watch the games on TV, and she would scream so loud every time the Cubs hit a home run the whole neighborhood would know it,” Gragnani said. “My father was a die-hard fan, too, but whenever they played badly he’d get mad, turned off the game and would throw things at the TV. I wish they lived through this.”
Brian and Tami Marron, who live just blocks from Wrigley Field, recalled Tami's late father, who began taking her to Cubs games as a little girl. She, in turn, instilled the passion for the Cubs in her own children.
While she was on edge until the Cubs got their final out, she marveled at the team’s perseverance.
“They never gave up,” she said. “They stuck together. The boys worked their (butts) off.”
For Brian Marron, draped in a W flag, the moment felt like a salve for a city that has found itself struggling to deal with a surging homicide rate — the city has already tallied 600 murders in 2016 — and more than $30 billion in debt.
“Right now, the whole city feels like it’s coming together,” he said. “It’s great moment in a difficult period for the city.”
Jake Yuhas, 25, of Kenosha, Wis., ran out of the L&L Tavern — just a few blocks south of Wrigley -- with two old high school buddies who came together to celebrate the momen. They chomped on victory cigars they bought for the occasion, but after Rajai Davis' two-run home run in the eighth to tie it, Yuhas was uncertain they would get to enjoy them.
“This is the craziest game I’ve ever seen,” said Yuhas, who felt simultaneously spent and exhilarated. “The freaking Cubs — they know how to do it to you.”
As a small drone flew near Sheffield and Addison, revelers chanted "Bauer, Bauer," in reference to the Cleveland starter who badly cut his hand playing with a drone during the Toronto series.
Shortly after 1 a.m., hundreds of Cubs fans along Sheffield -- about a block from the right field bleachers -- broke into a rendition of Queen's We Are the Champions.
Some revelers climbed light posts and news trucks near Wrigley, but celebrations remained relatively orderly.
Isaac Rodriguez, 21, bawled his eyes out after the Cubs recorded the final out as he watched at his home in the McKinley Park neighborhood on the city's South Side.
Then he and his girlfriend, Adriana Rodriguez, took the L train north to join the revelers outside Wrigley.
"I still can't believe this is happening," said Rodriguez, who bought a Cubs World Series champion hat minutes after arriving in Wrigleyville. "I'm still trying to comprehend that this is real."
Among the revelers, Joey Martorelli, of north suburban Skokie, held up a neon green sign that read, "That just happened."
Martorelli said he felt spent after the extra-inning battle, but he felt to moved by the scene to go home.
"We could all die happy on this World Series win," he said. "But man, would I like another one."