On This Day in Cubs History: The Curse is Broken
106 years apart the Chicago Cubs won monumental victories. One came in a dire World Series Game 4, looking to avoid elimination, the other was the Cubs' most historic elimination of the past 71 years.
Down to their final two outs against the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1910 World Seroes, Frank Chance — of Tinkers to Evers to Chance — hit a game-tying triple into center field that sent the contest into extras.
One inning later, Jimmy Sheckard knocked an RBI single off Chief Bender for the victory.
Of the three players who pitched in that game, two were Hall of Famers, Bender and Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown. The other, King Cole, won the ERA title that year, pitching 239.2 innings as a 24-year-old. Just six years later he would be dead from lung cancer, a sad end to a promising career.
A century after that the Chicago Cubs took the field again, this time at their new ballpark... well relatively so. The Cubs had won their 1910 World Series game at West Side Grounds, in 2016, they won at Wrigley Field.
NLCS Game 6 lined up to be a pitcher's duel for the ages. Cy Young finalist Kyle Hendricks, sporting a 2.13 ERA lined up to face Los Angeles Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw, owner of a 1.69 ERA in what was perhaps the best season of the future Hall of Famer's career.
Looking to advance to the World Series for the time in 71 years years, the stakes had not been higher in several generations.
The Cubs were unfazed, jumping out to a 2-0 first inning lead thanks to RBI from Kris Bryant and Ben Zobrist. It was all the offense they would need. Dexter Fowler drove home another on an RBI single in the second while Willson Contreras and Anthony Rizzo homered in the fourth and fifth respectively, but all it served to do was add life to an already raucous crowd.
Hendricks held the Dodgers scoreless through 7.1 strong innings, and Aroldis Chapman came in to slam the door in the eighth. He did so to immediate effect inducing a double play then retiring the side 1-2-3 in the ninth, another double play off the bat of Yasiel Puig helped record the final out as "Go, Cubs, Go" rang around the stands at the stadium, and the bars in Wrigleyville.
The 'Curse of the Billy Goat' was finally broken, the Cubs would play in a World Series game for the first time since World War II.
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