Second City October: The View from the Cheap Seats

I was at Saturday night’s Cubs game, and I had one thought when Andrew Toles singled sharply to right field on the first pitch: “Here we go again.”

You can’t blame me — I’m a lifelong Cubs fan. Suffice to say I was at Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. So I know Cubs anguish.

And it seemed the crowd felt that same sudden icy fear, too. There was a quick hush, a catch of the breath. I remembered what a friend told me about Game 3 of the 2007 playoffs, when Diamondback Chris Young homered on the game’s first pitch (off former Cub/current Dodger Rich Hill, no less).

“The place absolutely deflated,” my buddy said. “You just knew the Cubs had lost. There was no chance they were coming back.”

Toles’s single wasn’t that, but it was a reminder: You are a Cubs fan, and God does not favor you.

Thankfully, that apprehension vanished on the next pitch, when Corey Seager grounded into a double play on a beautiful tag-and-throw by the ubiquitous Javier Baez. And then when Justin Turner flied out to right (on a fly that was almost a little too deep, but an out is an out), the crowd realized, “Ok, we’re up. Now maybe we can make something happen.” And happen, it did.

Dexter Fowler’s double, and then Kris Bryant’s single, made it 1-0 — against the terrifying specter of Clayton Kershaw, no less. The rangy lefty had been built up as an unstoppable force, but then there he was: down. And it was like when Rocky Balboa cut Ivan Drago in Rocky III— we collectively realized, “He’s not a machine! He’s a man!”

Then Toles goobered Anthony Rizzo’s sure flyout in left center, and lo, runners on second and third, nobody out. And when Zobrist knocked Bryant in and it was 2-0, the crowd loosened more. There was no “Oh my god, it could really happen!” but there was a confidence — we remembered the Cubs were, indeed, the best team in baseball. The “KERRRSHAWWWWWWW!” chant — thank you, hockey fans— echoed through the air.

I can’t say the crowd had an effect, but something was off: Kershaw’s slider was in the dirt; his fastball didn’t have its usual zip. No one around me said, “This game is winnable,” but the crowd was loud and unrelenting. We felt something had changed. We cheered every out, we stood every time Hendricks got to two strikes. And with the Dodgers continually making feeble outs, it was easy to feel like something we were seeing something amazing.

Around me, the fans were focused — I didn’t see a lot fans drinking, and the bathroom lines were fast. People didn’t want to miss a pitch. When Willson Contreras (more on him in a moment) homered in the fourth inning, it felt like a win might just happen; when Anthony Rizzo went yard in the fifth, it felt like a victory was not quite imminent, but… getting near probable.

And I realized: We weren’t snakebitten Cubs fans, destined to go down on some bizarre, heart-wrenching absurdity. (Bryant blows out a knee on a sure grounder, and three runs score? Aroldis Chapman slips while throwing a heater, and Turner hits a grand slam on a 88-mile-per-hour meatball?) We were fans of a dominant team that had found itself again.

But there was still a tiny seed of doubt, and the most blatant acknowledgement happened in the eighth inning: Hendricks went 3-1 on Adrian Gonzalez, then retired him on a deep fly. Five outs left. We all know the history here, right?

Unprompted, several nearby fans — and me — looked at each other and said, “This is it, right here. This is huge.” And of course, on the first pitch, Josh Reddick singled. Maybe the universe still had some cruel joke it wanted to play.

In came Aroldis Chapman for the five-out save — a move not many of us liked. Then, three pitches later, Howie Kendrick grounded into a double play. Inning over.

When the top of the ninth came around, no one sat. The Cubs were up 5-0, Chapman was in. This could be it. The first batter, Enrique Hernandez, was overmatched and whiffed without a fight. One out. Carlos Ruiz drew a walk. Then pinch-hitter Yasiel Puig came up. A five-run comeback seemed unlikely, sure. But we were Cubs fans — nothing was impossible.

I didn’t get my camera ready — I thought I might get it out for the last out. And then, first pitch, grounder to Addison Russell — at a spot remarkably close to the place Alex Gonzalez famously booted the ball in 2003. He threw to Baez at second. Ok, there’s one, I thought. Then it dawned on me: this could be a double play. This could end it. “Oh my God!” Someone behind me yelled.

Baez rifled it to first, and it was over. People screamed, jumped, hugged. Some cried. It was euphoria. We bellowed enthusiastically along with “Go Cubs Go,” and sang with a slight shrug to “Sweet Home, Chicago.” (Sure — it’s a standard, right?) And no one left when the postgame ceremony began.

We watched the podium get hastily built, and the team did some slightly awkward interviews. A comically large, unattractive trophy (the Warren C. Giles Trophy, duh) was presented to Tom Ricketts. We kept watching as the team paraded around the infield. Media wags scurried about, looking for interviews. Slowly, fans started trickling out.

I didn’t know what to do — how long to watch this? What was going to change my life here? Nothing, right? The big moments had already happened, I thought. But I was wrong.

I texted a friend who said he was by the home dugout. I went to meet him, and somehow, I ended up in the front row about 15 feet down from the Cubs dugout, watching Dan Plesac interview a few players. Look, there’s John Lackey. Hey, there’s Albert Almora and his baby.

And then Contreras appeared, right by the side of the dugout. He had a bright smile, champagne goggles on his forehead, and he was taking selfies with fans. “That’s really cool of him,” I thought. I figured he’d do two or three, then move on. But he kept doing more, kept getting closer.

And the fans were surprisingly chill about it — no one was freaking out or throwing elbows. And then suddenly there he was, in front of me.

He looked at me expectantly, and I handed him my phone. He leaned back, I don’t even know what I did, and he took it. I headed home, then I posted the picture on Facebook at about 1am. It’s gotten more Likes than anything I’ve ever put on my page. (More than my daughter’s birthdays, or when we closed on our dream house.)

“This is the best photo of you ever,” one friend wrote. I think she might be right.

Lead photo courtesy Jon Durr—USA Today Sports.