Cubs Daily Clips
October 23, 2016 ESPNChicago.com Holy cow! Cubs are going to the World Series By Bradford Doolittle CHICAGO -- Somewhere in a cramped booth at Wrigley Field, high above a playing surface erupting with unrestrained jubilation, veteran broadcaster Pat Hughes gave his listeners the news that few of them thought they’d ever hear: The Chicago Cubs are going to the World Series. The most dramatic result of the past seven decades of Cubs baseball unfolded in almost shockingly undramatic fashion. Dexter Fowler, Kris Bryant and Ben Zobrist drove in runs early. Willson Contreras homered in the fourth, Anthony Rizzo in the fifth. Starter Kyle Hendricks was brilliant into the eighth inning. Aroldis Chapman lit up the scoreboard with triple-digit velocity to finish it off. The Cubs beat the Dodgers 5-0 to win the National League Championship Series in six games. Just like that, the Cubs -- the Chicago Cubs -- are National League champions. The win was the latest and largest in a historic season for a Cubs franchise that has been operating since 1876. Seventy-one years removed from their last pennant, and 108 years since their last World Series crown, the Cubs won 103 games during the regular season, then survived the elite pitching of the Giants and Dodgers to emerge from the National League playoffs. Six times the Cubs had played a game to clinch an NLCS -- three times in 1984, three more in 2003. They held leads in five of those games, yet the pennant drought persisted year after year, disappointment after disappointment. The organization became better known for its venerable ballpark and its partylike atmosphere than actual baseball, all while bearing the unfortunate moniker “Lovable Losers.” They’re still lovable, but they are losers no more.
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