by Joey Derrico

The Chicago Cubs are the 2016 World Series champions after defeating a strong Cleveland Indians team. The victory for the Cubs marks the end of the curse that has plagued the team for 108 years. History has it that Bill Sianis, owner of a local pub, and his pet goat were kicked out of  Game 4 of the 1945 World Series after people began to complain about the goat. In response, Sianis cursed the Cubs, saying they would never win another World Series. Now, in 2016, the Cubs are once again World Series champions with their last victory coming back in 1908 when Theodore Roosevelt was president and there were no airplanes.

This World Series was perhaps the most entertaining sports series in recent history. The series went to seven games, the maximum amount of games possible. In Game 1 the Indians, behind strong pitching from Corey Kluber, shut out the Cubs 6-0 but in Game 2 Chicago’s bats heated up to down the Indians 5-1. Game 3 proved to be a nail-biter until the tension broke in the seventh inning when Coco Crisp of the Indians delivered a base hit to give the Indians a 1-0 lead, which would hold for the rest of the game. The Indians prevailed once again in Game 4 7-2, putting the Cubs in a 3-1 deficit. The Cubs would not be discouraged, however. The young team came surging back to win Game 5, 3-2, and Game 6, 9-3, respectively. This set up a Game 7 showdown in Cleveland with everything on the line. The Cubs were up 6-3 heading into the bottom of the eighth when Rajai Davis of the Indians hit a game-tying three run home run off the Cubs closer Aroldis Chapman. The game went into extra innings when in the tenth inning Ben Zobrist of the Cubs hit a home run to give the Cubs a one run lead and a World Series championship. Zobrist went on to be named the World Series MVP.