In a quest that has become more epic than that of Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” Trilogy, the Chicago Cubs and their faithful fans will have to wait yet another year for their “precious.”
From the beginning of the 2015 season Cub fans felt that a solid mix of pitching and young explosive hitters, as well as the “Back to the Future” Nostradamus-like prediction that their World Series drought would finally be over (last World Series win 1908, last appearance 1945).
That wouldn’t be the case, at least not this year. A called third strike on Cubs outfielder Dexter Fowler with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth on the exact day that fictional character Marty McFly went into the future in the movie, the Chicago Cubs were swept by the Mets instead of the Cubs sweeping Miami like in the before mentioned movie. The Cubs became the 3rd Wild Card team in MLB history to be swept in the League Championship Series.
The Mets scored 4 runs in the first inning after two out, both on homeruns, neither by red hot Mets infielder Daniel Murphy (that record setting dinger came in the top of the 8th). The game could have pretty much ended right there since the Cubs never posed a threat in their 8 to 3 loss.
In a night that re-wrote fictional history, the Mets second baseman wrote some history of his own and collected a well deserved piece of hardware, the NLCS MVP. As for the 21 Century “Mr. October” aka Daniel Murphy, he batted .549 going 9-17, 6 RBI, and hit 4 home runs, one in each of the NLCS games of the sweep. He went 4 for 5 Wednesday night with a home run, 2 runs scored and 2 RBI.
As for the history Murphy wrote, he became the first player to hit a home runs in 6 straight post season games (he hit 14 HRs all season). He also became the second player in MLB post season history with a hit, a run scored, and RBI in 7 straight games…the other, Lou Gehrig.
The Mets will now wait to see who they will face in the Fall Classic, either the Royals who head home with a 3 games to 2 lead, or the team north of the border, the Toronto Blue Jays.
Cubs fans would have been better off trying to get their hands on a bottle of Pepsi Perfect rather than watching that series.