After breaking the Billy Goat curse in Game 7 of the World Series, the Chicago Cubs will celebrate with their fans on Friday. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said a parade will be held leaving Wrigley Field at 10 a.m. It will then travel along Michigan Avenue between Oak and Ohio Streets, then along Columbus Drive from Monroe Street to Balbo Avenue.
There will also be a rally at Lower Hutchinson Field in Grant Park scheduled for noon. The celebration will be free and open to everyone willing to join it. An extra-inning rain delay helped the Cubs win the title and outlast the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in 10 innings of Game 7. First baseman Anthony Rizzo put the final ball in his pocket as his mates piled up in the middle of the diamond.
Before the rain delay, Aroldis Chapman blew a 6-3 lead with two outs in the eighth inning when Rajai Davis hit a two-run homer. The 17-minute rain delay passed, and Ben Zobrist, Miguel Montero, and Mike Montgomery started the celebration as they closed it out at 12:47 a.m.
Parade attendees will be able to enjoy the event after they pass through security checks at entrances in Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard and Michigan and Congress Parkway. Only closed water bottlers will be allowed, and vendors will offer food on site. The city encouraged fans to take public transportation as street closures will begin at 4 a.m.
“We are going to have a parade in Chicago that will stand the test of time. It will be a parade that 108 years have waited for,” the mayor announced at a press conference, as reported by ABC7 Chicago.
The Chicago Cubs, who made history as they became World Series champions, returned to Wrigley Field Thursday morning. About 100 fans gathered on West Waveland Avenue near Gate K to welcome the Cubs. After giving millions of fans the chance to witness a victory they had waited a lifetime for, the champions arrived with a shiny trophy that made the crowd go wild.
In the 1945 World Series, Billy Sianis arrived in the Game 4 alongside his goat, which he used to promote his popular tavern. Because the entry of the animal was denied, even when it had its own ticket, an angry Sianis said the Cubs would never again win a World Series. The 2016 team buried the curse Wednesday night.
Theo Epstein killed his second curse
Theo Epstein was brought in five years ago to build an entirely new team that would kill the curse. He started with a plan and kept focused on it. He said at the time that it felt like a dream and sounded great to him to be able to do what hadn’t been done in more than a century.
“Took a group of unbelievable men, connected with one another, never quitting. Everyone’s prone to hyperbole on nights like tonight, but is kind of epic, right?” he expressed on the field after the team Cubs won Wednesday night, as quoted by ABC7.
It wasn’t his first time doing the impossible, though. Educated at Yale, the Boston native led the Red Sox in 2004 to their first World Series title in 86 years. Lester Munson of ESPN.com said Epstein succeeded at bringing today’s Cubs together by studying their abilities on the field, as well as their background and character.
Source: ABC Chicago