For many Chicago Cubs fans, Thursday morning featured a small addition to their daily routine, as people had to pinch themselves to make sure that what they had experienced on Wednesday night wasn’t just a beautiful dream after a lifetime of nightmares.
That Wednesday night is one that Cubs fans won’t soon forget, as the team braved a furious Cleveland Indians comeback, a brief rain delay, and all of the pressures of a winner-take-all game in a hostile road environment as they clinched their first world championship in over a century and set off one of the biggest parties that Chicago has ever seen.
Now that the champagne is dried and fans are forced to deal with another day of waiting before they get to welcome their favorite team to the streets of Chicago, there is one thought on the minds of everyone that has ever donned Cubbie blue, been to Wrigley Field, or thrilled to the team’s exploits on TV: what comes next?
It is a fair question for an organization whose identity in popular culture has been one of losing for as long as our modern concept of popular culture has existed. The team has been a punchline, their fans have been the subject of easy comedic fodder, and the whole idea of the Cubs has been one long-running joke for decades.
Now, all of that is behind us, and while some outsiders will argue that the championship takes away the team’s charm and identity, the fact of the matter is that Cubs fans should be excited about establishing a new persona on the sports landscape.
The Cubs are poised to not just be the best team in baseball in 2016, but for many years into the future. With a roster stocked full of talented young players (only two starters in Wednesday’s Game 7 were over the age of 27), a front office that is going to be swimming in money thanks to renovations to the ballpark and the team’s current success on the field, and with a farm system that is still churning out talented players even as others have moved up to the big league level, we could be in merely the first act of one of the most memorable sports dynasties in recent vintage.
While sports dynasties inevitably garner criticism and hatred from fans outside of the city the team plays in, this one could be unique. The Cubs are not only a talented team but a likeable and marketable one, with players like Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant and a manager in Joe Maddon that is endearingly charming and relatable with his witticisms (including his trademark “Try Not to Suck” t-shirts) and his constant exhortations to have fun and enjoy every moment on the field.
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Both of those factors will work to establish a new Cubs identity for a new century of baseball at Wrigley Field, and fans in Chicago should not be afraid of that change and should instead embrace it as a wonderful new reality.
For decades, fans have pined for the team to be relevant. They’ve made the pilgrimage to Wrigley, year after year, hoping that this year would be the year that ancient curses and grainy black-and-white photos of the teams of yesteryear would become obsolete. All of that changed with one ground ball to Bryant on Wednesday night, and as fans get ready for a new reality, they should buckle up and enjoy the ride, because it’s got the potential to be an unprecedented one.
