The Cubs Way

by Tom Verducci

  Francona elected to intentionally walk Rizzo. This situation confirmed why Maddon batted Zobrist behind Rizzo. “The consummate protector,” he called Zobrist, a switch-hitter. The situation also confirmed why Epstein signed Zobrist as a free agent, after the Cubs in 2015 struck out more times than any team in baseball.

  Shaw, throwing nothing but hard cutters, as is his wont, jumped ahead of Zobrist 1-and-2. Zobrist went to his B hack. He choked up on the bat. Shaw tried to come in with a cutter, but missed location up and away. Zobrist, shooing it away like a bee, flicked it foul, past the Cleveland dugout. Shaw came back with another cutter, but not as up and not as far away. It was in the strike zone. Zobrist carved it past Ramírez, the third baseman, and well inside the leftfield line. Almora came steaming home with the tie-breaking run, Rizzo pulled into third base, and Zobrist jumped onto second base with a double, punctuating the big hit with a fist pump.

  Standing on third base, Rizzo put both of his hands on his head and said aloud, “Oh, my God.”

  “It’s extra innings,” Rizzo explained. “It’s Game 7, and, the way that game had gone, not even a four-run lead was safe, so…But when we came out and punched them right there in the teeth and scored, it was like, ‘Okay, that’s it. That’s the game. We’re going to win.’ And I’m over there like, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to win the World Series.’ As a kid, any kid—who’s the worst team in baseball this year? Pick a team—you want your team to win the World Series. Just put that wish in Chicago, and it’s so much bigger.”

  With first base open, Francona issued another intentional walk, this time electing not to pitch to Russell, which filled the bases and put a double play in order with Miguel Montero at bat.

  Five years and one week ago from this night, Epstein was introduced as the president of baseball operations of the Cubs, and almost immediately began to plot how he could find four high-character, high-impact players to be the pillars of his rebuilding plan. Not only did he find them within three seasons, but also no better showcase for their importance existed than the 10th inning of the seventh game of the World Series. All four pillars contributed to the winning rally: Schwarber with his leadoff single, Bryant with his deep fly ball to advance the go-ahead run, and Rizzo and Russell with intentional walks when Francona opted not to pitch to them.

  With the count 1-and-1, Shaw tried to bury a cutter on Montero’s hands, but he didn’t get it inside enough. Montero pushed it into leftfield for a single, scoring Rizzo to put the Cubs ahead, 8–6.

  The hit not only gave Chicago an insurance run, it also capped an extraordinary night for the Cubs’ catchers. Maddon started with Willson Contreras, only the third first-year catcher to start a World Series Game 7, then used Ross, who was playing the last game of his career, and then Montero, the proud veteran who had lost playing time in the postseason. Each of them drove in a run. It was the first time in postseason history a team used three catchers and all of them had an RBI. It was only the second such game in the history of baseball, the other being an otherwise meaningless game in April 1964 in which three Minnesota Twins catchers drove in runs against the Washington Senators.

  “That’s the most amazing thing I took away from the game,” said Mike Borzello, the catching coach. “It was this three-headed monster catching-wise, and how everyone made a major contribution.

  “You had a baby, a 24-year-old who never had played much in the big leagues, a veteran guy who’s the heart and soul as far as a spokesman and emotional leader, and then you had Miguel Montero, a guy who lost playing time and isn’t that happy about his situation and yet he continues to work hard. Three guys in three different stages of their careers: one starting, one ending, and one not happy where his career is going. It’s amazing. And it had to be all three. It had to be all three contributing for us to win.”

  Trevor Bauer stopped Chicago from blowing it wide open. Relieving Shaw, he left the bases loaded by striking out Heyward and retiring Baez on a fly ball.

  During the rain delay, Maddon had used some of the time to recalculate his pitching plan. He knew that Chapman was spent. If Game 5, when Chapman nailed down the last eight outs facing elimination, was the game of his life as far as effort, the ninth inning of Game 7 was the inning of his life in terms of gallantry.

  “I know a big rallying cry during the players’ meeting was about picking him up,” Hoyer said. “Everybody was aware of how tired he was. I know a big part of it was, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this for Chappy. We’re going to pick him up.’ I know that was a big thrust of the meeting.”

  By blowing the lead, preserving the tie in exhausted fashion, and then breaking down emotionally, Chapman presented Cubs fans with a different narrative than the one from July. Back then he arrived as a flamethrowing mercenary, whose behavior in a domestic dispute compromised the buy-in for some fans of the joy the Cubs gave them. No longer did those fans face the potential conflict of watching Chapman secure the end to the biggest championship in sports. By failing, and doing so to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion, Chapman became more humanized to a fan base just getting to know him.

  “When he comes back in 5, 10 years or so for some anniversary party,” Hoyer said, “he’s viewed in a very different way—in a very positive way.”

  Without Chapman, Maddon had considered his choices during the rain delay for the bottom of the 10th. Jake Arrieta, who had started Game 6, had been in the bullpen since the third inning and told pitching coach Chris Bosio he was good to go. But Maddon decided, whether the game was tied or he held a lead, that Carl Edwards Jr. would start the inning, backed by Mike Montgomery if a matchup presented itself that called for a left-hander. Edwards and Montgomery, combined, had pitched in 106 major league games. Between them they had two saves, both by Edwards. Neither one was even on the team as recently as the middle of June, when Edwards was in the minors and Montgomery was pitching for Seattle.

  “C.J. and Montgomery know how to do this. Jake had not done that,” Maddon said about trusting the relievers over a starter. “Honestly, Jake was good, but his command, I had no idea. He’s pitching on really short rest, so for me to bet on his command right there would be a bad bet. That’s what I thought. Those two kids, if you told me at the beginning of the year—C. J. Edwards and Mike Montgomery—would be closing the seventh game of the World Series…seriously?”

  Edwards, the “String Bean Slinger,” a former draft pick out of a round, 48, that no longer even exists, locked down two quick outs. He struck out Mike Napoli and retired José Ramírez on a grounder.

  Now the really hard part: the last out to end a 108-year drought. Suddenly Edwards lost the strike zone. He walked Brandon Guyer on five pitches, four of them well below the bottom of the zone. Bosio visited the mound, both to slow down Edwards and to give Montgomery more time to get warm.

  Pitching to Davis, Edwards threw another ball, a pitch on which Guyer advanced to second without a throw. The next pitch was a fastball down. Davis hammered it on a line to centerfield for a single, easily scoring Guyer.

  “I thought, Oh my God. Really?” Hoyer said. “Two outs and no one on base and we’re going to give these guys some air? That’s when you get nervous. You start thinking, Okay, if we can’t win it here with a two-run lead, nobody on and two outs, maybe we just can’t win. It’s like, ‘C’mon guys. Let’s get this last out.’ ”

  Maddon walked to the mound and signaled for Montgomery to face Michael Martinez with the speedy Davis, the tying run, at first base and the championship-winning run at the plate.

  “I assumed we did it to keep Davis at first,” Hoyer said, “figuring there’s a chance Montgomery picks him off, whereas with Edwards I think he steals on the first pitch.”

  Said Rizzo, “I’m thinking we’ve got to get Martinez out early, because Rajai is going to steal the base and a single ties the game up. So you’re just focused on each pitch, pitch by pitch. You can’t get out of the moment.”

  Said Ross, “I’m thinking, Oh, no. M
ontgomery comes in, which makes it a little tough for a stolen base because Davis has to read the lefty, but Miggy’s in the game and he doesn’t throw that well. So you’re thinking, Surely he’s running soon.”

  Earlier in the game Maddon enjoyed hearing a scouting report from Ross about how Lester looked throwing in the bullpen. “Really sharp,” Ross told him. This time Maddon had no idea that Montgomery didn’t throw a single strike while warming up in the bullpen. And Maddon knew Montgomery first had warmed up as early as the third inning, almost three hours before.

  “I hate when the guy warms up that early in the game, sits, and comes back that late in the game,” Maddon said. “But there are no options.”

  Montero met Montgomery on the mound.

  “What do you want to do here?” Montgomery asked his catcher.

  “Don’t worry,” Montero said as he turned. “I’ll figure it out by the time I get back there.”

  Montgomery threw his eight warm-up pitches. He didn’t throw a strike with any of those pitches, either. Oh, my God, Montgomery thought. I have no idea what’s going to come out of my hand.

  Behind the backstop, Hoyer was worried, too. Davis stole more bases, 43, than any other player in the American League. If he stole second base, the Indians could tie the game with a single, a possibility that would seem more likely because the Cubs would be forced to play their outfield deep to guard against the potential winning run, Martinez, getting to second base with a double. Hoyer turned to his wife and expressed his fears aloud.

  “Oh, God, he’s going to steal second and we’re a broken bat hit away from a tie game,” he said.

  Explained Hoyer, “I felt with Martinez at the plate I wasn’t worried about the damage. I was more thinking, Don’t get a guy into scoring position and he dunks one in.”

  Bryant moved in at third base, guarding against a possible bunt from Martinez, a fast runner.

  Montero, once he arrived back behind the plate, decided to start Martinez with a curveball from Montgomery, the pitch the Cubs encouraged him to throw twice as often as before his trade from Seattle. Davis didn’t run. The pitch looped perfectly into the outside third of the strike zone. Martinez took it for strike one. The pitch, after all those poor warm-up pitches, immediately relaxed Montgomery.

  Okay, he thought to himself, I’ve got this.

  Said Borzello, “He told me after the game, ‘I don’t know if I was nervous or what, but I was in another place. Whatever sign was put down, my only thought was, Let’s make the pitch.’ ”

  Montero called for another curveball. Hoyer never saw the pitch. His eyes were locked on Davis at first base, fearful that he would be stealing. Davis did not run. The curveball was a near duplicate of the first one—thrown to the same spot, but slightly harder. Martinez swung, and topped a slow groundball to the left of the mound. The next four seconds were a study in how many thoughts a human mind can process in such a short period of time.

  Hoyer heard the contact of the bat hitting the ball and turned toward the interior of the infield.

  “Off the bat I thought it was an infield hit,” he said. “I really did. It was hit weakly by a guy who can run. Off the bat, my heart sank for a second.”

  Said Ross, “Off the bat it’s like, ‘Oh, please be hit hard enough to get him.’ It was one of those in-between ones, a dribbler, that are tough. Montgomery didn’t move. He wanted no part of that ball.”

  “When the ball was hit by Martinez,” Maddon said, “I couldn’t tell if the ball was hit in front of the plate. I couldn’t tell, and I see K.B. breaking on it nicely, and I’m thinking is it hit hard enough? And I can see that it was.”

  Bryant, charging, fielded the ball after a third bounce between the mound and third base, funneled his glove with the ball cradled into it to his midsection, and stepped with his left foot toward first base as he drew back his hand to throw with a right arm that had been cramping all night. Just as his plant foot landed, and just as his arm came around to throw the ball to Rizzo at first base, his spike slipped on the wet grass. His arm dropped as the ball left his hand. A smile creased Bryant’s face while this moment of danger was happening.

  “I see that his foot slips,” Maddon said, “and I went ‘Oh, shit.’ ”

  “I didn’t notice until I saw the replay on the play,” Hoyer said. “Oh, my God, his foot slips two or three feet! I have a really hard time watching the last play. You would think you would relish it and watch it over and over. But Kris’s foot slipped so much on the throw, I swear I watch that play and I see the ball going in the stands.”

  “The ball sailed,” Rizzo said. “He threw it low and it just sailed up.”

  On another day, in another year, in another karmic vortex in which the Cubs seemed to be stuck for more than a century, maybe the throw, triggered by one slip of the foot caused by rain that appeared to have saved them, sails over Rizzo’s head, down the rightfield line, and Davis comes skittering all the way home with the tying run. Those days and such thoughts officially ended when the throw from Bryant arrived on target—at about the height of the “C” on Rizzo’s cap—and safely in the mitt of Rizzo at 12:47 a.m. on what was now the first hour of November 3, 2016. From lovable losers to champions, the five-year rebuild of the Cubs was complete, and it ended with the first player on which it was built: Rizzo.

  “I think everyone would agree with this,” Hoyer said. “The emotion of that Wednesday night was just relief. We stared into the abyss and actually had not fallen in.

  “If we win 6–3, Chapman closes it out, the entire atmosphere, everyone’s attitude, is a lot different. Because we had nearly blown the game, and given our history, we were forced to play the ninth inning thinking about it, and it turns out okay in the 10th, for me and everyone else we were just relieved that night. It didn’t sink in that we won the World Series and ended the drought until later.”

  “I felt,” Ross said, “like the weight of the world was off our shoulders.”

  The Cubs, for as much as they played the role of the favorite throughout the year, forged a legacy as a great comeback team. Down three runs in the ninth to the Giants, and three outs away from facing Johnny Cueto in an elimination game, they came back to win the Division Series. Down two games to one to the Dodgers, and shut out for 21 straight innings, they came back to win the pennant. Down three games to one to the Indians, and having scored just two runs in the three defeats, they came back to win the World Series with three straight elimination game victories. In the denouement, they came back after blowing a three-run lead, making good on a vow to pick up the vanquished, tearful Chapman.

  “That’s why this team is world champion right now,” Epstein said. “The chemistry is amazing. We all pick each other up. We have that chemistry. If you don’t have that, you have nothing.”

  Immediately after catching the last out, Rizzo removed the baseball from his mitt and stuffed it in his left back pocket, just as he did the pennant-clinching baseball. Instead of going in his sock drawer, though, this one he would give to Ricketts at the parade. The last out triggered bedlam, and so many thoughts and emotions to process.

  “He squeezes the glove and it’s…it is surreal,” Maddon said. “It’s a moment I’ve experienced twice now, but of course holding your own baby, being the manager with the Cubs after 108 years, your mind doesn’t even know where to go. Your mind has all these options and it doesn’t know what to focus on at that point. There are so many things to focus on. Of course, the victory itself, 108 years, your dad, your mom, your wife, your family, your players, your fans…there are so many different places your mind can go and my mind went to just Rizzo purely catching the ball. He caught it. He caught it! The game’s over. That’s it. Season’s over.

  “It’s a feeling like no other. It’s incredible. Gratification. It was gratifying that we did it. It was unbelievable that we did it so quickly. Everybody talks about how wonderful our team is. The reflection there is, does anybody realize how young we are? How actually
green and inexperienced we are? Nobody’s even talking about that when they say you’re the favorite to win, you have the best team in baseball. I’m thinking to myself, Does anybody understand how young these guys are?

  “To be that young and to wire it—from the first day of spring training to the last day of the season—that was the expectation. That was the part I thought was underemphasized. It was stated, but you have to realize the scrutiny and involvement our players are under on a daily basis. So they have no experience to rely on as far as how do I deal with this? How do I process this? What does it mean? There’s no experience to rely on, except for maybe what David might say, Jon might say, John Lackey might say, I say, what Miggy might say. They’re out there on their own little diving board experiencing all of this. First time.”

  That night, not long after the final out, the heavens opened again, this time with more conviction. Many of the Cubs players, their families, and friends lingered on the field in this hard, cool rain on this unusually warm November night. Joyful and relieved, nobody was in a hurry to get out of the downpour. They let it wash over them. It was a feeling that went far beyond Progressive Field. From the packed streets around Wrigley Field, where people had gathered all night around her sacred grounds, to the sons and daughters who watched with fathers and mothers in the biggest baseball television audience in a quarter of a century, to the many who wanted this night even more for the ones they loved and buried than for themselves, the faithful everywhere did not need the cool rain upon their skin to feel the change.

  The Cubs, and all of their attendant culture, are redefined. The Cubs are champions. That’s Cub.

  I needed only one day at the Cubs’ 2016 spring training camp in Mesa, Arizona, to understand that the common media narrative about this young team was bunk. It went something like this: after its 2015 surprise breakthrough, Chicago might not be ready to play under the pressure of being expected to win. What I found was one of the most joyful and collegial cultures I had ever been around. I remained several more days and grew even more convinced: this team was ready and able to win.