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It Was a Beautiful Series, Let’s Play Two

Hey. I know those guys!

Let’s just set it up for those of you stumbling on this article in your Google search for Yogi Bear fan fiction. The World Series wrapped up Wednesday night with a Game Seven that took 10 innings to decide and two teams that hadn’t won a world title in a combined 176 years and the victor, the Chicago Cubs, won by one inning while the winning run for the Cleveland Indians was at the plate.

If you wrote this as a movie, the critics would blast you for it being too unbelievable, but that’s what we got. Arguably it was the best World Series ever played and nobody is going to dispute it. Not today.

The Cubs shot out to an early lead and spent the last half of the game watching the Indians cut into it until they finally tied the game 6-6 in the bottom of the ninth. The two biggest hard-luck franchises in Major League baseball had literally left it all on the field. But with the Indians holding all the momentum and then God went ahead and showed up and fixed that.

The rain hit, the tarp came out and the the Cubs had the chance to regroup they needed.

Kyle Schwarber led off the top of the 10th with a base hit and that was the beginning of the end for Cleveland.

Schwarber himself lent a unique facet to the World Series. One guy, a guy who had just a handful of  regular season at-bats back in April, completely flipped home field advantage in the series. Schwarber was never cleared to play a position, so the Cubs could only use him as a Designated Hitter when they played at Cleveland. At home, under National League rules, Schwarber could only pinch hit once per game.

Think about that for a minute. Schwarber batted .412 in the World Series with an OPS of .971. He had one double, two RBIs, drew three walks, stole a base and scored two runs. If the National League had won the All-Star game, giving the NL team the home filed advantage, the Cubs probably lose this series. Game Seven of the 2016 World Series was decided by a two-run homer in the bottom of the second inning of the 2016 All-Star Game by Salvador Perez of the Kansas City Royals. A guy who, ironically, was the World Series MVP the year before. You could argue he was again in 2016.

Maybe his former teammate, 2016 World Series MVP Ben Zobrist, should let him drive that Camaro for half the year. Or at least let him use it on the weekends.

So while Theo Epstein punched his ticket to Cooperstown as the architect of another curse-breaking World Series victory, it’s hard to argue that losing home field advantage in the title series in the All-Star game was a part of it. If so, the guy is a James Bond villain.

This was the first World Series I legitimately cared about. I didn’t grow up a baseball fan in Tennessee. Most people around here rooted for the Atlanta Braves because they were the most local team and were on television all the time thanks to Ted Turner’s TBS station. For me, all that swirling Braves logo meant on a Saturday night is that I wasn’t going to able to watch NWA Wrestling.

It wasn’t until I was a sportswriter that I learned to love the sport. I first covered the Tennessee Smokies in 2006 when they were the Double-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks. It wasn’t a good fit for Arizona or the Smokies and between seasons the Smokies switched to the Cubs and the two have been conjoined to great benefit ever since. The Smokies have set consistent attendance records and the Cubs have sent some of the best players in the league through Kodak, Tenn. This is where I come in.

Since 2008 I’ve been the beat writer for the Smokies for the Knoxville News Sentinel. I also work directly for the Cubs, contributing the Double-A Farm Report to their VineLine Magazine. Of the 25 men on the Chicago roster in the World Series, I personally interviewed and got to know 11 of them. I was in the press box for Javier Baez’s Double-A debut where he hit a rocket out of Smokies Park on his first swing in his first at-bat. I watched Kris Bryant match it in the home opener the very next season. I was the first reporter to interview Addison Russell after he was traded to the Cubs in 2014 from the Oakland A’s. He basically got off the plane, arrived at Smokies Park and talked to me.

So needless to say I was a little invested in this one. I have friends and fellow members of the local media that are Indians fans, so I feel for them. It was a tough one to lose. That’s why I’ve quoted Cubs great Ernie Banks up there in the title. This was, I think, the best World Series of all time so why not queue the whole thing up again next year, Cleveland? Let’s play two.

Written by Adam Greene

Adam Greene is a writer and photographer based out of East Tennessee. His work has appeared on Cracked.com, in USA Today, the Associated Press, the Chicago Cubs Vineline Magazine, AskMen.com and many other publications.

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