The Chicago Cubs won the World Series here Wednesday night for the young, the old and the long dead, too. Of course these Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-7, in 10 thrilling, brain-warping innings in Game 7 for themselves, for their own joy and glory.
But as they have been reminded endless times in the past seven months of this baseball season, they also won the Cubs’ first title since 1908 for the citizens of a nation without borders. They lifted the silly “curse” of Murphy the Goat and roused the spirits of a worldwide legion of interwoven sufferers who share a passion and an affliction — a lifelong freely chosen Cubness.
Because this game went beyond the baseball surreal, because it provided forgetfulness and forgiveness for several Cubs who might have been enormous goats, including reliever Aroldis Chapman and Manager Joe Maddon, it seemed to encapsulate the team’s long history of staring into the abyss. Only this time, at long last — it only took a century or so — the abyss blinked.
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