There was not a dry eye in the house last night, and I’m sure there were many others like it. Both mine and my wife’s families are from Chicago, which makes us Cubs fans (sorry White Sox). We nerve rackingly watched the post season games on our phones as we were too stressed to turn the TV on in fear we might jinx a team that has seen 108 years of jinxes.

However, this was not the case last night. Win or lose, we wanted to cheer on the guys amongst the crowd at our local brewery. We sat through 9 innings of stress and pacing around the bar floor, when the rain came and delayed the 10th inning. At that point my wife and I felt the game wouldn’t be finished until tomorrow as there was a huge storm baring down on Cleveland, so we left. On the drive home we heard that they had a small window of opportunity and were going to continue playing it immediately.

So there we sat, on the couch in the living room with our dogs, watching as the Chicago Cubs fought back to take the World Series win that for too long had eluded them. We had no beer, only wine, and so I poured that in celebration, but one that would be quite delayed for we were too busy crying.

You see, the more I thought about it, the more the game meant. It wasn’t merely a World Series that showed us the year’s best team. It was the World Series that our parents had always dreamt of and our grand parents went their whole lives never to see. Through the period of five minutes, I feel I learned the true meaning of, “one for the ages.”

 

Chicago Cubs win World Series

 

What also made this one special is that it had many players and coaches that I have spent time photographing on set, on the field before us. The likes of Anthony Rizzo, John Lester, Jason Kipnis and Terry Francona are all people I have been fortunate to photograph. What made it even more special was that each of these guys were stand up people. We are talking humble athletes that your children SHOULD look up to. Rizzo if a kid at heart that is grateful to play this game for a living, Lester is secretly the emotional type that takes extreme pride in putting on the Cubs uniform, Kipnis is someone that cannot stop smiling on and off set and Francona…. If you saw his interview after the game, I can tell you, that is the integrity and character that that man lives.

It is with no second guessing that I can say, we just watched the greatest game of all time, and to both teams I say a genuine “Thank You.”

Fly the W