But the Cubs’ ethos is built on nostalgic fatalism.Īt the corner of Clark and Addison a dozen tourists stood in silent awe, staring up at Wrigley Field’s famous red sign. And as cranes rise on construction sites for swanky new restaurants, condos and hotels surrounding the Friendly Confines, there is an inescapable sense that this is the beginning of a new era in Wrigleyville. They were the best team in baseball this season, with a 103-58 record. And this may very well be the year that the Cubs’ 108-year championship drought comes to an end. Generations of Chicago Cubs fans have lived and died hoping their team would win a World Series title. “When the Cubs win the World Series, people will die,” Frandsen says. It was one of the best nights for sales in the bar’s history. When the game ended, the fans flocked to the streets outside Wrigley Field to celebrate, but later bounced back to the L&L to keep the party going. An hour-and-a-half before it was over they ran out of Bud Light and Old Style, a classic Midwestern brew. Inside, shoulder-to-shoulder, patrons watched the game on the two tiny old TVs above the bar. “Talk about the sins of the father revisited on the son,” Frandsen says.Ī few days earlier, as Chicago played the Los Angeles Dodgers for a spot in the World Series, every bar in the neighbourhood was packed and there was a line stretching down the block at the L&L Tavern.
He can list the moments off-’69 stung, ’84 was brutal. But every time it looked like the Cubs would break through in Frandsen’s own lifetime, he always watched them falter. Frandsen lived vicariously through the stories his dad told of the glory days when his boys won five National League pennants in 16 seasons.
He used to go to day games at Wrigley with his father, Louis, who saw the team lose the 1945 World Series to the Detroit Tigers. The local drinking hole is an unchanging monument to decades of life in Chicago’s North Side.įrandsen, in his late 50s, grew up a Cubs fan. The jukebox boasts a wide array of Windy City bands at three songs for a quarter. Aside from the collection of Pabst Blue Ribbon signs he hung up after moving in, the bar is just as it was when he bought it-the grey tin ceiling, the creaky, uneven floor, the crooked bar top, and the giant wall vault that dates back to the 1930s, when he believes the establishment was owned by an associate of Al Capone. He’d been drinking there for a quarter of a century and has owned it for the last 18 years. The Cubs beat the Giants 4-2 and then beat the Detroit Tigers for their most recent World Series crown.Five hours before the Chicago Cubs played in the team’s first World Series game in 71 years, Ken Frandsen sat at the end of a bar watching Jeopardy on a rear-projection television hung in the corner of the L&L Tavern a few blocks south of Wrigley Field. The Cubs and Giants finished deadlocked for the National League crown and replayed the draw to decide who went to the World Series. The field could not be cleared and darkness fell on what was declared a 1-1 draw, costing the Giants a victory. In the chaos, Merkle - the youngest player in the National League at 19 and making his first start - did not touch second base. The Cubs retrieved the ball and touched second base, with umpires ruling Merkle out and the run did not count.
Al Bridwell singled to drive in what appeared to be the winning run as spectators raced onto the field to celebrate. The visiting Cubs and New York Giants were tied 1-1 in the ninth inning when Giants rookie Fred Merkle singled to put the potential winning run on third base. The Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908, but they almost never got the chance to play in that year's championship showdown, needing the help of a blunder known in baseball as "Merkle's Boner." The Cubs winning the World Series could actually be the best thing since sliced bread, which was invented in 1928 - 20 years after they last won the World Series in 1908.
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