Rozner: The magic number will forever be 2016
CLEVELAND - It is legend that man can see a clock stop, his shadow disappear on a sunny day and believe his own breath visible as the heart skips a beat.
No Cub fan would argue such physics or reason. Not now. Not ever again.
Not after millions have died and gone to baseball heaven.
Not after Ben Zobrist saved Joe Maddon from himself and saved Cubs fans from the worst defeat in the history of the franchise.
A team that plays in the land that time forgot - in a ballpark so utterly forsaken by the baseball gods, where a Cubs championship has been only a child's fantasy - took to the road, and time stood still for the briefest of moments as ball hit mitt and the unimaginable was suddenly imaginable, the dream a reality and the devoted allowed to believe it so.
It was real. So very real.
At 12:48 a.m. Thursday in Cleveland, on a lovely November morning at Progressive Field, the Chicago Cubs were crowned World Series champions, the unstoppable thought of generations overtaking the immovable objection of a sport that was eternally opposed to the happiness of an always embattled, and often embittered, fan base, punished for their loyalty for more than a century.
If it is truly better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all, it must also be true that to have loved such a legacy is to now be rewarded with the greatest victory of all.
Not a loss among the last 108 years has been erased, but add them all up this minute and they make triumph feel that much sweeter.
Finally - finally - it is over. It is over after an 8-7, 10-inning victory in which the Cubs had to overcome even more heartbreak after Maddon overmanaged and Aroldis Chapman imploded.
Perhaps, the Cubs were owed this one after so many nightmares.
But if promises were raindrops, the world would have flooded millennia ago, yet Theo Epstein made only one when he arrived: that the Cubs would get this right, that his every intention was to win a World Series during his time in Chicago.
They did.
"Our fans have suffered enough," Epstein said. "This had to end this way for them. It had to."
Late Wednesday night, a city wailed and automobile horns screamed, something impossible the last time the Cubs won a World Series because the car horn wasn't invented yet.
Adults cried and children jumped for joy. Parents called children. Children called parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.
Drink up, Chicago, the drought is over.
More than a century of failure - and a terribly managed game - was forgotten in a single moment, victory captured in perpetuity and stored for everlasting in the minds of those who were certain it could never happen for them.
But you can stop now, no longer must you relive the summer of '69, the shock of '84, the sadness of '89, the brutality of '03 and the choke of '04.
Or the eighth inning Wednesday night.
They are gone forever.
If only Ron Santo were here to embrace it all.
But somewhere Ronnie has to be smiling and raising a glass with Ernie Banks and Harry Caray, the three of them dancing and singing until the cows came home.
This is certainly for all of you, who have suffered so much for so long, but it is so very much for them.
It's for Ryne Sandberg and Billy Williams, the lifelong Cubs who came so close but never smelled that cigar.
It's for Mark Grace and Leon Durham, Glenn Beckert and Billy Herman, Shawon Dunston and Don Kessinger, Phil Cavarretta and Gabby Hartnett.
It's for Fergie Jenkins and Greg Maddux, for Bruce Sutter and Lee Smith, for Leo Durocher and Don Zimmer.
It's for Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau, and of course for Jack Brickhouse, so beloved and so often forgotten.
It is for the hundreds who came before and never knew this feeling in this uniform, never part of the last team standing.
Five score and eight years ago, the Cubs last experienced this sensation, to dance on the head of a pin with a bottle of champagne and the entire world watching, cheering for the ultimate underdog.
Tears of misery have been replaced by a river of joy, a single moment captured and recorded, removing all remnants of a nonsensical menagerie that served up goats and black cats as if curses and jinxes were as real as pitchers and catchers.
The names of these players now fill positions in the history books previously occupied by witches and warlocks, proof that it had nothing to do with luck and only to do with players.
It is for owner Tom Ricketts, who found the right man for the job - and let him do it.
"It begins and ends with Tom," Epstein said. "Without his patience and willingness, we never could have done this."
If you're one of the millions who promised to die happy if the Cubs ever captured a World Series, it's time to live up to your commitment.
Call the funeral home and make your reservations, because Cubs Nation has passed away and moved on to the next life.
After a rebuild that absorbed a 100-loss season, how fitting is it that the Cubs were forced to come back from down 3-1 to the Indians, a ferocious opponent that pushed the Cubs to the brink, necessitating the biggest game, the biggest event in Chicago sports history?
And then they wouldn't let go in Game 7, forcing the Cubs to win it in extra innings.
It wasn't easy, that's for sure, and it shouldn't be.
As the Cubs poured out onto the field, the fans poured out of the taverns surrounding Wrigley Field, the shrine at Clark and Addison a place for hundreds of thousands to say a prayer and thank their baseball gods.
"This is for them," Rizzo said of the scene in Chicago. "We will join them soon enough."
Never again will the Cubs be lovable losers. They are the World Series champs.
The magic number is now, and will forever be, 2016.