Chicago Cubs' attempts to end 108-year World Series drought might actually trump Trump

One of baseball's most famous clubs look to end 108-year wait for World Series over coming weeks

Aroldis Chapman of the Chicago Cubs is the fastest pitcher in MLB history (Getty)

Forget - for a moment at least – the stuff about Mexican immigrants, overweight beauty queens, an alleged Bill Clinton love child and everything else that has made this the most dispiriting, excruciating presidential election in history. A separate issue is about to grip America. Can the Chicago Cubs finally win the World Series?

It hasn’t happened since 1908, when Edward VII was King and Henry Ford launched the first Model T – the longest championship drought by any team in US major league sport. There’s been the odd nearish miss in the intervening 108 years: a lost Series in 1945 (often attributed to the ‘Curse of the Billy Goat’) and a spot in the 2003 Series squandered in part when a fan called Steve Bartman earned a perpetual niche in Chicago’s Hall of Shame by preventing a Cubs player making a crucial outfield catch.

Failure, inevitably, has bred fatalism. “Anyone can have a bad century,” one recent Cubs manager ruefully declared, as if the team’s perpetual ability to mess up was the most natural thing in the world. And the land where winning is everything has embraced a bunch of loveable losers. After the New York Yankees and perhaps the Boston Red Sox, the Cubs have the greatest national following of any team in baseball. Now, the love may be rewarded.

But spare the sympathy for the Chicago Cubs of 2016. The nice guy losers have become ruthless winners. Their regular season record of 103-58, the best in the majors, has underlined what was glaringly obvious, that these Cubs are a team without a weakness. They have the best pitching, the best defence, pretty much the best of everything.

Baseball has no more feared hitter than Kris Bryant, National League Rookie of the Year in 2015 and a strong MVP contender this year. The likes of Anthony Rizzo and Addison Russell provide potent offensive support. The starting pitching rotation led by Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks is the most dominant in baseball – so good that last year’s National League Cy Young (best pitcher award) winner Jake Arrieta only makes the third spot. Rounding matters off is Aroldis Chapman, acquired from the New York Yankees in July, and the sport’s most fearsome closer, with a fastball measured at up to 105mph, an MLB record.

Chicago Cubs' Kris Bryant is baseball's most feared hitter (Getty)

And there’s more. These Cubs are young, a team built to last. If the weight of expectations is crushing, no manager is better than Joe Maddon at easing pressure on his players. Last but but not least, they have in Theo Epstein baseball’s most proven curse-buster.

The Boston Red Sox, labouring under the ‘Curse of the Babe’ that supposedly prevented the team from winning a championship since it traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1918, hired Epstein as their general manager in 2002. He was only 28, an infant prodigy in baseball executive terms. By 2004 however Epstein had broken the Curse, and in 2007 the Sox won a second Series to prove it wasn’t a fluke.

Five years ago, Epstein switched to the sport’s ultimate basket case, signing on as the Cubs’ president of baseball operations. The first three seasons were rocky, but in 2015 they reached the NL championship series, only to be swept by the New York Mets. Chokers as usual, Cubs aficionados proclaimed. This year the team is even better, installed as World Series favourites even before the season began.

That alas is no guarantee of success. MLB’s 162-game season is the most gruelling of any sport. But the finest regular season counts for little. Baseball is a game of very small differences. Winning six out of every 10 games adds up to a blockbuster season. Win four out of 10, not that much worse, and you’re probably bottom of your division. In other words, over the stretch of 20 games maximum which makes up the post-season, anyone can beat anyone.

There’s no reason even the seemingly impregnable 2016 Cubs are an exception. In the five-game NL Division Series they take on the winners of Wednesday night’s wild card eliminator between the Mets and the San Francisco Giants. Just three bad performances, and Chicago’s out.

Assume though that they make it to the seven-game NL Championship Series, against either the Washington Nationals or the equally dangerous Los Angeles Dodgers. Again, a sub-par showing would mean that the Curse retains its potency, and that World Series drought stretches to 109 years.

But again, look on the bright side. The Cubs win the pennant and reach the Series for the first time in 71 years. Their most likely opponents from the American League – at least according to that unreliable indicator that is regular season form – are either the Texas Rangers or the Red Sox. The former have never won the World Series since the franchise was created in 1961.

Chicago Cubs' Anthony Rizzo has been crucial to the team's success this season (Getty)

The latter still bear traces of the Theo Epstein magic. They also bring with them a sentimental story line that rivals the Cubs’ own: the last hurrah of the 40-year-old Sox slugger David Ortiz, one of baseball’s most beloved players. Ortiz has already compiled a stunning final regular season, with 38 homers and a .315 batting average. What more fitting than he goes out with the fourth championship of his career?

The mood music for the Cubs, in short, is not perfect. So maybe the best course is to ignore it – like their fan Noel Brown who won a radio station contest to get a free tattoo. He chose one with a goat, the Cubs logo and the words “Curse broken, World Series champions.” Tempting fate? Perhaps. But, Brown told The Chicago Sun-Times, “If the biggest regret I have at the end of the day is having this tattoo, then I’ve lived a pretty good life.” Spoken like a true Cubs philosopher.