NLCS 2016: Cubs too good, too confident to let history get in their way; right?

Tom Gatto

NLCS 2016: Cubs too good, too confident to let history get in their way; right? image

Don't screw it up, Cubs.

Don't blow your best chance in years to end more than a century of futility and decades of ridicule.

You're a win away from the World Series after beating the Dodgers 8-4 in Game 5 of the NLCS on Thursday night. After taking two out of three in LA, you're going back to Chicago for a potential clincher in Game 6.

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Don't Bartman this. You guys are too good to Bartman this.

Yes, it's annoying to read constant negativity, but narrative makes negativity the default position: No World Series appearances for the franchise since 1945, no world titles since 1908. The columns, they've written themselves for just as long.

This year, you've known since February you're good enough to win it all. But until you're lugging the Commissioner's Trophy around Wrigley or the place formerly known as the Jake, good enough isn't ... well, good enough. Don't let all that good go to waste.

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You know your advantages heading into this weekend: hitting, pitching and fielding. The offense is back after scoring 18 runs over the past two nights. Two of your three Cy Young candidates (Kyle Hendricks and Jake Arrieta) are ready to take the mound. The middle infield of Addison Russell and Javier Baez rules the world at the moment.

You watched the other Cy hopeful, Jon Lester, shrug off all the gamesmanship the Dodgers could muster in Game 5 and straight shove for seven innings. You watched Russell hit another bomb. You watched Baez make a "What just happened?" play on this Adrian Gonzalez bunt.

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The swagger should be strong with you.

How, then, could this possibly end badly? How could this end with the haters laughing hysterically and cracking wise about Year 109?

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Well, first, there's a decent chance you'll be playing a Game 7. Clayton Kershaw will pitch for the Dodgers on Saturday night. The lineup's hot, but this is Kershaw, who's trashing his own annoying narrative this October and who has already beaten you once in this series. Then it would be Arrieta vs. Rich Hill and (probably) a cast of thousands on Sunday night. And one-game seasons can go sideways. The franchise hasn't been in one since ... 2003 A.B. (After Bartman.) The W did not fly that night.

This would be a most inopportune time for you to let any of that history mess with your minds, to entertain even for a second any of that nonsense.

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“That’s been our goal (get to the World Series) all year,” manager Joe Maddon, the genial genius, told reporters after Game 5 (per the Chicago Sun-Times). “Now that we’re very close to it, I want us to go out and play the same game. We’re not going to run away from anything. It’s within our reach right now. I want to go after it like, 'Let's just go play our Saturday game and see how it falls.’"

You're too good, and too confident, not to play well. You shouldn't Bartman this. So don't.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.