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The Curse of the Cubs

I wrote my final project about a person who embodies the Cubs' 108-year World Series drought. My story starts with the Cubs winning the 1908 World Series, and skips around to a few significant moments in the main character's life before ending with the 2016 World Series. Here's a few important things to know about the Cubs and baseball before you start reading:

  • The World Series is a best-of-seven series, so you have to win 4 games to win
  • To get to the World Series, teams have to win a different best-of-seven series, called either the National League Championship Series (NLCS) or the American League Championship Series (ALCS). The Cubs play in the National League, so they have to win the NLCS to advance
  • The Cubs won the World Series in 1907 and 1908 and appeared in a few more after that, but didn't appear in a World Series from 1945-2016
  • The infamous Bartman Incident occurred when a Cubs fan (Steve Bartman) deflected a foul ball out of reach of Cubs outfielder Moises Alou in a 2003 NLCS game. The Marlins scored 8 runs after this and advanced to the World Series. Many Cubs fans (unfairly) blame Bartman for the series loss

Comments

  1. Erin12 May 2020 at 21:48

    Charlotte, you know that baseball is one of the few professional sports that I regularly follow and also that my family are Cardinals fans. However, I loved this story. I was really taken aback with the creativity of this idea and honestly was really touched by it. Although there's the whole rivalry, I do remember being genuinely happy for the Cubs in 2016 when they won, and I teared up a little bit at the end of the story, how it all somewhat came full circle. Also kudos to John for living to be 108 years old.

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  2. Katie13 May 2020 at 10:09

    I really enjoyed this story. I find the idea and the explanation of the curse to be very creative and I think the end result came out very well. It was an engaging story to read.

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  3. Anya Kaplan-Hartnett14 May 2020 at 07:19

    Whoa, this is such an amazing story! I've never learned a whole lot about baseball, so hearing about all the history and speculation was super cool. I love how you weave the game scenes right into Jack's life, and your writing is so engaging and clear. You've constructed complex and interesting characters in a small space, and your tone really matched the dynamic of each scene. The mystical scene with the gambler is perfectly spooky!

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  4. Alex Hynes14 May 2020 at 09:33

    As a diehard Cubs fan, this was exciting to read. Both an amazing story and a Cubs fan's worst nightmare. I liked that Jack is extremely connected to the Cubs. When he is in poor health, the Cubs succeed and vice versa. This is a very humbling story for a Cubs fan like me, who got to see the Cubs win the World Series, and will (hopefully) have the chance to see more, but many, never got the chance to see it happen. I appreciate the last line. I could hear Joe Buck saying it in the back of my head (The only time I can tolerate hearing Joe Buck in my head). I still get chills hearing that call. Great job!

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  5. Zilles15 May 2020 at 09:23

    As someone who had the pleasure of peer reviewing this story, I got to appreciate the development of the story. I always liked the overall plot and idea behind it, but I think you also did a good job filling it out at the end. I like the mix of history and fiction as well as the time jumping elementals that you incorporated. Definitely worth a read!

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  6. Sophia Schmitz15 May 2020 at 14:21

    To be honest I know nothing about baseball. I have to admit I learned a ton from your story. I think you did a great job of combining actual historical evens with parts of Jacks life. I think you have done an amazing job of making such complex characters fit within such a short story.

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  7. Steven Blanke17 May 2020 at 13:19

    This is absolutely hilarious to me. I have been a Cardinals fan my entire life, and up until a few years ago when the cubs won, my dad and I would joke (3 games into the 162 game season) about how the cubs were already statistically out of the playoffs (they weren't but we were used to them being awful). So when the cubs hired their staff, we thought that they would be like the New York Knicks: Always making big, expensive purchases for washed players in exchange for young talent and remaining bad. But this story can explain more rationally about why the cubs remained bad for so many years than actual history can.

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  8. Lucas Wood19 May 2020 at 14:40

    I am also a Cardinals fan as are many in this comment section, however, I too was able to enjoy this story. It is a truly humorous and fun anecdote and the way your main character represents the drought is truly admirable creativity. Great work!

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  9. Sasha19 May 2020 at 19:57

    I really enjoyed this story! As you know I don't really watch baseball, but even I heard about the Cubs 108 year losing streak. Have you heard about the Curse of the Colonel?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Colonel
    There's a team in Japan whose fans stole a Colonel Sanders statue from a KFC and the legend holds that they'll never win the Japan Series again until they find all the statue bits.

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  10. Zachary's History as Fiction Blog21 May 2020 at 18:29

    As a guy who thinks being a Cubs fan can be a major personality trait, I really enjoyed reading your account. I remember the night of Game 7 2016 so clearly, and I was so nervous throughout the whole game I can't even watch it over again without getting too stressed.

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  11. Raneem Saadah21 May 2020 at 19:49

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. Raneem Saadah21 May 2020 at 19:51

    I really enjoyed reading this story, especially as someone who knows almost next to nothing about baseball--it was an interesting different type of read. It was funny, and I really liked how you combined both history and fiction, it was really clever. This was great, good job Charlotte!!

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  13. Emi L.22 May 2020 at 13:35

    Wow this is a great story! So interesting. I don't know anything about the real life situation but you were very creative in imagining what could have happened. I like how everything was centered around the cubs' performance throughout history. Even though there wasn't much dialogue or character focus, I was captivated from beginning to end. It kind of gave me vibes of a storyteller in a book shop, telling the story to kids with professional expressivity and eloquence.

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  14. Nil Patel25 May 2020 at 09:55

    This story was super creative and was really fun to read. I don't really follow baseball but that didn't stop me at all from being interested in the story. The way you connect Jack's life to baseball history is really clever and is a cool use of tying history with fiction.

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