Cubs win World Series

[Crazy Don]

The Chicago Cubs won their first World Series since 1908 last night.  Story here.

This is probably like Leicester City winning the football championship last season, but the Cubs had been favored to win the Series when the season began.

[o]

That's a long time between wins!

[Panda]

Nice to see the Cubs win it after such a long wait. I don't follow baseball as much as I once did but I always had a soft spot for the Cubs. Just need the Chicago Bears to win the Super Bowl again (30 years and counting) but that doesn't look like happening any time soon...

[Earl Purple]

They have always had a system in American sports whereby the weaker teams are favoured with regards to new players, or something like that, so that it remains more balanced and you don't get one or two teams dominating for long periods, although they can for short periods.

In some ways English football used to be a bit more like that, and having Leicester win the league 50 years ago wouldn't have been a great shock. after all Ipswich won it in 1962 and even Nottingham Forest in 1978. It's simply the setup of football in the past few years that has made it almost unlikely.

Remember we had the same clubs finish in the top 4 in the league 4 seasons in a row (2006-2009) and only the big money put into Manchester City broke up that monopoly (ok, and Liverpool's poor league seasons of 2005 and 2010 allowing Everton and Tottenham to get 4th spot those two seasons).

Compare that since 1996 there have been 11 different teams win the world series, the New York Yankees have won 5 times and the San Francisco Giants 3 times in that period. The English Premier League during this period has been won by just 5 clubs, which was 4 until Leicester won it last year.

[Shireblogger]

The Cubs' losing streak made them stand-out from the pack. It was something to focus on, and when they had a good season, it was something to get excited about.

Now they've won the World Series again, they are just another baseball team without much silverware. I wonder if their owners might actually come to regret the recent triumph. They certainly won't get many sympathy supporters anymore, and whenever they have a decent season the publicity they attract will be significantly lower.

[Earl Purple]

Apparently it was predicted in Back The The Future that they would win the World Series in 2015, so they were only one year out.

[Shireblogger]

Nov 7, 2016 11:58:25 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

Apparently it was predicted in Back The The Future that they would win the World Series in 2015, so they were only one year out.

Another piece of hilarity which turned out to be scarily close to the truth !

[Panda]

Nov 7, 2016 10:52:24 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

They have always had a system in American sports whereby the weaker teams are favoured with regards to new players, or something like that, so that it remains more balanced and you don't get one or two teams dominating for long periods, although they can for short periods.

In some ways English football used to be a bit more like that, and having Leicester win the league 50 years ago wouldn't have been a great shock. after all Ipswich won it in 1962 and even Nottingham Forest in 1978. It's simply the setup of football in the past few years that has made it almost unlikely.

Remember we had the same clubs finish in the top 4 in the league 4 seasons in a row (2006-2009) and only the big money put into Manchester City broke up that monopoly (ok, and Liverpool's poor league seasons of 2005 and 2010 allowing Everton and Tottenham to get 4th spot those two seasons).

Compare that since 1996 there have been 11 different teams win the world series, the New York Yankees have won 5 times and the San Francisco Giants 3 times in that period. The English Premier League during this period has been won by just 5 clubs, which was 4 until Leicester won it last year.

That'll be the draft system, which gives the weakest team the first pick of players coming through the college system. A great idea, though you can't compensate for p*ss-poor management, which is what ensures some teams are perennial also-rans.

A lack of college system makes it impossible to have anything like that in this country, though a salary cap would be a good addition, particularly has the ridiculous TV money has actually levelled the playing field somewhat within the Premier League.

[frag]

Nov 8, 2016 0:15:18 GMT 1 Panda said:

Nov 7, 2016 10:52:24 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

They have always had a system in American sports whereby the weaker teams are favoured with regards to new players, or something like that, so that it remains more balanced and you don't get one or two teams dominating for long periods, although they can for short periods.

In some ways English football used to be a bit more like that, and having Leicester win the league 50 years ago wouldn't have been a great shock. after all Ipswich won it in 1962 and even Nottingham Forest in 1978. It's simply the setup of football in the past few years that has made it almost unlikely.

Remember we had the same clubs finish in the top 4 in the league 4 seasons in a row (2006-2009) and only the big money put into Manchester City broke up that monopoly (ok, and Liverpool's poor league seasons of 2005 and 2010 allowing Everton and Tottenham to get 4th spot those two seasons).

Compare that since 1996 there have been 11 different teams win the world series, the New York Yankees have won 5 times and the San Francisco Giants 3 times in that period. The English Premier League during this period has been won by just 5 clubs, which was 4 until Leicester won it last year.

That'll be the draft system, which gives the weakest team the first pick of players coming through the college system. A great idea, though you can't compensate for p*ss-poor management, which is what ensures some teams are perennial also-rans.

A lack of college system makes it impossible to have anything like that in this country, though a salary cap would be a good addition, particularly has the ridiculous TV money has actually levelled the playing field somewhat within the Premier League.

The project manager on my team is a Cubs fan, he was very happy last week (not so happy this week!)

There was an article on BBC Sport saying that they might have gamed the system a bit, not-quite-accidentally finishing last in their section for a few years, and building up a really strong squad. Make of that what you will. They got to the championship series (basically world series semi finals) last year, but were far and away the best team in the main season this year.