As every Cubs fan knows by now it has been 108 years since the Cubs had won the World Series, setting game seven of the World Series to be one of the most legendary of its kind.  Every game seven is always nerve-wracking, but this one was different. The loser would have the longest championship drought in all of baseball. The Indians went up 3-1 in the beginning of the series, but then the Cubs went on to win games five and six, forcing a decisive game seven. Both teams wanted the title more than ever, which set up one of the greatest baseball games to ever be played.

On this night, the Cubs and the Indians had their ace pitchers going. Kyle Hendricks for the Cubs was on full rest tonight and opposed Indians star pitcher Corey Kluber, who was on a short day’s rest. This would be the third time the Cubs were going to see Kluber this postseason. The main pitching story from Wednesday night wasn’t the starters, but the bullpens and the endless possibilities that were to come out of it. For the Indians it was expected that Andrew Miller, Travis Shaw, and Cody Allen would pitch. As for their opponents, it could have been any pitcher on the Cubs 25 man roster that is not named Kyle Hendricks, meaning that there was a chance that even Jake Arrieta, the game six starter for the Cubs, could get some action as well. Anything was possible.

The scoring began right away. Not second inning right away, but first batter of the game right away. Dexter Fowler, who has been the Cubs leadoff man throughout the regular season and playoffs, hit his third home run of the postseason giving the Cubs yet another early advantage. The Cubs have rarely lost any games this season when they possessed an early lead, making it safe to say that Fowler’s home run was one of the most significant runs of game seven. Most importantly, the Cubs got to Kluber early for one of the first times this World Series.

It didn’t take long for the Indians to strike for the first time against the Cubs only two innings later and get the crowd in the game for the first time. Get them on, get them over, get them in. It’s what the Indians do best. Coco Crisp hit a leadoff double for the Indians to begin the bottom of the third. Step two was to get them over and Cleveland executed that perfectly with a sacrifice bunt by Roberto Perez that got Crisp to third. Eventually, step three consisted of  Carlos Santana singling to easily score Crisp on third to even the score up at one.

In the fourth and fifth the Cubs began to get hot once again. With men on first and third for the Cubs, Addison Russell scored Kris Bryant from third on a sacrifice fly to left center field. The Cubs began cooking. Immediately following Russell’s sac fly Willson Contreras hit a double to center field, easily scoring Zobrist from second. Contreras hasn’t been hitting well this postseason, but that one hit may have turned around people’s perspectives on the future Cubs All-Star catcher. The bats were roaring once again in the fifth. To lead off the inning, the nine hitter who has been struggling in this World Series, Javier Baez, took Corey Kluber deep to right field giving the Cubs a 4-1 advantage, which also resulted in Kluber coming out of the game. At the conclusion of the inning, the Cubs received some more Bryzzo (Bryant/Rizzo) action. After a Bryant walk, Rizzo hit a deep single to right field that scored Bryant from first, giving the Cubs a commanding 5-1 lead over the Indians. It seemed like it would be another blowout just like in game one, but it wasn’t long until lightning struck for the Tribe.

There had been this feeling the whole game that the Indians would break out at some point and give the Cubs a run for their money. With a five run lead heading into the bottom half of the fifth Kyle Hendricks would leave the game after punching out two Indians batters and allowing one walk. Jon Lester came in for relief for one of the first times in his career, which didn’t get off to a great start. Jason Kipnis hit an infield single to the left side of the pitchers mound that most of the time is the pitcher’s ball, but Lester didn’t even want to attempt to throw the ball to first. As a result of this David Ross, picked up the ball and made a throwing error to first, advancing Kipnis and Carlos Santana who was walked earlier in the inning. Now Lester had to be careful. With two men in scoring position he knew that if he served up a pitch to Lindor the chances were that the Indians could be down by only two runs. Instead of throwing one over the plate Lester threw one in the dirt that knocked over David Ross and scurried away from every Cubs player on the field. Santana scored easily on the wild pitch and Jason Kipnis had a very rare double steal from second to home. Without a swing of the bat the score was 5-3 and Cubs fans were beginning to say to themselves “this can’t be happening again.”

It didn’t take long for David Ross, or Grandpa Rossy, to make up for his mistake behind the plate. In fact, he made up for it the following inning. David Ross hit a rare home run off of Andrew Miller to deep center field becoming the oldest man at the age of 39 to hit a home run in game seven. That would be all the runs the Cubs had in them for the first nine innings. The question looming over Maddon was did he trust his bullpen enough to get twelve more outs without allowing three or more runs. With two outs in the inning and a man on for the Indians, Jon Lester was taken out of the game. Up next for the Cubs was Aroldis Chapman. After Maddon’s substitution all hell broke loose for the Cubs.

It would only take four more outs for the Cubs and they would be World Series champions for the first time since 1908. Chicago was on the verge of a celebration. Then Brandon Guyer doubled to center field. Jose Ramirez, who was on first, scored and the Indians deficit was cut to just two with a man on and two outs. What happened next may have caused a small earthquake in Cleveland. Rajai Davis, who didn’t even get playing time in game six, came up to the plate looking to cut the lead to one or possibly even up the score. Early in the count he found himself down 1-2, but stayed resilient at the plate wasting some of the few pitches that Chapman had left in him. Finally, on the seventh pitch of the at-bat Davis sent a scorching line drive out to left field barely getting over the tall left field wall. Regardless of how close it was to staying in the field of play the score was tied at six. The Cubs blew a four run lead and now Cleveland had all of the momentum.

In the bottom of the ninth after Jason Heyward was left on third to end the top half, Joe Maddon brought back out Chapman in one of his boldest postseason moves ever. Opposed to the inning before, Chapman brought it together going 1-2-3 on the Indians best three hitters. The game was tied and heading for extras, but instead of getting to them right away mother nature had something else in mind.

The Indians, despite having their best hitters go down 1-2-3 against Chapman, still had some momentum in the game, but almost all of that vanished in between the ninth and tenth innings when a small storm cell rolled into Cleveland and delayed the game. During the rain delay Jason Heyward supposedly rounded up all the Cubs players and delivered a speech that fired up every one of the Cubs players. As of now there has been no video footage of the pep talk released, but the players seem to believe that it was part of the reason why they came out strong in the 10th Inning.

The Cubs had the heart of their order coming up. Their whole season came down to this top half of the inning. To open the 10th, Kyle Schwarber singled on a line drive to right field and was replaced on the bases by Albert Almora Jr. After a Kris Bryant flyout to deep center advanced Almora Jr. to second, Bryan Shaw intentionally walked Anthony Rizzo. Men were on first and second for the Cubs with one out. One big hit could take them to the promised land. The next batter was Ben Zobrist who hasn’t specialized in the long ball this postseason, but hasn’t had much trouble getting on base. Zobrist had one heck of a battle with pitcher Bryan Shaw and on a 1-2 count Ben Zobrist may have had the biggest hit of his life. Zobrist doubled, easily scoring Albert Almora Jr. from second. Chicago was rocking. The Cubs were now just three outs away from being World Series champs for the first time in 108 years and yet the Cubs still weren’t done on offense. The bases were loaded for Miguel Montero after Addison Russell was intentionally walked. Last time when the bases were loaded for him he hit the Cubs’ first grand slam of the postseason in game one of the NLCS; this time, however, it was an RBI single to left field that scoring Anthony Rizzo which would eventually be the game winning run.

In came the bottom of the tenth. The Cubs were up 8-6 and looking to keep it that way. Instead of bringing in a veteran to close out the game, Joe Maddon gave Carl Edwards Jr. the nodd. Edwards got the first two outs of the tenth, but allowed an RBI single by Rajai Davis to cut the lead to one. Edwards was then brought out of the game and was replaced by Mike Montgomery, the starter that the Cubs traded for in the middle of the year from Seattle. The batter he faced was Michael Martinez who came off the bench in the top of the tenth inning. Each pitch to Martinez was exhilarating knowing that this could be the pitch that would elevate Cubs into the World Series champions. On the second pitch of the at bat, Martinez tapped the ball to third. Bryant smothered the ball, slipped a little on the transfer to first, but threw a strike to Rizzo in time to beat Martinez and win the World Series. What ensued after was history. Many Cubs fans broke down to tears while others were screaming their heads off. 108 years later the Cubs came back from down 3-1 in the World Series to win it all in possibly the best game of baseball ever. The baseball season has concluded and the Cubs were the lone team to end their postseason with a victory.

It did happen. The Cubs are World Series champions. For many fans it’s going to take a few days to process the events that occurred last night. Tomorrow the Cubs will have their World Series parade. The parade will begin at Wrigley Field and go to the loop and will end with a rally in Grant Park. More specifics are to be announced later in the evening, but the parade will undoubtedly be more crowded that any recent Blackhawks parade. It will be immense. This title may even be the most prosperous victory for Chicago sports ever. The Chicago Cubs have overcame the odds of being down 3-1 in a series and today call themselves World Series Champions for the first time since 1908.