CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Cubs catcher David Ross airish for a selfie Friday in advanced of a aggregation of roaring admirers in the city’s Grant Esplanade during a assemblage anniversary the club’s aboriginal Apple Alternation appellation in 108 years.
Ross and the added players sang “Go Cubs Go” from the date forth with the blissed-out crowd. “It happened, baby. It happened!” proclaimed infielder Anthony Rizzo to adherent cheers.
Team administrator Joe Maddon — cutting a stocking cap, sunglasses and a jersey over a “We didn’t suck” T-shirt — looked out over a sea of blue.
“Welcome to Cubstock 2016!” Maddon said. “This is an absurd moment for all of us. Never accept I accomplished annihilation like Wrigley Field on a nightly basis. ... I appetite to congratulate you admirers also. Thank you for actuality so patient.”
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A achievement affair is new area for ability admirers of the Cubs, who hadn’t won a Apple Alternation appellation in added than a aeon afore their Game 7, extra-inning abstruseness Wednesday night in Cleveland. The aftermost time the Cubs alike accomplished the Fall Classic was in 1945.
Miriam Santiago, 51, said she agitated angelic water, her chaplet and a ablaze blooming advantageous baseball with her during the playoffs. On Friday, she brought a dupe affectation with bang in its aperture and let added admirers affectation for photos cutting it alfresco Wrigley Field. She said she believes her advantageous charms helped about-face the Curse of the Billy Goat, the adventure of a Chicago alehouse buyer who allegedly put a hex on the Cubs afterwards the aggregation banned to let his pet dupe into Wrigley Field during the 1945 Apple Series.
Earlier in the day, throngs of adolescent and old blue-clad admirers roared as the celebration of open-roofed buses accustomed the players cruised forth Lake Shore Drive. The affection was jubilant, bolstered by an unseasonably balmy and brilliant November day and ablaze dejected skies.
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Vendors hawked pennants and shirts, and selfie-taking adolescence approved to abduction the crowds. Abounding aloof beamed.
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Retiree Jarvis Moffett, 60, accustomed at the beach esplanade hours advanced of the assemblage aloof to booty in the atmosphere.
“I’m an old-school Cubs fan,” he said, gesturing to the sky and crowds. “This is what you alive for. It doesn’t get any better.”
Steve Angelo agitated his 4-year-old son, Nicholas, on his shoulders. The brace wore analogous jerseys for aboriginal baseman Anthony Rizzo.
“The added and added they win now, at his beforehand age, the added and added action there is,” Angelo said.
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Atop the double-decker buses, some Cubs players airish calm for photographs, while others captivated their accouchement and sat with their families. Center fielder Dexter Fowler had a cigar as the aggregation headed against the assemblage that some admirers accept alleged the “celebration of a century.”
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Fans arranged morning driver trains, causing delays admitting added account and capacity, to get burghal and acquisition a examination atom afore the anniversary began.
Laurie Winter woke up at 4 a.m. so she and her 2-year-old son, Cooper, could appear in from the suburb of South Elgin and be amid the admirers alfresco Wrigley Field to see the players.
“I anticipate anybody is aflame about area this aggregation is going,” Winter said. “We can’t delay to see them appear out and get crazy.”
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The array anguish through burghal and concluded almost 7 afar south in Grant Park, area the assemblage started in the aboriginal afternoon. The burghal additionally absolute the Chicago River a ablaze adumbration of dejected to bout the Cubs’ colors, repurposing a decades-long attitude of dying the river blooming on St. Patrick’s Day.
It’s cryptic how abounding bodies will appear Friday’s array and rally. The burghal estimates that 2 actor bodies abounding agnate contest in 2015, afterwards the Chicago Blackhawks won their third Stanley Cup in six years — but ancestors of Cubs admirers accept far added pent-up adulatory to do.
Friday was already a appointed day off for Chicago Public Schools and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner declared Friday as “World Champion Chicago Cubs Day” statewide.
