For The Cubs It Was In The Stars-Or Was It?

My car radio was tuned to 98.9 The Patriot the day after the Cubs clinched the World Series. The shows host, Michael Medved, brought up the subject of the year 1908, the last time the Cubs won the series, and the many parallels between that year and 'coincidences'(or were they) that ended the era of 'the lovable losers'. But we need to focus on the number of years since they won and that would be 108.

Understand, I'm not one of these people who gloms onto and believes these coincidences. For example, a number of years ago there was a paper going around sharing parallels between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Why, it's as if it was in the stars that both these men were assassinated. Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy and, conversely, Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln. There were a whole slew of these items that was supposed to make us believe it was----whoooooo-really eerie.

Medved started in with this gem. The Cubs first manager was A.G. Spalding. You may not have known that but you might have been privy to the information he invented the modern day baseball using----whoooo--108 stitches!

Every day the Cub's stud pitcher, Jake Arrieta, does yoga 108 times. Evidently this number is a big deal in yoga. For awhile I was convinced Medved was speaking of Yoga Berra.

Here's a beauty. The left and right field foul lines are exactly the same, 108 meters long. This might be one of those stretch the point items but I'll take it.

Now is when it gets extremely weird. The owners of the Cubbies, The Ricketts family, who control Ameritrade in Omaha have their offices on, you guessed it, 108th street.

Evidently there are two movies mentioning the Cubs, Taking Care of Business and Back To The Future. Both are exactly 108 minutes in length. Back To The Future screwed up though. They had the North Side team winning in 2015.

The owner of the Billy Goat Tavern who was kicked out of a Cub game and put a curse on them----well, his expulsion from the park occurred on October 8. Yep, 10/8. Whoda' thunk it?

You may be unaware of this until now but Wrigley Field was built on church and seminary ground whatever that means. The more I consider this piece of worthless info it means absolutely nothing except maybe the Bishop of Chicago hated baseball or he got a huge chunk of cash for the land. I'd bet on the latter. Catholic priests are good at collecting other people's money.

And finally, there was a rather futile Cub player by the name of Emil Verban who toiled for the team in the late 40's. He was competent but obscure and with a strong work ethic. In 1975 a group from the Windy City honored him by starting the Verban Society. In Verban's last season, 1948, he batted a rather unhealthy .108.

Most importantly, the 2016 World Series Champions won game 7 in the 10th inning by scoring 8 runs. Get it, 108?

I've never checked the number of lights in Wrigley Field. Could it possibly be----------whoooooo!

And now you know the rest of the story.