Joy And Despair In Two Cities As World Series Comes To A Close

The neighborhood that surrounds Wrigley Field on the north side of Chicago is known, fittingly, as Wrigleyville. Wednesday night thousands of Chicago Cubs fans flooded its streets.

The Associated Press reports:

As the game ended, the roar from inside the bars and the throng of fans on the streets was deafening, before the crowds both inside and out sang "Go, Cubs, Go" at the top of their lungs.

As the celebration progressed, thousands of fans poured into the streets leading away from Wrigley, many of them singing "We Are The Champions."

NPR's David Schaper reports the emotions of the moment were almost too much for some to bear. He spoke with Steve Erbach, 52, born and raised in Chicago, who was celebrating at Bernie's, a bar across the street from Wrigley Field.

"I'm just thinking about all my relatives and friends who have come and gone off this Earth without seeing any success for the Cubs," Erbach said. "And here I am experiencing it and it's bringing back all these memories of them and the good times I had with them.

"And I just wish they were here to experience it with me," he said, breaking down in tears.

Chicagoan Patrick Cunningham, 44, was celebrating with friends and family on a street corner three blocks from Wrigley. He told Schaper that he's "been waiting for it pretty much my whole life. I used to come to these Cubs games with my uncle all the time when I was a kid. It's a big celebration out here tonight."

It was a decidedly different scene outside Progressive Field in Cleveland.

Reporter Matt Richmond of member station 90.3 WCPN Ideastream spoke to Jodi Fick, who flew in from Washington, D.C., to watch her beloved Indians.

"Listen," she told him, "anytime you see another team celebrate on your field you want to throw up. That's kind of where I'm at right now."

Cleveland fans' wait for a World Series title does not match the Cubs' 108 years, but it remains agonizingly long. The Indians' last championship was in 1948.

Indians fans were gracious in defeat.

"[Game 7] was probably one of the most nerve-wracking things I've experienced in the past 10 or 15 years," Jordan Everson said to reporter Richmond. "But it was a great game. It was everything I wanted it to be, it was a great series and, I mean, the better team won."