The first World Series game at Wrigley Field in a long, long time!
With the series tied up 1-1, there was great hope leading up to this game. The wind was blowing out at Wrigley, and the Indians had a fly ball pitcher on the mound. It was time for the Cubs to start hitting their home runs! Even Jorge Soler was in the lineup to take advantage of the wind.
However, the game was rather uneventful. The Cubs advanced only three runners past first base. There really wasn’t any sort of highlight the Cubs did during the game. Addison Russell had a diving catch. But since it was at the top of the inning with nobody on, the play didn’t really have much impact on the game. (Photo reference Brad Mangin/MLB Photos via Cubs Instagram)
Win Probability Added
In fact, there is a stat that does rate every single play’s effect on a game. The WPA (Win Probability Added) rates how much one play adds to the team’s chance of winning. Addison Russell’s diving catch gave the Cubs a 3% more chance of winning the game.
The Win Probably Charts are incredible to analyze. I’m not sure what time after the game baseball-reference.com posts these charts. I know it’s not immediately after the game. When the game is finished, I’m hungry for these charts! Nor do they post it at 3am after the game. Yup, I’m awake at 3am looking for these things. I think that around 10am, it’s posted.
To give a little more interest in the card, I traced the Win Probability Chart onto the scorecard. The top 8 plays got circles on the chart, to match the circles I put around each of the plays in the scorecard grid.
Top eight plays of this game
- 24% bot9 Baez strikeout swinging
- 19% top5 Lindor ground ball double play
- 13% bot9 Rizzo single
- 12% bot7 Baez groundout
- 8% top7 Crisp RBI single
- 8% top1 Lindor picked off at first base
- 8% top5 Kipnis hit by pitch
- 7% bot8 Bryant strikeout swining
In the future, I would like to include the Win Probability Chart on more scorecards. It would be fun to play around with connecting the circles on the Win Probability chart with the circles on the scorecard. It might make the card a bit messy. But it might also be really interesting. Actually, what would a card look like with lines connecting ALL the plays? Hmmm.
There’s always the Wrigley Field marquee
With the lack of top plays in this game, I knew I could at least rely on including a large factoid about this being the first World Series at Wrigley Field since 1945.
Instagram is full of various images of the marquee covering every possible angle. I wanted the marquee to be angled in, facing the contents of the card. Thank you to Courtney Lucien of Instagram for this pic that I used for reference in the drawing!
Late nights
I also learned that filling in all the dark spaces around the white letters took forever to do. Revere typography in pencil—oh boy. My previous two scorecards for games one and two I stayed up until 3am and 4am working on them. They were played on a school night (Tuesday and Wednesday), so once the game was finished, I worked through the night to finish them. I can’t very well go to work at 9am the next morning and work on the scorecard!
Thankfully game 3 was played on a Friday night, so I had a little more flexibility with being able to continue working on the card on Saturday morning.
Bill Murray as highlight
The other big highlight from the game was Bill Murray singing the 7th inning stretch—as Daffy Duck. Kinda crazy. But that’s Bill Murray.
He’s rather hard to draw (photo reference FOX broadcast). The signature look for Murray is his receding hairline and large forehead, but with a baseball cap, these features are hidden. Plus, he’s no longer that middle-aged man in Ghostbusters. Murray is just a really old man now. When you draw him, it’s like, “oh that’s an old guy—WAIT—that’s Bill Murray?” Maybe a frontal view would be more representational of him. Or I could have had some spit lines coming out of his mouth for his Daffy Duck impersonation. Heh. That would have been funny.
Game three factoids
Pre-game
- First World Series game at Wrigley Field since 1945
- Attendance 41,703 (101.9% full)
- 62 degrees, 14 MPH wind out to centerfield
- Carlos Santana, the Indians DH, makes his first MLB career start in left field
1st inning (top) Cleveland Indians batting
- First pitch strike
- Jason Kipnis singles short-hop just past Hendricks
- Kyle Hendricks picks Kipnis off first
2nd inning (top) Cleveland Indians batting
- Julia falls asleep
3rd inning (top) Cleveland Indians batting
- Shortstop Addison Russell makes a diving catch off Tyler Naquin’s line drive
5th inning (top) Cleveland Indians batting
- Tyler Naquin hits a ball just out of the reach of a leaping Air Bryant
- Francisco Lindor hits into a bases loaded double play
5th inning (bottom) Chicago Cubs batting
- Jorge Soler hits a single off the first pitch
6th inning (bottom) Chicago Cubs batting
- Cleveland Indians’ lights-out middle reliever Andrew Miller strikes out the top of the Cubs lineup. Dexter Fowler, Kris Bryant, and Anthony Rizzo all strike out swinging.
7th inning (top) Cleveland Indians batting
- Carl Edwards, Jr throws a wild pitch allowing Michael Martinez to advance to third (he eventually scores)
7th inning (bottom) Chicago Cubs batting
- Mike Napoli makes a diving stop on a line drive from Willson Contreras
- Bill Murray sings the 7th inning stretch as Daffy Duck
8th inning (top) Cleveland Indians batting
- Mike Napoli strikes out for the third time
8th inning (bottom) Chicago Cubs batting
- Kyle Schwarber shatters his bat on a pop-fly to the shortstop
Summary
- First time in World Series history that both starters gave up zero runs, but neither made it through five innings.
- The only time a team won with only a run and no extra-base hits
- Despite the 0–0 tie for six innings, the Cubs had the better chance for 28 of the first 46 at bats (60%)
- Cubs postseason 1-0 losses:
- Game 1, 1918 World Series, Babe Ruth vs. Hippo Vaughn
- Game 2, 2016 NLCS, Clayton Kershaw vs Kyle Hendricks
- Game 3, 2016 World Series, Josh Tomlin vs Kyle Hendricks
- Indians used every position player
Quotes
“Fly ball pitcher with the wind blowing out, it’s crazy how we didn’t hit fly balls” —Anthony Rizzo
Julia factoid
Julia screaming along with Wrigley crowed before game starts
Game 3 promos Chicago magazine ran on social media
Chicago magazine website
“There were no runs for the home team, but the seventh-inning stretch was one for the ages.”
Facebook post
“Sufferin’ succotash!”
Twitter
“The Cubs couldn’t score any runs, but there were still some highlights #WorldSeries #WorldSeriesGame3”
Twitter
“Didn’t keep score last night? We have you covered. #WorldSeries”
The Addison Russell promo for game 3 that Chicago magazind didn’t run:
Tomorrow’s scorecard
The game 4 scorecard hits the low-point for the Cubs in the World Series. But with any low points, there’s nowhere else to go but up! Stay tuned.
Bill Murray’s singing the 7th inning
stretch was him imitating (honoring) Harry Carey, not imitating Daffy
Duck.
Murray surprised the man sitting to Murray’s right when he announced singing it like “Daffy Duck”… I thought it was great fun .
(Facebook comment left on October 29 at 11:30am)
it was completely horrible [in reference to the 7th inning stretch]
(Facebook comment left on October 29 at 12:42pm)
It was awesome! He was having fun.
(Facebook comment left on October 29 at 6:19pm)
This was the best “Take me out to the ballgame that I have ever seen
It seems so long ago that a Season Ticketholder from New Jersey attended his first World Series Game at Wrigley Field. I anticipated many home runs and I was sitting in the Right Field Bleachers (since I didn’t have a full season ticket plan, I was shifted to the Outfield).
The people sitting in the area were dull. Me and another guy tried to drum up some excitement but the dweebs never fully realized that this was the first World Series Game in 71 friggin’ years. The “fans” were brain-dead. THAT was the most frustrating part of the whole night