other big job they had to get to.As the sign in the stands said, they had to party like its 1945. And from th | Forum

TALLADEGA, Ala. Fake MLB Jerseys . -- Chase Elliott has been inching toward his first career Sprint Cup victory all year, only to come up short time and time again.He needs it to come Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, where anything but a win will likely eliminate the rookie phenom from NASCARs playoffs.There have been five times this year that Elliott has finished second or third. Hes been inside the top five a total of nine times. He might have even won at Charlotte Motor Speedway two weeks ago until he wrecked. Then a tire problem at Kansas dropped him to last in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings and on the edge of elimination.We are obviously disappointed in the way the past two weeks have gone, having such strong cars, Elliott said Friday. But it puts us in a pretty simplistic situation for this weekend.The third and final race of this leg of the Chase will trim the title contenders from 12 to eight, and Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick already have spots locked down. There are no guarantees for the remaining six spots, as drivers have come to Talladega the last two years in good position only to be bounced out after a bad day at the superspeedway.At the bottom of the standings along with Elliott are Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, who raced for the title two years ago, and Brad Keselowski, who was in a must-win situation at Talladega two years ago and got the victory needed to advance to the third round.Also in shaky position: Joey Logano, who won all three races in the second round last year, and Martin Truex Jr., winner of two races in the first round this season but suddenly is one sub-par day away from being bounced out of the Chase.Truex made it to the championship round a year ago and didnt seem too stressed about his chances on Friday. Hes sixth in the standings.You just go race, see what happens, Truex said. Were either going to make it or were not. Worrying about it, thinking about scenarios, what do you have to do? All those things, it doesnt do anybody any good.Elliott is realistic about his chances. He finished third in two of the first three Chase races and soared into the second round behind improved performance from Hendrick Motorsports. Then he led 103 laps at Charlotte, only to be caught in an accident that wasnt his fault. He finished 33rd and then 31st at Kansas.Typically very hard on himself after a poor finish, Elliott was encouraged by how well his Hendrick Motorsports team has been running. He said he believes he can race his way into the third round -- and race for the championship.I 100 percent think if we can advance through this weekend, I without a doubt feel like we can be a contender, Elliott said. If you dont feel that way, you need to go home.Heres a look at how some other drivers are approaching Talladega:TRUEXHes a very good restrictor-plate racer, and finished second to de facto teammate Hamlin in the Daytona 500 as the Toyota camp ran a well-strategized race. Hell try to be smart again on Sunday rather than risk his title chances after moving to the top of the list of favorites at the start of the Chase. Truex has three wins in the last seven races and his Furniture Row Racing team has been one of the most consistent this year.It is his intent to race toward the front all day and not drift back into the pack -- a strategy some drivers use in an effort to stay far behind accidents. Truex believes thats a risky plan.The closer you are to the front, the better your odds are of getting through a wreck if it happens, he said. Ive been crashed riding around in the back trying to stay out of trouble.LOGANOTied for the eighth and final transfer position, Logano finds himself in an odd position. He raced for the championship in 2014, then swept the second round last year.But hes winless in the Chase this season and finds himself in danger of elimination along with Team Penske teammate Keselowski. Logano helped Keselowski to his must-win victory at Talladega two years ago, but with the season on the line, each needs the best finish they can get.Logano sounded Friday like a driver looking out only for himself.I dont really think about how people are trying to knock me out, I think about how Im going to knock other people out, he said. Thats my attitude. If Im on defense, were not going to win. We better stay on offense.CARL EDWARDSLike Truex, he wants to race up front all day. He finished fifth in the Daytona 500 when the Toyotas executed perfectly to get four of the top five positions, but isnt expecting that teamwork to work the same on Sunday.Edwards is fourth in the standings, and Toyota drivers have five spots in the top 12. The manufacturer wants all five drivers to advance on Sunday, which will be Toyotas 1,000th race in the Cup Series.Edwards isnt sure how it will work.I feel like Daytona was just a once in a everything aligned and that was unbelievable how well it worked, Edwards said. More often than not even if you have a plan, man, they fall apart so easily here. I think you have to really, really be conscious of the developing race and different circumstances.KESELOWSKIHes won the last two plate races this year, including at Talladega in May, and he has that 2014 experience on his resume. Still, Keselowski is in a deep hole. Working in his favor is that hes got the best winning percentage at restrictor-plate tracks of any NASCAR driver in history.What works best for Keselowski is staying calm.I dont think it is a must-win situation, he said. I am not worried about it. Fake NHL Jerseys . Duchene scored two goals and had an assist, helping the Colorado Avalanche beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Friday night to match the best 10-game start in team history. Fake Jerseys 2019 . The 28-year-old from Calgary matched his career best after missing just one shot in his two rounds of shooting in the mens 10-kilometre sprint competition. Smith finished in 23 minutes 15. http://www.fakejersey.com/ . The formidable trio of Canadian receivers -- individually known as Chris Getzlaf, Rob Bagg and Andy Fantuz -- will share the field at Mosaic Stadium one more time on Sunday. CHICAGO -- Ron Santo never saw this. Fergie Jenkins never did this. Ernie Banks never lived to see this moment -- to watch the universe change before his eyes.But finally, on Saturday at 9:45 p.m. Wrigley Daylight Time, when the world turned upside-down, it finally happened. That moment.There were two outs left until Cubs Armageddon. Yasiel Puig tapped a one-out ground ball toward shortstop, where Addison Russell realized immediately what had a chance to happen here.The baseball -- THAT baseball -- was hopping directly at him. And his first thought was: I could not believe it. ... He hit it to me. He hit it to ME.But this ball was traveling so slowly, he wasnt sure it was a double-play ball. So all he told himself was to make sure he got one out -- and if we get two, thats even sweeter.Except Russell was feeding that baseball to a second baseman who believes everything and anything is possible. Of course Javier Baez was going to get this baseball to first base on time. What else would he do?So I decided to turn it, Baez said. And we made it happen.Baezs relay throw whooshed toward Anthony Rizzo at approximately 178 mph. It popped into Rizzos glove a millisecond before Puigs foot hit the first-base bag. And it is barely possible to describe what happened next with mere words.With hugs, maybe. With tears, maybe. With a lifetimes worth of emotions spilling through the night, definitely.The Cubs -- the Chicago Cubs -- were going to the World Series. Did you think youd possibly live long enough to read that sentence? Did you think the baseball gods would ever permit something that crazy to happen?Well, its happening, ladies and gentlemen. Its happening. In real life. In your life. For the first time in 71 years. In this actual world that you live in.I cant believe it, said Cubs legend Billy Williams after the teams 5-0 triumph over Clayton Kershaw and the?Los Angeles Dodgers?in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series that finally made that dream come true. Im standing on the field, and the Cubs are going to the World Series. I cant believe that.Williams played for the Cubs for 16 years. In the 1950s. In the 1960s. In the 1970s. He has been retired for 40 years. No wonder his brain and his heart were having trouble processing a moment this powerful, this historic. How can any of us truly comprehend something this mysterious, something that very few people you know had ever witnessed?So maybe we can help you make it all sink in. Maybe we can make you appreciate how lonnngggg ago 1945 really was. Ready? Since the last time the Cubs played in a World Series:-- 1,275 different men played for the Cubs -- in seasons that didnt end this way, of course.-- 606 different men threw at least one pitch for the Cubs -- none of them in a World Series game.-- the Cubs played 11,309 baseball games -- not one of which could be described as a World Series game.-- World Series games were played in 45 different ballparks -- none of which were known as Wrigley Field. At Coors Field, yes. At Chase Field, yes. At Ebbets Field and Citi Field, yes. Even at Tropicana Field. But at Wrigley? Iconic Wrigley Field? Never.-- the Yankees played in 26 World Series in that endless time span. The Dodgers played in 15. The Cardinals played in 11. The Cubs watched or listened to all of them from their living rooms, from their man caves or from some fishing boat in the middle of a distant sea.-- Banks played more than 2,500 games for the Cubs. Williams played more than 2,200. Ryne Sandberg and Santo played more than 2,100 apiece. Thats a whole lot of box scores. Just not World Series box scores.So what happened at Wrigley Field on Saturday night was more than just a baseball game. More than just a sporting event. The world changed on this night. Lives changed on this night. Millions of lives. Millions.This transcends baseball, said Ryan Dempster, a man who pitched 376 games for the Cubs over nine different seasons -- and never had any of them end like this. You know how many people I saw cry tonight? People crying. People hugging each other. This is far more than a baseball game. I dont know how to put it into words, except its an event in these peoples lives that they will forever remember. And to be here, to watch it all happen, was just incredible.So how do we define what changed on this night? After all, it wasnt as if the Cubs won a World Series. They merely won a game that will allow them to play in the World Series -- against a team from Cleveland with its own history to rewrite.But even the?Indians?have at least played in four World Series since the last time the Cubs played in one. Meanwhile in Chicago, the Cubs hadnt reached this perch on the mountain since the Harry Truman administration, hadnt clinched a World Series berth at Wrigley since 1932, hadnt won a single best-of-seven series since 1908.So even though there is more to do and more baseball to play, what happened at Wrigley Field was as epic as a league championship series clincher can possibly get. The Cubs didnt just end a drought here. They busted more ghosts than Bill Murray ever did.Getting to the World Series is a big accomplishment, said the manager of this ghostbuster crew, Joe Maddon. Of course, winning it would be even greater than that. But I still believe that, in seasons to come, people are going to believe more easily now. Theyre not goingg to look for the next shoe to drop. Fake Basketball Jerseys. Theyll believe that something good is going to occur, as opposed to something bad.But wait. Maybe those people actually crossed that threshold before the final out on this night. Maybe there was a sign from the heavens, in the ninth inning of this game, that it was OK to believe. Really.It happened with one out in the ninth. On a 3-and-1 pitch from Aroldis Chapman to Carlos Ruiz. Ruiz swung at a 101 mph Chapman infernoball and got just enough of it to lift a high foul ball that drifted down the left-field line and floated just out of play -- into a section that looked waaayyyy too familiar to anyone who saw Game 6 of another NLCS, back in 2003.Somebody said to me that that one-out foul ball was right where [Steve] Bartman was, said Cubs catcher David Ross. Somebody said that in the dugout. And I just said, Who cares, you know? Weve got one out and the guy on the mound throws 100. I like our chances. ... So when he said, Ooh, that was right where Bartman was, I just went, Perfect. It went all the way in the stands. Foul ball. So now we can win.And three pitches later, what do you know? Thats exactly what they did.Mark Grace never had a night like this. Don Kessinger never felt a feeling like this. Sammy Sosa never hopped around Wrigley when the planets lined up like this.But Baez? He was there. He was part of it. He was a cowinner of the NLCS MVP award -- along with?Jon Lester?-- on the night the Cubs booked their trip to the World Series.Crazy, he said. Its crazy living this life right now.And Russell? He was there, too. He pounded a second-inning double off Kershaw. He started the artful double play that turned Wrigley into a sea of noise, high-fives and selfies. And he spent the next hour and a half wandering around this magical ballpark with a smile on his face as wide as that street beyond the bleachers that was obviously named with him in mind.Were going to the dance, man, he said. And were gonna dance.And Ross? Yep, he was there, too. He didnt play on this night, though he did become part of a very cool feat when?Willson Contreras?homered in the fourth inning -- and made the Cubs the first team in history to have three different catchers (Contreras, Miguel Montero and Ross) hit home runs in the same postseason. But nevertheless, Ross was summoned to the victory podium behind second base -- along with the brass and the manager and the co-MVPs -- and the cheers were so loud, they filled up his eyes with emotion.Theres been a feeling about this city since we landed [Friday morning], Ross said, as he nears the end of his final season. Theres just a buzz here. Everybodys excited. This is the Holy Grail of sports championships. And this moment here just shows you how great this city is and these fans. It hasnt always been this way. But I think they appreciate it more, because theyve had so many low times.But five years ago, the Cubs hired a master of curse zapping named Theo Epstein to perform another baseball magic act. Then, in the fall of 2014, they hired a silver-haired renaissance man named Joseph J. Maddon to lead people, embrace the moments and change this culture. Well, you could feel that culture shifting again on Saturday, right before your eyeballs.Asked whether he had allowed himself two years ago, back when the Cubs hired him,?to picture the sights and sounds of what he called this crazy cool evening, Maddon shook his head, his eyes twinkling in the electric night.I just didnt want to do that, he said. I wanted to be surprised. And its just as youd expect. But I dont even know what it looks like outside. Oh my God.No kidding. Beyond those ivy-covered walls, the streets were thumping with life. But not just streets named Waveland and Clark and Addison. Were talking about many, many streets, stretched out across many, many miles, where life as these people had always known it had just shot all these folks into a cosmos they had never known.These Cubs might have four more humongous baseball games to win. But theyve already erased 71 years of history and heartbreak. So even now, nothing is quite the same anymore. And thats going to take some getting used to -- even for the Cubbies themselves.Asked what he thought had changed on this night, Maddon answered with one powerful word: Perception.You know that thing Id always heard, about the Cubs being lovable losers, I never quite understood that, the manager said, because thats not how I was raised. So getting here and really not paying attention to all the nonsense, the superstition that really has dragged a lot of peoples minds down -- to escape that is great. Now we can just continue to move it forward.That job -- the moving-it-forward part of the gig -- begins Tuesday in Cleveland. But first, the 2016 Chicago Cubs had another big job they had to get to.As the sign in the stands said, they had to party like its 1945. And from the looks of things, they were up to that job, too -- almost as up to that job as the people whose lives they had just transformed.Theyre ready for this moment, Baez said of those people. And were ready for this moment.So how long, he was asked, could they all celebrate what just happened here?Ooh, gushed the NLCS co-MVP. Forever. ' ' '