Winners

HELL FREEZES OVER, GOAT IS GOT: Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win! 

Baseball fans that we are, we've watched every game of the 2016 World Series. 

This year's match up was compelling: The Cleveland Indians versus the Chicago Cubs. Combined, it's been a 176 year drought (108 years for the Cubs, 68 for Cleveland). Ironically, with the Cubs winning it all last night, now Cleveland is the Major League Baseball team with the longest drought since a World Series win. (Their last time was 1948, just after World War II.)

The Cubs' World Series woes are, well, were, legendary at this point. Some blamed a billy goat for cursing the team.

We turned to the History Channel to learn more about the story.


The hex in question dates back to October 6, 1945, when the Cubs were taking on the Detroit Tigers in Game Four of the World Series. Back then, Chicago was a perennial powerhouse, having won back-to-back championships in 1907 and 1908, and in the years since, they’d been to the Series seven more times.  

As one version of the story goes, on October 6, 1945, a man named Billy Sianis strode up to the stadium, two tickets in hand—one for himself, and one for his goat “Murphy.” A Greek immigrant, Murphy owned a local bar called Billy Goat Tavern, and has a real live mascot, Murphy, to go with it. It's said Sianis and his goat were turned away at the gate, and at that, the man put a curse on the team. 

Another version of the story has Sianis and Murphy making it into the game, but nearby fans called 'foul' when the goat started stinking up the place during a rain delay, and Sianis and his goat were booted. 

However, Cubs historians Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson contend the "curse" was nothing more than a joke started by the Chicago sportswriters who frequented the Billy Goat Tavern.

Whatever the case, the curse of the goat is over for certain. The Cubs are the newest World Series champions having bested Cleveland in a 10-inning game. Remarkably, there was  rain delay between the 9th and 10th innings, as if Mother Nature herself wasn't quite ready for the baseball season to be over.

Our season ending tradition is always listening to former Major League Baseball player Bernie Williams play a mournful, beautiful version of "Take Me out to the Ballgame." 


GAME GURUS: This evening, in a full on family effort, we - along with a number of other awesome volunteers helped host a game night for about 100 people (preschoolers to adults).

For the event, we partnered with Blue Highway Games, a great, independent game store on Seattle's Queen Anne hill.

My mom, Christian, and I toiled in the kitchen, selling pizza by the slice, cookies and serving up Italian sodas. Annabelle and her grandpa were out working the floor, helping people learn to play games. CJ floated between duties. It was a busy two hours.

There were dozens of different games to play. Annabelle's favorite she encountered was "One Night Ultimate Werewolf."

The Blue Highway web site describe it as a 10-minute game for 3-10 players "in which everyone gets a role: One of the dastardly Werewolves, the tricky Troublemaker, the helpful Seer, or one of a dozen different characters, each with a special ability. In the course of a single morning, your village will decide who is a werewolf...because all it takes is lynching one werewolf to win! Because One Night Ultimate Werewolf is so fast, fun, and engaging, you'll want to play it again and again, and no two games are ever the same."

Sounds like fun to me, too!

WINNER, WINNER, LUNCHBOX DINNER: Today, we received an email letting us know Annabelle won a coloring contest! For her birthday dinner, we went to Lunchbox Laboratory (her choice), and while there, she colored a scarecrow-themed coloring page in Seahawks' colors. I remember thinking it was very good at the time, and carefully, clearly writing my email address on the back in case she was the winner.

We're not sure what the prize is, but we'll swing by there to pick it up this weekend!