Clan-Members » said after the match. According

CHICAGO -- The spiritual home of the curse, which has always been a headline writers shorthand for a century of poor front-office decisions and horrifying choke jobs, is an underground tavern beneath Michigan Avenue. Tavern is a mannered word often used by hipsters (and, um, writers ... ) to describe bars, but in this case, the Billy Goat actually is a tavern, a place where the Tribune editors used to bring page proofs between editions, back before newspapers lost their mojo and ended up staffed by people who did silly stuff like jog and eat fruit and maintain loving relationships. It still manages the difficult juggling act of being a tourist destination while nurturing its regulars; one of the bartenders, for instance, will run a credit card if he knows you, even though the signs say cash only.On Tuesday night, for Game 6 against Cleveland, the place was about three-quarters full, with some after-work people, some out-of-town fans and at least one group of totally oblivious tourists from Sweden and Denmark.About an hour before the game began, the place felt calm, even a little reserved. The stress of the past week has all been too much. Every game is a kind of torture, down to the last innings and outs.People read things on their phones and stayed quiet, waiting for the first pitch.A stuffed goat hangs above the bar; the founder of the place, William Billy Goat Sianis, supposedly got kicked out of Wrigley during Game 4 of the 1945 World Series and said -- again, supposedly -- Them Cubs, they aint gonna win no more. The team didnt make it to another World Series until this year. The bar has done good business since then from Cubs fans, and from a John Belushi Saturday Night Live skit making fun of its Greek fry cook and their surly attitudes. Those fry cooks still stand behind the flat-top griddle night after night.With two outs in the top of the first, and the Cubs again looking like they might not hit the ball, Kris Bryant crushed a home run. Marco, the bartender, turned on the siren in the corner, which blared and whirred as people cheered. A guy at one of the red and white checkerboard tables took a sip from his mug of beer and looked happy, and a bit relieved. Rizzo hit a single and, as people cheered, you could hear the old and finicky cash register ding. People leaned against the faux white marble bar top. On the wall around the goat, famous old Chicago newspaper bylines hung, many yellowed and worn: Mike Royko, David Condon, Roger Ebert, Herb Lyon, Rick Telander.Zobrist singled.Nice inning! someone said, audibly giddy.A man carried a burger to his table on a piece of wax paper, cradling a pile of pickles. Marco poured a few fingers of Titos vodka into a high ball glass.Addison Russell then hit a fly into center, which the Indians played about as poorly as a fly can be played. The ball dropped and Rizzo scored easily, and then Zobrist just wrecked the catcher at the plate, giving him a forearm shiver, indicating that somewhere in his past life he must have played football. Marco hit the siren again, and people cheered and clapped and pounded on the bar and the tables and seemed finally at ease, ready to watch every stress free pitch of the 9-3 blowout.The inning ended one batter later, and the game felt over practically before it began.Marco poured a draft Schlitz and a Billy Goat Lager into two heavy mugs, sending them down to the end of the bar. He opened two bottles of Miller Lite, and the fry cook scraped the griddle clean, waiting on the next round of orders. The pink neon glowed through the front window, and the red neon lit the corner of the bar. Up above, cars rushed down Michigan Avenue, while in the bar, people smiled at the televisions on either side of the ratty stuffed goat.Ultra Boost 4.0 Weiß Deutschland . - NASCAR announced a 33-race schedule for the 2014 Nationwide Series with virtually no changes from this years slate. Nmd r1 Herren Günstig .B. -- The Baie-Comeau Drakkar took over sole possession of first place atop the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League on Thursday with their sixth straight win. http://www.nmdschuhesale.de/eqt-schuhe-deutschland.html . Los Angeles star goalie survived those perilous gymnastics with no problem, and he eventually backstopped the Kings to a skid-snapping win. Quick stopped 27 shots in his return from a 24-game injury absence, Jeff Carter scored the tiebreaking goal with 7:55 to play, and the Kings snapped their five-game losing streak with a 3-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night. Ultra Boost Damen Outlet . This should be celebrated because it will not always be this way. With the amount of money given to players by their clubs these days, it is a wonder that so many of those teams allow the sport to continue to take away many of their assets so they can play for a different team in the middle of their season. Ultra Boost Outlet .ca! Hi Kerry, Heres an interesting one. I know its common knowledge that all players are responsible for their sticks. We witnessed that when Zack Kassian hit Edmontons Sam Gagner in the face after a missed check.Martin Guptill walked out to bat with a simple brief: take down the bowling while you still can. It might not appear radically different to how he has batted all series, but the conditions made such an approach necessary. New Zealand had finally won a toss on the tour and batting first was a no-brainer on a pitch that had very little bounce and would become slower.Up to this point, Guptills only contribution with the bat was a half-century in Indore after the Test series was decided. Here was a chance to make a difference while the series was still alive. But, he had to do it while the ball still came on to the bat; there was little scope for playing himself in and then launching into attack.And so, Guptill approached it as a glutton would an all-you-can-eat buffet near closing time. He was edgy at the crease and twice jumped out to Umesh Yadav in the first over, but eventually played out a maiden. He found his release in the next over, as he smacked Dhawal Kulkarni over the infield for a brace of boundaries. When Kulkarni pitched it short, he belted out a ferocious cut.The loft over the infield was his first-choice weapon, and the cut and flick his failsafe when the bowlers compensated with a short ball. He and Tom Latham put on 96 runs in 15.3 overs, creating a buffer for the fallow spell in the middle overs. Guptill said hitting over the top was central to his limited-overs batting in the last year and a half. I enjoy hitting the ball over the top when I can. So I just tried to make use of the ball when it was hard and I got away with it today.Unlike Guptill, his opposite number Ajinkya Rahane hasnt struggled for form. Rahane was the second-highest run-getter in the Test series, but then his place in the ODI side has never been a given. There was pressure on him coming into this game after he failed to convert starts in Dharamsala and Delhi before falling cheaply in Mohali. Rahane now had two shots at best to show why he deserved to keep his spot before Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul returned from injury.But, Rahanes ODI game is seen to be at odds with sluggish pitches like the one in Ranchi. At times over the past two years, MS Dhoni has expressed his belief that Rahane needs pace in the pitch to score, and that he struggles to rotate the strike on sluggish surfaces. This was then a crucial innings from the point of view of Rahane career - a big score would not only help India clinch the series but also prove hhe could wing his limited-overs game to succeed on slow surfaces.ddddddddddddIn a departure from the first three ODIs, Rahane took first strike. He played his usual go-to shots - the back-foot punch and the straight drive - but the real sign of intent came through a dandy upper cut off Trent Boult to hit the first six of the match. Rahane, however, didnt deviate from his natural game. There were gorgeous boundaries hit, but the familiar problems persisted. Often, Rahane, standing on middle and off stump, missed quite a few balls angling into his legs - he was eventually dismissed by one such delivery - thus missing run-scoring opportunities.With a dot-ball percentage of more than 50, it could be argued his strike-rotation was once again suspect. However, a measure of the difficulty in rotating strike on this pitch could be seen in the 22 dots played out by Virat Kohli off the 51 balls he faced. Even after Kohlis dismissal, Rahane consolidated things along with Dhoni before falling to a good delivery just when he was looking to attack. Dhoni, though, felt Rahane had done an adequate job.At that point in time I think partnerships were needed more than anything else, Dhoni said after the match. According to the requirement of the match, he was batting well. Thats how he bats and I dont think there was anything wrong.This wasnt too dissimilar to how Guptills innings shaped up. After racing to 43 off 34 balls at the end of the first Powerplay, he gritted out it till the 26th over to finish with 72 off 84. When the spinners were bowling, the ball hardly came on to the bat, but Guptill hung around, with a little bit of help from Amit Mishras fielding. Before this match, he hadnt lasted for more than 21 balls this series.While Guptill didnt look at the innings as a redemptive effort, its value wasnt lost on him. It wasnt as fluent as I would have liked, but Ill take 72 any day of the week, he said. Once the ball became a bit softer the scoring became a lot tougher and you had to grind it out a wee bit. I was happy to get through that little period.Both Rahane and Guptill set up strong bases for their respective sides - it will be fair to assume they have also earned themselves some breathing space - but it was only the latters team-mates that saw through the effort to its logical conclusion. ' ' '