No One Enjoyed the Cubs’ World Series Win More Than Bill Murray
Late last night, a little after the midnight hour, Hell froze over. Reports of pigs and other assorted swine growing wings and taking flight started pouring in from all over the country. Dogs and cats were living together — it was mass hysteria, all because the Chicago Cubs had finally won the World Series after a 108-year drought.
That little Ghostbusters reference at the end of the previous paragraph would probably please star Bill Murray, but not nearly as much as this Cubs victory already has. A native of the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, the actor been a vocal Cubs superfan for years now and made his overwhelming joy at the long-awaited World Series win well-known last night. He gave a Daffy Duck-esque rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" a few days ago during the seventh-inning stretch of Game 3, but that was just the beginning.
After the Cubs emerged from last night's dramatic extra-innings showdown victorious, Murray stormed the locker room and got right in the middle of the celebratory fracas. Getting soundbites and reaction interviews for FOX Sports, Murray hobnobbed — and slugged champagne — with the rejoicing players. He wisely warned outfielder Dexter Fowler to pace himself with the alcohol: "You're gonna do this for a few years. Can't start drinking too hard too early."
Ben Zobrist, the second baseman who hit the tenth-inning double that gave the Cubs the upper hand, decided to roll his car right onto the pitcher's mound — perhaps in an effort to colonize the Cleveland Indians' Progressive Field as an annexed territory for Chicago, perhaps simply because they let you do whatever you want after you've just won the World Series. Either way, Murray took the opportunity to clown it up a bit on the luxury vehicle.
Murray also did a couple post-game interviews himself, as the team's honorary morale-booster and unofficial mascot. The actor traded his usual ironic detachment for some pure enthusiasm, officially declaring Chicago public schools closed for the remainder of the week after waxing poetic about this long-time-coming win.
What we're seeing here is something as rare as the aurora borealis, as majestic as the Grand Canyon — an actually happy Bill Murray. Let it wash over you. We may be five days from the collapse of Western civilization as we know it, but for one brief, shining moment, there was a smiling Bill Murray.