10/9/1089 Game 5 MLB National League Championship Series, Chicago Cubs at San Francisco Giants, Candlestick Park, San Francisco, CA


 32 years ago today...

October 9, 1989 - San Francisco, CA

The San Francisco Giants edged the Chicago Cubs 3-2 at Candlestick Park to win the National League Championship Series four games to one and advance to the World Series.
NLCS MVP Will Clark hit an 9th inning RBI single off Cubs closer Mitch Williams for the winning margin, making a winner out of Giants starter and former Cub Rick Reuschel. Mike Bielecki took the loss.
As a long time frustrated Cubs fan, I took the rare opportunity to see one of the few Cubs playoff games of my lifetime by hopping a one-day turnaround flight to SFO and buying a single scalper ticket right behind home plate. The seller was a major league scout and I got in the ballpark just in time to hear the Tower of Power horns play the National Anthem.
The Cubs had the early lead and held it most of the game. So it's no surprise to leave with disappointment, in historical Cubs fashion, and the whole ballpark knew it was over when "Wild Thing" Williams entered the game. This was a favorite Cubs team with Grace, Sandberg and Dawson with Don Zimmer as the skipper, but they suffered the same fate as their predecessors.
The Giants went on to get swept in the World Series by the crosstown rival Oakland A's.

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