October 21st. When you turned on your computer, you probably saw “Back to the Future Day” in the search bar. If you’re a baseball fan, you might have been especially interested.
To really understand what Back to the Future Day is, you have to go back eight years.
October 21, 2015. That’s the date of the original Back to the Future Day. It commemorates the date “October 21, 2015,” 30 years after the main character Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) flew in a time machine with Dr. Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd) in the second installment of the Hollywood movie Back to the Future, a series of three films starting in 1985.
In 2015, a 30th anniversary celebration was held to coincide with October 21 and a special re-release of the film. Movie-related programs also aired or revisited the Back to the Future series. Even then-U.S. President Barack Obama posted a “Happy Back to the Future Day” on his personal social media accounts. To celebrate the 30th anniversary, a book, “Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History,” was published that tells the story behind the making of the 1985 movie. There was also a lot of coverage. There were videos and articles comparing the movie’s predictions of the future 30 years later.주소
Among the many predictions in Back to the Future is the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. In Back to the Future 2, released in 1989, the Cubs defeated a fictional team called the Miami Gators to win the 2015 World Series, so there was a lot of interest in whether or not the Cubs would break the “Curse of the Goat” and win their first championship in 107 years, since 1908, entering the 2015 postseason.
Heading into the 2015 season, the Cubs hired veteran manager Joe Maddon, added Jon Lester and Jason Hammel as free agents to bolster their starting rotation, and traded Miguel Montero and Dexter Fowler to add depth. The Cubs went 97-65 (.599 winning percentage) in the regular season, the third-best winning percentage in the majors. They finished third overall in the ultra-powerful National League Central behind the first-place St. Louis Cardinals (100-62) and second-place Pittsburgh Pirates (98-64), but earned the second wild-card spot behind Pittsburgh to reach the postseason for the first time since 2008.
The Cubs defeated Pittsburgh 4-0 in the Wild Card Game to advance to the Division Series, where they defeated St. Louis 3 games to 1. They met the New York Mets in the National League Championship Series. They were swept in the regular season, but they failed to win a game and lost four straight games to advance to the World Series. This came on the heels of Back to the Future Day, which failed to live up to the expectations of many moviegoers and baseball fans.
That year’s World Series was won by the Kansas City Royals, who beat the Mets four games to one. Kansas City won its first World Series title in 1985, coincidentally the year the first Back to the Future movie was released, and returned to the top of the standings in 2015, exactly 30 years to the day after the first Back to the Future movie, and hasn’t even made it to the World Series since.
The Cubs, who missed the “Back to the Future” prediction so spectacularly, went on to win their first World Series in 71 years the very next year, in 2016, defeating the Cleveland Indians in four games. They finally broke the “Curse of the Goat,” repeating as World Series champions for the third time in franchise history, 108 years after losing back-to-back titles in 1907 and 1908. The movie was off by a hair.
The year 1985, when Back to the Future premiered, was the only year in the KBO’s 42-year history that the Korean Series did not take place. The Samsung Lions erased the Korean Series when they won the combined championship. At the time, the league was divided into two divisions, with 55 games per team, and the Korean Series was played between the winners of the former and latter divisions. This year’s KBO was played without Samsung, with a Doosan-NC wild-card game, and NC defeating SSG in the semifinals. NC will face regular season runner-up KT in the playoffs, while first-place LG awaits its opponent in the Korean Series.
NC’s Kim Sung-wook (far right) celebrates after hitting the game-winning two-run home run in the top of the eighth inning with the score tied at 0-0 during the first game of the 2023 KBO semifinals against SSG at SSG Landers Field in Incheon on April 22. NC won 4-3. /Photo=Newsis
In 1985, the Hanshin Tigers won their first Nippon Professional Baseball championship, defeating the Seibu Lions 4 games to 2 in the Japan Series. This year, Hanshin will make its seventh appearance in the Nippon Series in nine years, since 2014, and will attempt to reach its second pinnacle in 38 years. Their opponents will be the Oryx Buffaloes, who are making their third consecutive trip to the Nippon Series and will be looking for their second straight title and sixth overall. This year’s Japan Series will begin on October 28 and end on November 5.
This year’s Major League Baseball postseason saw Texas defeat Houston in the League Championship Series and Arizona defeat Philadelphia to advance to the World Series. Texas, which was founded in 1960, reached the World Series for the second straight year in 2010 and 2011, finishing as runners-up. They are back in the World Series for the first time in 12 years and will be looking for their first ‘two in three’ title. Arizona hasn’t been to the World Series in 22 years since 2001, when Byung-hyun Kim (44) won the title.
