CHICAGO — Some Chicago Cubs fans will be celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the 2016 World Series title Monday.

Ten is a nice, round number, and the Cubs spent much of the 2026 season reminding everyone of the 2016 championship, building a ceremonial archway at Gallagher Way and inviting back players and staff from that team.

But one of the best parts of that playoff run is likely to be forgotten.

It came late during the World Series, when fans flocked to Sheffield and Waveland avenues with colored chalk and began writing their names, the names of loved ones and messages on the bleacher walls outside Wrigley Field. It grew from a couple of fans into an army, and the weekend after the parade brought hundreds out to leave their marks on The Wall.

It was an organic happening that showed Chicago at its best.

Naturally, the Cubs couldn’t leave well enough alone and sent out workers to powerwash The Wall a few days later, erasing all the thoughtful messages. They claimed the ongoing Wrigley renovations were the reason for the move, but it was a lame excuse from executives who saw the chalk-writing fans as a nuisance rather than a blessing.

It never happened again, of course, and we have only photos and our memories to remind us of that beautiful time in November when all was right with the world.

What if … ?

Watching Milwaukee Brewers fans celebrate their championship Friday might have been painful for some Cubs fans, but it also should remind them of how good it felt in 2016 and how you can never take success for granted.

Everyone said the 2016 Cubs were a young team and would do it again.

Everyone was wrong.

The Cubs couldn’t replicate that season for many reasons, and the architect of it, Theo Epstein, resigned as team president after the 2020 season.

Would Epstein still be with the Cubs if they hadn’t won a World Series 10 years ago?

“Well, I wouldn’t have left voluntarily,” Epstein said when I asked him at the 10-year celebration in July. “We were all here to do one thing. We got it accomplished. Everyone was in it together. Everyone can die happy. We had more work to do, but that’s when it sunk in for me, knowing that I could choose my path going forward. (But) I wasn’t going to leave without getting the job done.”

Can everyone die happy? Would not winning a World Series have left a blot on the lives of Cubs fans?

Epstein left without getting back to the World Series, resigning with a year left on his deal and handing the job off to his friend and longtime wingman, Jed Hoyer, who was the general manager during the rebuild.

The Cubs haven’t won a division title in a full season since 2017 and have gone to the postseason only twice in Hoyer’s six-year reign, losing to the Brewers in the NL Division Series last year and in the wild-card round to the San Diego Padres last month.

Hoyer will be under the gun again to make the Cubs a realistic championship contender, but apparently only from fans since Chairman Tom Ricketts appears satisfied with the status quo. The Brewers’ stellar bullpen performance in the regular season and postseason was in stark contrast to Hoyer’s bullpen construction. Remember, the Cubs were prohibitive favorites to win the division but finished 14 games behind the Brewers.

The pen has been Hoyer’s Achilles heel since he took over from Epstein, and a complete makeover looks inevitable … again.

Reign delay

During White Sox playoff games in Cleveland in October, I went looking for the visiting weight room where the Cubs players gathered during the Game 7 rain delay and outfielder Jason Heyward gave his inspirational speech that’s credited with the clinching win. First baseman Anthony Rizzo called it “the best rain delay of all time” after the Cubs won.

Alas, the Guardians renovated Progressive Field recently to add a high-priced seating area for fans, and the visitors clubhouse was moved from behind first base to well down the right-field line. The old weight room was history, and the area was being used as a space for pre- and postgame news conferences.

There was no sign marking the epic moment in Cubs history, or any carving on the wall that read: “Heyward was here.”

Epstein told Rizzo and David Ross on the “Lovable Reunion” podcast that Fox honchos originally wanted to stop the game during the delay and restart it the next day to get better ratings.

“They were asking about the rain, and they said we can suspend this game right now and pick it up tomorrow night in primetime,” Epstein said. “It’s going to be worth like 25 million more viewers. And he was like, ‘As tempting as that is, we can’t f−−−−−− do that. … This is World Series, Game 7.'”

Would the Cubs have still won if Game 7 was stopped and Heyward never had to give his rain-delay speech?

Fortunately it lasted only 17 minutes, and Fox didn’t get a chance to mess with fate.

Feel-good story

The midterm elections on Tuesday remind me of a conversation with Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts during the 2016 postgame celebration in Cleveland. She said the Cubs win helped take her mind off the ugliness of the presidential election pitting Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

“That’s what was great about this,” she said. “It was a great distraction. What a great story. This election has been hurtful for the whole country and sad to watch. This is a good, feel-good story.”

The 2026 World Series was another feel-good story, just without the Cubs.

Final words

On Nov. 6, 2016, I ended a column about the Cubs’ celebration with these words:

“Sooner or later Chicago will come down from this high and get back to life as we know it, namely scraping ice off our windshields with credit cards. But for now, enjoy this organic moment as long as you can. It may never be this fun again.”

Hopefully I’ll be proved wrong about that someday.

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