Chicago Cubs, still trailing in World Series, can find hope in 1985 Royals

On Monday back in Kansas City, Frank White was on the phone, listening to a statistic he could not believe. In the last 30 baseball seasons, 10 teams have faced a 3-1 deficit in the World Series. All 10 have lost; none even pushed the series to a decisive seventh game.

Not since the 1985 Royals has a team pulled off a 3-1 comeback in the Fall Classic. Not since the 66-year-old White was a 35-year-old second baseman has baseball seen such a stunner in the season’s final days.

“Wow,” White said, taking a break from his post as the Jackson County executive. “We felt it was historic, but maybe it didn’t get the coverage it deserved.”

The story of the 1985 Royals is relevant now, of course, because the Chicago Cubs are trying to equal the feat. After surviving Game 5 of the World Series on Sunday night, notching a 3-2 victory over the Cleveland Indians at a raucous Wrigley Field, the series shifts back to Progressive Field in downtown Cleveland on Tuesday night. Chicago starter Jake Arrieta will take the mound against Cleveland’s Josh Tomlin as the Cubs try to extend the World Series to a Game 7 for the third time in six years.

“We’ve won three in a row many times this year,” Arrieta said Sunday.

That no team has come back from a 3-1 deficit in the World Series in 31 years is surprising, of course, but perhaps not totally shocking. In World Series history, 45 team have trailed 3-1 after four games. Just five went on to win the championship.

If you include seven-game league championship series in the sample size, precedent is slightly more encouraging to the Cubs. Since the Royals came back from a 3-1 deficit against the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1985 American League Championship Series, six other teams have come back from the same deficit in the ALCS or NLCS, including the 2004 Boston Red Sox, who erased a 3-0 deficit against the New York Yankees, and the 2007 Red Sox, who came back from a 3-1 deficit against the Indians.

The Red Sox manager in those seasons? Cleveland skipper Terry Francona.

“We know we’ve got a challenge on our hands,” Arrieta said. “But this isn’t a time of year where anything’s going to come easy. We’re going to have to earn it.”

On Sunday, the Cubs channeled Rocky Balboa and embraced the role of underdog, a slightly absurd development for a team that won 103 games. But if the Cubs can steal a road victory in Game 6, they would send right-hander Kyle Hendricks, the National League ERA champion, to the mound for Game 7. The rub: The Indians would counter with ace Corey Kluber. In this sense, White says, the Cubs would be smart to study the 1985 Royals.

Thirty-one years ago, the Royals lost the first two games of the World Series at home and fell behind 3-1 after Cardinals Game 1 starter John Tudor twirled another gem in Game 4. The Royals survived a Game 5 in St. Louis, riding the left arm of starter Danny Jackson. Then they pulled out a cardiac 2-1 victory in Game 6, taking advantage of a missed called at first base from umpire Don Denkinger and a ninth-inning meltdown from the Cardinals.

All these years later, the Royals point to the fact that they scored both runs in the ninth — the tying and game-winning runs — with just one out. But controversy aside, White believes the Royals won the World Series in Game 6.

“The odds are definitely stacked against you, once you get down 3-1,” White said. “You take it one day at a time, and once we had it tied 3-3, it just seemed like the momentum turned to us.”

The Royals rolled in Game 7, claiming the championship in an 11-0 victory. And perhaps the Cubs would feel similar momentum if they find a way to scratch out a win Tuesday. But there is also this: The Cubs will have to win Games 6 and 7 on the road after being down 3-1. That hasn’t been done since the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates came back against the Baltimore Orioles.

Still, there is hope. On Tuesday night, the Cleveland Indians will clinch their first World Series championship since the 1948, or the Cubs will force a winner-take-all Game 7. Here in Cleveland, the idea of a Game 7 after being up 3-1 might induce some chills, especially after what occurred in June. In June, the Cleveland Cavaliers won the city’s first major professional sports title since 1964, winning the NBA Finals in seven games after trailing 3-1 to the Golden State Warriors. Now the situation is reversed, and the Cubs are trying to pull a Cavs.

“They just got to build on what they did last night,” White said.

On Sunday morning, before the Cubs won Game 5, Cubs manager Joe Maddon received a text from a man named Andy Freed, the radio announcer for the Tampa Bay Rays, where Maddon previously worked. Freed had been listening to the radio, and he wanted to send along a positive thought.

“He was listening to Casey Kasem this morning, and they had 1979 on,” Maddon said. “And he wanted me to know in 1979 the Orioles were up 3-1 against the Pirates, and the Pirates came back and won. So all these feel a little different.”

This story was originally published October 31, 2016 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Chicago Cubs, still trailing in World Series, can find hope in 1985 Royals."