High School Senior Predicted Chicago Cubs Winning 2016 World Series In 1993


If all goes well for the Chicago Cubs, they will win the 2016 World Series, marking their first Major League Baseball championship in 108 long years. But is it possible for a high school student, presumably only 17 or 18 at the time, to have predicted that randomly in 1993? That’s how it seems, as a photo of a yearbook page from 23 years ago has gone viral, with the young man in one of the pictures claiming that the Chicago Cubs will win the World Series this year.

According to the Huffington Post, the photo was originally posted by Twitter user Thomas Dale, whose mother had once attended Mission Viejo High School in California. The post from Dale tells the story of how his mother showed him a page from her 1993 high school yearbook, where a young man named Michael Lee included the following words in his senior quote:

“Chicago Cubs. 2016 World Champions. You heard it here first.”

Since the photo was first shared on Monday morning, Dale’s tweet has since been re-tweeted almost 36,000 times and liked over 68,000 times. Not bad for a young man who may soon be writing his own senior quote for his yearbook, as Dale’s Twitter account shows him as being part of the graduating class of “SHS ’17.”

Though it’s so easy these days to use Photoshop or other editing tools to create a fake yearbook photo with a fake quote, the Huffington Post cited several sources in maintaining that the Michael Lee yearbook photo/quote does exist. One was a Redditor called “number1makeitso,” who found four copies of the same Mission Viejo HS yearbook, all with Lee’s prediction of the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series included. There’s also Lee’s high school classmate Marcos Meza, who spoke to Chicago’s WGN-TV and said that Lee still remembers the quote, having shared it himself on Facebook a good two months ago.

“When (Lee and I) connected on Facebook in 2009 I sent him the photo and told him we were nearing 2016. He posted the photo of his prediction on August 8th. After my Dodgers lost it was time for me to make this go viral and BeLEEve in the Cubs for 2016.”

Meza had also spoken to NBC Chicago about the now-viral prediction, and added some information on the man behind the quote. According to Meza, Michael Lee was raised in California, but had remained faithful to the Cubs as he had originally hailed from Chicago. And while Meza normally roots for his hometown Los Angeles Dodgers, he expressed confidence that his old high school buddy’s yearbook quote wasn’t just an off-hand remark from a lifelong Cubs fan, and isn’t meant to be a jinx in any way. In fact, it may be destiny at work for a team often referred to as MLB’s “lovable losers.”

“It’s not like (Cubs fan Steve) Bartman interfering with the ball (and costing Chicago the National League pennant in 2003) but I think the Cubs are there,” said Meza. “Those words went from (Lee’s) lips to God’s ear. And if I was a Cubs fan I’d be mad he didn’t predict it in 1999.”

On Tuesday, the Cleveland Indians kicked off 2016 World Series by blanking the Cubs, 6-0. Not a very promising start for the Cubs, but can Michael Lee’s yearbook quote prevail in the end, serving as a good luck charm for the Cubs and making Lee one of the unlikeliest “psychics” out there? It’s going to take at least four more games for the series to swing Chicago’s way, and that means there’s still a lot of time, and still a lot of hope for the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series for the first time since 2008.

[Featured Image by Scott Olson/Getty Images]

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