Should Have Listened To ‘Back To The Future’ And Put Money On The Cubs

Maybe we should have listed to Back to the Future Part II and put money on the Cubs. For those who haven’t been paying attention to the media, today is being hailed as Back to the Future Day, since it was on this day that Marty McFly traveled to the future with Doc. Brown. What’s more, the Cubs are closer to entering the World Series than they have been in more than a century.

There were more than a couple of unexpected occurrences when the second installment was filmed in 1989. The writers predicted that 25 years in the future, we’d be a little more advanced than we actually are. Though today’s styles are pretty extreme, they’re nowhere near the futuristic clothing the kids were wearing in the film. And, unfortunately, there aren’t hover boards in the homes of every kid. Although that technology has been developed, the price is far too high for them to be commonplace in homes.

However, it looks like the writers got something right: The Cubs actually have a chance of winning the World Series this year. And what’s ironic about the whole situation is that the writer who dreamed up the Cubs World Series prediction is actually a fan of their rival team, the St. Louis Cardinals.

Bob Gale, co-writer of the script for the movie Back to the Future Part II, grew up in Missouri and has always rooted for the Cardinals. He wrote the script with Chicago native Robert Zemeckis, and he talked about how the scenario of the Cubs winning the World Series came about.

He explained that the screenplay for the series left a lot up to the imagination. They thought of the most outrageous scenario possible and put it in the movie. Since the Cubs haven’t even come close to winning the series in the last 107 years, it seemed liked a pretty good incident to give Marty the idea to make money through sports betting.

“What better way to give him the idea than with a really outrageous scenario, which is the Cubs win the World Series?” Gale told ESPN. “It’s a double joke because they win the World Series against Miami — which [didn’t have] major league baseball in 1989… The second prediction, people don’t automatically realize when they watch the movie today, but we were predicting there would be a major league team in Miami.”

The entire scenario has turned into great marketing for Universal Studios, who released the 30th-anniversary edition of the trilogy Tuesday. A special, one-time showing of the entire trilogy in theaters everywhere is also set for tonight.

“Somebody once defined mixed emotions as watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your brand-new Mercedes. Was I rooting for the Cardinals? Yes. Was I also rooting for the Cubs? Yeah, maybe a little bit. This is one of those things where whatever happens, I’m a winner. If the Cardinals win, I’m happy about that… But if the Cubs win, then I look really smart.”

Tonight, the Cubs will play the Mets in Game 4 of the seven-game series. It will take place at Wrigley Field. If they win this game, the Chicago Cubs will continue their journey in the World Series, and we’ll see if the Back to the Future Part II prediction was right after all.

[Image via Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images]