In sports broadcasting, everything is on a deadline. If a piece can’t get out in a timely manner, then all of your work will have been for naught and it will have gone to waste. As a result, writers and illustrators often get ahead of the curve and put together pieces of stories before they happen.
In many instances, these pieces go to waste as the scenario they are meant to cover never happens. This exact scenario happened for the New York Times when the Cleveland Indians blew their 3-1 lead in the World Series and allowed the Chicago Cubs to defeat them in seven games to claim their first world championship in 108 years.
Andrea Zagata had this in mind when she set out to mimic the famous Norman Rockwell scene titled “The Dugout”. The famous print shows a number of Cubs from the 1948 season looking dismayed at the state of their team as Boston Braves fans jeered at them from the stands.
This now famous print was the on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post at a time in history when the town of Chicago was having an especially dismal baseball season. Both their Cubbies and White Sox were having terrible years and the fans had nothing to look up to. The print captured the feeling of the town perfectly and it would serve as an even better representation of the entirety of the Cubs fandom for the next 68 years.
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So, when the Cubs were down in the World Series three games to one, it only made sense that this scene should be recreated. The modern photo would capture players in various forms of dejection and dismay at the state of their modern franchise haunted by past and present failures.
The final result is a modern version of a classic.
Freelance illustrator, Robert Carter incorporated modern elements into the Rockwell staple. Carter’s version included Kyle Schwarber, Jake Arrietta, Javier Baez, Kris Bryant and Manager Joe Maddon with heckling fans including Tom Hanks and Cleveland royalty, LeBron James.
The newly envisioned Rockwell shows the equally dejected Cubs with equally gleeful and jeering fans in the stands. Compiled into one image, the new image would have captured the feeling of the Cubs and their fans perfectly.
Fortunately for the franchise and its fans, this scene never came to be. The Cubs stormed back in epic fashion and captured their third World Series title in 141 seasons in what is being lauded as one of the best World Series in modern memory.
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While this beautiful piece of art was never used for its intended purpose, it is undeniable that it is an incredible work or art that would have been an instant classic.