Wrigley Field has been around since 1914, and the League Championship Series has been part of the MLB postseason since 1969. The Chicago Cubs have made the NLCS for the third straight year which is something that has never happened before. Being part of baseball's final four is something the Cubs have done six total times in their history and the past three years have accounted for half of those appearances. In just a matter of three years, NLCS games at Wrigley Field have gone from a rarity to part of the norm.

The first NLCS game at Wrigley Field will take place tonight at 8:00 CDT as they look to win their first game of the series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

NLCS history at Wrigley

A team had to win a League Championship Series in order to win the league pennant starting in 1969. The Cubs had a pennant drought from 1946-2015 and during that span, they participated in the NLCS four times. Their postseason drought of 39 years, which started in 1946, ended in 1984 when they won the NL Eastern Division. At the time the NLCS was a best-of-five series with the first two games in one team's venue and the last three at the other team's venue. Note that there was no NLDS as the time, so the 1984 Cubs went right to the championship series. The first ever NLCS game at Wrigley Field took place on October 2nd, 1984 in a day game against the San Diego Padres. The Cubs won the first two games at Wrigley in that NLCS before losing all three in San Diego to lose the pennant.

The first night NLCS game at Wrigley took place in 1989 when they faced the San Francisco Giants in a best-of-seven series. The Cubs lost game one but won game two before bowing out in five games by losing all three road games again. The darkest moment in Chicago Cubs history took place at Wrigley Field in the 2003 NLCS, when they had a 3-2 series lead in game 6.

The Cubs blew a 3-0 lead in the eighth inning as the opposing Florida Marlins rallied for eight runs to win 8-3. The Cubs lost game 7 at Wrigley 9-6 to lose the pennant yet again. By that point, the Cubs were 0-3 in the NLCS and 6-11 in those three series's games.

After a 45 year period of just three NLCS appearances, they made it back in 2015 for the first time under Tom Ricketts and Theo Epstein.

They got swept by the Mets, which continued their pennant drought and dropped their all-time championship series game record at Wrigley to 4-6. In 2016 they finally won their first NLCS in history and first pennant since 1945 on October 22nd when they defeated the Dodgers 5-0 at Wrigley Field. That was the last championship series game at Wrigley before tonight's game.

Third year in a row

Despite being down 0-2 in the series, the atmosphere in Chicago should be nothing short of electric. This will be the NLCS debut for the new Park at Wrigley, which is a social area right outside the west wall of the stadium. The championship series logos are on the field and the gates will open two hours before game time.

Tickets on StubHub have dropped in price because of the 0-2 deficit the Cubs face, but a sell out crowd is still expected.

The record for the Cubs in the NLCS at home is now 6-6 going into tonight's game. And the Cubs want to add a few more wins to that record to get back into this series. The flags were blowing out this afternoon at Wrigley, so it could be a more offensive game even with the good pitching matchup of Kyle Hendricks and Yu Darvish.
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