Baseball fans in one US city will quench their lifelong thirst for a championship victory when the World Series gets underway on Thursday (AEDT), in one of the most romantic baseball stories in many years.
Neither the Chicago Cubs or the Cleveland Indians have been successful in many years.
The Cubs, fresh off their National League Championship Series victory on Saturday, own the longest record of futility in major American sport, having failed to win the World Series since 1908.
Their 5-0 victory at home over the Los Angeles Dodgers set off frenzied street celebrations in Chicago.
The Cubs lost in the 1906 World Series but brought home championships the next two years, becoming the first team to reach the World Series for three seasons running.
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But the last 108 years have not been kind, with 1945 their last World Series appearance.
It was also the start of the Cubs' "Curse of the Billy Goat."
A Chicago restaurant owner came to a World Series game with his pet goat, but was kicked out of Wrigley Field - where the Cubs still play - because of the animal's bad smell, and allegedly condemned the team to futility.
One of the best stories heading into the World Series is Jason Kipinis, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs with a dream to play for the Cubs and end the title drought.
But he plays second baseman for Cleveland, and instead finds himself in the World Series in the opposing dugout.
"The 10-year-old boy in me is saying, 'Why does it have to be the Cubs?'" he told The Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland.
Kipnis' family and childhood friends remain Cubs fans: "And now I have to go try to disappoint all of them."
Meanwhile, Cleveland fans have their own claim to a lifetime of disappointment, winning their last title in 1948.
Cleveland fans conjured up the Curse of Rocky Colavito to blame for their suffering, after the 1959 trade of the popular outfielder.
One team will get the monkey off its back no later than November 2, the scheduled seventh game.
The other will go back to the drawing board, and its fans will continue to suffer.
