Baseball is a family thing with the Spiegels.

I love it and relate to it based on early interactions with the archetypal baseball fan, my Pops.

My brother’s high school team was good, and they were gods to a fourth-grader like me. After constant pestering, I was made official bat boy. I beamed when their team bus would pick me up at elementary school for away games.

In daily driveway games of what he called “Tenni-Ball,” a round tabletop with a strike zone painted on it was an effective catcher. I was allowed to play outfield across the street.

I was the youngest fan our brood had, for decades.

My nephew is a very good 17-year-old pitcher on an even better high school team. I’ve written about him here before, when Pops and I watched him strike out 7 of 9 hitters as a 14-year-old.

A few weeks ago I sat behind his mother and watched a ballgame over both of their shoulders.

My nephew was in the dugout of a Frontier League ballfield in Joliet. He stood on the top step the entire game, rooting on his teammates as they battled for an IHSA championship. For him, it was as big an atmosphere as he has ever played in.

They believe they are men, and by many rights they are. But they are still kids in our eyes as we watch. They remind us of our distant youth, and of time’s incessant march. My sister birthed that lefty pitcher with the mutton chops. Now he’s as old as she was when she was an all-state soccer player. I went to her games and watched then, too.

It was truly great to be there; a heart-pumping atmosphere on a June night with a comforting chill that reminiscent of October.

Baseball is a very good game, demanding unique focus and skills from the people who play it.

The ace fought his way through 5 shutout innings. His opposition did the same.

Our heroes hit fastballs hard, and it felt like a breakthrough was imminent. But a runner was caught stealing in their only rally, and some good contact went unrewarded.

In the sixth, the other guys got a hit, a well-executed bunt, and then a double to the gap to plate the game’s only run. And that would be that, 1-0.

I watch the pros every night, looking for windows into who they are as people. It’s how I’m wired.

Players this young can’t hide their humanity. Our ace was rattled; there was a balk and some wildness, which he impressively survived without further damage. The batters trying to tie it up for the final six outs understandably felt the pressure at the end. Eagerly trying to deliver, they didn’t go as deep into counts as they had so often before.

Patience is demanded. Calmness is rewarded. Anxiety is often punished. The game helps us grow.

What a tremendous season for the young men of my nephew’s high school. What a great time in his life, with the promise of another chance with more involvement a year from now.

What a fun experience for this writer to have a team to root for with fervor. My sister was so nervous she couldn’t talk, and I respected that as we just watched.

We watched a game I’m glad my family has chosen to love.

By Matt Spiegel–

(CBS) That was the craziest sporting event I’ve ever attended.

It may have been the greatest Game 7 in World Series history.

It surely was the most anticipated baseball game in decades, and it lived up to every bit of the hype.

There are myriad schematic machinations to be broken down regarding the Cubs’ thrilling 8-7 win in 10 innings against the Indians on Wednesday night. Dozens of key plays demand scrutiny, bizarre managerial mistakes beg explanation and moments of personal redemption deserve due. But details will eventually fade. In a few years, we’ll have to look them up as evidence to back up what we’ll always remember.

It’s the volatile emotional swings this 2016 clincher provided that will stick. The game was alternately thrilling and painful, shifting between premature parade planning and the seeming certainty of encroaching doom. It was exactly what a 108-year drought-ender had to be, a classic microcosm of a century’s struggle.

“It felt like we played a whole season in one game,” Cubs outfielder Dexter Fowler said afterward.

Tell me about it. So much got twisted from the first inning to the 10th that Fowler’s lead-off home run feels like it happened in August.

I’ve always been convinced that the baseball gods are giggling sadists. This night devolved from a three-run eighth-inning lead into absolute torture. Even when the game rewards you, it usually hurts along the way.

How dark did you get?

When Aroldis Chapman came in from the bullpen in the eighth inning, the dread hit me. From the moment his acquisition was just a rumor, I wanted no part of him. I woke up that morning on July 25 hoping the trade would fall apart and discussed it on air all week.

Chapman’s appearances have always stressed me out and produced uncomfortable feelings — and not just because of moralism regarding his off-the-field issues. I find him incredibly frustrating as a pitcher. His fastball can be very straight, and if it drops a tick from the devastating 101 mph and above, he’s beatable. His trust in his slider is inconsistent. And as the months went on, it became apparent that his situational comfort zone was extremely narrow. A clean ninth inning seemed to be the one time he’d shine.

So when the only real unlikable player on this great Cubs team blew the lead via a Rajai Davis home run, bitter fear had already been flowing.

I got angry at Chapman. I got angry at the front office, who I’d felt had sold their soul just a bit in order to get him. I got angry at manager Joe Maddon, whose unnecessary misuse of Chapman in Game 6 had clearly weakened him. I stayed angry at Maddon, reflecting on the horrific early hook for Kyle Hendricks and the insertion of Jon Lester and David Ross mid-inning with a runner on base. I stayed angry at Maddon some more, thinking that Lester could have gotten out of the eighth inning himself and allowed Chapman his precious clean ninth.

The brilliant Zen philosopher baseball manager let the pressure exceed the pleasure several times in these last three games. He seemed to stick with a theoretical plan of using the players he thought he was supposed to use and stopped reading the situations. He pulled starters too early, put relievers in dangerous spots and overused his strikeout closer. The fact that Maddon got away with it and won a World Series avoided massive damage to his legacy.

In the midst of the darkness, rain came and everything paused. The vibes reset. We found out later that the Cubs had an emotional players’ meeting in the weight room, with Jason Heyward leading an impassioned discussion about refusing to quit. Chapman apparently was in tears, feeling the weight of his Maddon-assisted failure. The Cubs emerged from the 17-minute break rejuvenated and frisky.

Soon, I felt the same. A two-run 10th inning rally was beautiful, with Ben Zobrist’s heroics cementing his opportunity to be a car dealer and/or restaurateur in this town for decades. Carl Edwards Jr. came in to close the game; I felt giddy and confident. Chapman wouldn’t be on the mound for a highlight we’ll see for a century to come.

Edwards faltered, and Mike Montgomery entered with a one-run lead. I still somehow felt giddy and confident. It was time.

And then there it was, the final out. Next came the on-field celebration, a phone-buzzing onslaught of congratulatory texts and the sudden realization that we live in a brave, new world.

The “lovable losers” tag is officially history. The goat mythology is reduced to an incredulous story for your grandkids to doubt. No more late-night talk show hosts will go to the punchline well and ladle out lazy Cubs shots.

These Chicago Cubs are built to contend for a good long while. “Wait ‘til next year” no longer reads like wistful hope; it’s become a foreboding threat.

Yes, there are some details I’ll remember. Corey Kluber’s repeated short rest caught up to him; he struck out no one in his four-plus innings for the first time all year. Indians manager Terry Francona, who owned this postseason with progressive bullpen creativity, waited one batter too long to go to ace reliever Andrew Miller, who himself was beaten up for the first time in a month. David Ross committed an error and couldn’t stop a wild pitch that scored two runs, only to make up for it with a home run in his final game. Javier Baez made two sloppy errors, then provided his own home run redeemer.

But the exhausting, temperamental emotional test that fans were forced to pass is what will linger. The giggling sadist baseball gods demanded one more pound of flesh from Cubs nation. And you had no choice but to give it up.

This time, however, the story didn’t end there. The heavens opened, and showers cleaned the slate.

Theo Epstein’s 2016 Cubs are designed as beautifully as his 2004 Red Sox were.  This team was too good, too complete and too mentally strong to fall down and simply not get up.

On Wednesday night, the Cubs changed the sports world for good.

Wrigley Field is no longer just an incredibly pleasant summer-long diversion.

It is the home of the world champion Chicago Cubs.

Say it loud, as much as you need to, until it feels as real as it should.

Matt Spiegel is a host on the Spiegel and Goff Show on 670 The Score from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on weekdays. Follow him on Twitter @MattSpiegel670.

In 45 games between June 13 and Aug. 4 of 2009, Gordon Beckham hit .358 (OPS of .995) with 17 doubles, 6 home runs and 38 RBI.

The No. 8 overall pick in the previous year’s draft officially was a phenom.

I openly likened his stature, stance and ceiling to Paul Molitor. Craig Biggio was another comp being thrown around. Some on the radio station said they wouldn’t trade him for then-San Diego trade bait Adrian Gonzales.

Hawk Harrelson said Beckham had a great “baseball face.” My show partner deeply admired his hair.

Season 2 brought a lot of public accessibility, including a weekly radio hit on our show. Gordon was everywhere, a precocious face of the franchise.

But he never approached that first summer of his baseball career. Five years later, Beckham has been sent in a waiver trade to the Los Angeles Angels for unspecified refuse, and we’re left to figure out how his value got so low.

We wonder why he never learned to be a big-league hitter.

Those weekly interviews often were painful. It’s not that Beckham wasn’t affable, likable, smooth and willing. In that 2010 season Beckham was hitting under .200 on June 1. The OPS was .561 on July 1.

His swing was exposed as incredibly long. It took far too much time for his bat to come through the hitting zone. The data says he never figured out how to consistently make good contact against a decent fastball.

He internalized failure deeply, something White Sox general manager Rick Hahn noted this week. When I would ask Gordon about his struggles in that second season, I could tell how lost in them he was.

The man was overwhelmed, experiencing his first athletic struggles at the highest possible level.

Beckham would hint at something specific he might change, but then always talk about “getting back to being myself” or “just be me.”

He did change some specifics through the years. You remember the crouch. The hands would move up … or down.

But the swing never got shorter; the contact rate never really went up. Every season there was an annual glimpse of possibilities. This year’s came in the No. 2 spot, as pitchers everywhere decided to challenge him instead of emerging superstar Jose Abreu.

But the White Sox never dealt him during one of those stretches.

We stopped the weekly interviews after one season. During a hot stretch his name would be suggested as a guest. I always cringed, and told the listeners I thought our talks screwed him up.

It was a tongue-in-cheek bit that deep down I thought of as a truism: Beckham discussing his struggles only made them more difficult to overcome.

“Hey, Gordon, you obsess over failure too much. Let’s talk about it on the air.”

And his brain didn’t help him.

So what’s to be learned here?

1. This game is brutal. And cruel.

2. The truly great organizations know how to trade a prospect that might be a bust before the rest of the league figures it out. The Sox should have struck quicker.

3. A slower development track is not to be derided. Beckham had just 312 minor league at bats. If time allowed pitchers to find his weakness at Class AAA, maybe he could have worked on it more calmly.

I don’t think Gordon Beckham will be one of those discarded 27-year-olds who figure it out somewhere else, but I’d be happy for him if he does.

Just don’t ask me to put him on the show.

MESA, Ariz.  (CBS) — The place is beautiful. It is comfortable. It is sensible.

The place will definitely be profitable, especially when you consider that the people of Mesa have handled the small matter of the bill.

You’ve heard that Cubs Park in Mesa is a mini-Wrigley. You know the dimensions are the same, with desert air accommodated by additional footage to the outfield walls. But had you noticed the exact color match of the seats, the exact bleacher-esque slope on the outfield lawn or the approximated rooftops across what would be Waveland Avenue?

Yes, even those obstructing enemies are an admitted part of a scene worth replicating. You didn’t see a makeshift courtroom or a Tom Tunney imposter, but you imagined them, along with a functioning fire house and an imported strain of pig-sized rats.

The place feels more like a big league ballpark than any spring complex you’ve ever been in. Especially late, when 12,000 people cheer on a late-inning rally.

You know they need to fix the real deal in Lake View. But this here makes you believe that they’ll know how to do it right if they ever start.

You leave the stadium in Mesa to walk across the long dirt path towards the offices and training complex. Players make their way past you for the ballgame, and a few autograph seekers line the path. You realize the possibilities. You know how the Green Bay Packers’ players ride young fans’ bicycles from their locker room to the practice field every August at Lambeau, and you see some future variant with Cubs players mingling on March pregame treks.

Speaking of football, you listen to the baseball boss bemoan the lack of a “meeting culture” in baseball and hear how he strove to be able to address his organization “like Belichik.” And then he shows you the lecture hall, with a giant video screen, a kickass sound system and seats for every camp attendee. You see one angle of how he hopes to instill the “Cubs Way.” Later in the day, you talk to a high-ranking executive of another team, and see how jealous he is. His players are given handouts in a cafeteria.

You see the two-floor, open-space weight room with the championship banners hanging from the ceiling, and you remember the embarrassed tone with which the baseball boss pointed out how ancient those titles are. But the room reeks of aspiration. Wrigley is painted on the wall. The big league goal is clear.

And then you consider the placement of that weight room. It bridges a gap between the minor league clubhouse and the big league lockers. Eighteen-year-olds are encouraged to work out with 28-year-olds, to find their mentor and follow him around.

Nothing in this building is designed or placed without conscious forethought. Like nearly all things under the baseball boss, you realize that even if the plan doesn’t work, you can’t help but see the wisdom in the efforts.

Back at the ballpark, you walked the full length of the press box/suite level and came across an expansive deck on both sides. On this day, you see four or five different vibrant private parties. There are banks and corporations plying their employees or clients with beer, hot dogs and desert Cubdom. This is profit in action, or valuable trade/payoff for corporate partners.

And the sightlines were, as in every spot you stood, perfect.

You’ve had quite a day. You worked from a radio booth and toured the joint. Then you took your seats behind the plate.

You watched a hodgepodge of usable veterans, failed prospects and reclamation projects start the game. But you stuck around for the later innings, when a bevy of young talents gave you a one-game sample of their efforts.

You saw Josh Vitters get picked off. You chuckled. You saw Kris Bryant strike out. You jokingly wrote him off. Then you saw Albert Almora line a go-ahead RBI single, Jorge Soler not get out of the box at full speed on a well played groundout and Mike Olt see a pitch well enough to blast a two-run homer.

You were in a version of the future for an inning or two. It was compelling. Your seatmate said it was his favorite Cubs inning in three years.

Earlier, the baseball boss shook his head when asked about hustling one of his prize young players to the big leagues. The fans want a cookie, he is told. Javier Baez is briefly pictured as a snickerdoodle. The boss groans with polite exasperation and takes the metaphor further.

“I’m shaking my head at the notion that we should make baseball decisions based on the notion that we should give our fans cookies,” Cubs president Theo Epstein said. “We’re cooking the whole meal. We want to give them an annual feast. The only way to make fans happy is to give them pennant races and October baseball on an annual basis.

“Nothing is going to get in the way of that — not giving them a headline in November or December so we can get people off our backs for a few weeks, not promoting a kid before he’s ready so we can show off our shiny new toy.

‘We’re building something that’s going to be really special. We have to be patient to get there, and we’re asking a lot of our fans. But the reason we feel OK asking our fans to be patient is because we know what we’re building toward is going to be great.”

You later take stock of this rarity in the business. It’s not just a relentless stay on message. It’s a relentless stay on mission. The organization will do nothing to break from their vision.

Baez will only be deemed ready for second base in the big leagues if he passes some tests at Triple-A. Can he make the pivot on the double play? Does he know how to back up a grounder to first? He will not be deemed ready because Darwin Barney is traded or because they decide to just find a place for his bat.

This is what happens when a very smart and successful man is given free reign to do as he sees fit, is enabled to fight off inevitable intrusions of the business side and is allowed to slowly plot toward what he hopes is a decade of excellence.

It really doesn’t happen often in sports.

You mark this moment, at this new place, and wonder how it will read in your memory years from now.

Listen to Matt Spiegel on 670 The Score weekdays from 9 a.m.–1 p.m. CT on The McNeil & Spiegel Show. Follow him on Twitter @MattSpiegel670.