When the Chicago Cubs picked up Aroldis Chapman just before the MLB trade deadline in late July, Caitlin Swieca was conflicted.
Chapman was accused of a domestic violence incident and served a 30-game suspension from MLB for the offense. His 100-plus mph fastball was overshadowed by the details of the assault of his 22-year-old girlfriend, although police ultimately decided not to press charges.
So a day after Chapman became a Cub, Swieca took a stand on Twitter. She announced she would donate $10 to the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic in Chicago for every save Chapman earned for the Cubs.
More than 430 others have donated to her campaign with DVLC. And Chapman, serendipitously enough, blew a save in Game 7 of the World Series and wasn't on the mound when Chicago broke the curse.
Swieca cried tears of joy. But after Chapman gave up a game-tying two-run home run to Cleveland center fielder Rajai Davis in the eighth inning, she had something much different on her mind.
"I went from thinking, 'We all compromised what we believed in to root for this guy, and he's gonna blow it,' to celebrating a World Series title with someone else on the mound," Swieca said Thursday. "Couldn't have scripted it better."
The DVLC fundraising started with a goal of $11,000, which is a thousandth of Chapman's $11 million salary. That goal was acheived during the regular season, but during the postseason, the number of shares of the campaign's page by Twitter users rose dramatically, Swieca said. The goal got pushed up again, and then again.
By Wednesday night, more than $27,000 had been raised. Thursday morning, #Pitchin4DV, as it's called, had passed $31,000. One man, Dave Ahlman, put up $253, a combination of how many games Chapman played, how many innings he pitched, his strikeouts, his wins and his saves. He doubled his donations for the NLDS and NLCS games, and the World Series was worth three times as much.
"In exchange for renting Aroldis Chapman for a year," Ahlman posted on Twitter. "Happy to help."
'Arrogant' Maddon
San Francisco Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow started his career as a member of the Chicago Cubs in 1976. Though happy for his former team's success, Krukow blasted Cubs Manager Joe Maddon on Thursday morning when he joined the Murph and Mac Show, arguing that the three-time manager of the year's arrogance nearly cost his team the series.
"The Cubs won this thing despite overmanaging from Joe Maddon," Krukow said. "It was awful. It was the arrogance that he was trying to put his signature on what was gonna happen. And it happened despite taking out [Kyle] Hendricks early, taking out Lester early, putting in Chapman when he was tired.
"I was so outraged at what I was watching ... look, he's done a great job, granted. I mean, come on. He's done a great job. He was the guy that kept them going down three games to one ... but at some point in time, you cannot be arrogant enough to think that you have to put your signature on the game.
"As it turned out, they won despite him, despite his overmanaging. And it'll be forgotten by a lot of people, but it won't be forgotten by me and a lot of people."
Sports on 11/05/2016