Cubs historical sleuthing: Video board edition

Thanks to reader Bob Hankla for responding to my request for more sleuthing photos. If you have any — no matter how old! — send ‘em along.

Also, I haven’t done much sleuthing of recent photos so this was a good exercise. The photo above is cropped; here’s the full photo:

The Cubs are playing the Brewers. The names are a bit blurry but readable, and this is an unusual combination of players.

The key is the batter. It’s Addison Russell. He is, per the board, pinch-hitting.

So I looked that up. Russell pinch-hit in exactly two games against the Brewers in his career.

This one was actually a fairly important game. This happened Friday, September 16, 2016. The Cubs had already clinched the division title because the Cardinals had lost to the Giants late the previous night, but celebrated the title that day after Miguel Montero won the game 5-4 with a walkoff homer in the 10th inning.

This particular at-bat by Russell happened in the bottom of the ninth. The Cubs entered that inning trailing 4-2 and scored one run on an RBI single by Chris Coghlan. They then loaded the bases and Russell singled to tie the game [VIDEO].

You know what happened after that game in 2016. No matter what happens in the future, we’ll always have 2016.