You wanna pizza this, Illinois?
With the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs fighting for the National League pennant, Queens state senators have placed a tasty bet with their members of the Illinois Senate over the outcome of the championship series.
State Senators Joseph Addabbo, Leroy Comrie, Michael Gianaris and Jose Peralta announced the wager on Tuesday morning outside Citi Field in Flushing, where the Mets won the first two games of the National League Championship Series (NLCS) against the Cubs this weekend.
The Mets took a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series Tuesday night with a 5-2 victory over the Cubs at Wrigley Field. They’ll go for the series clincher tonight with another young starting pitching prospect, Steven Matz, taking the mound for the Mets against the Cubs’ Jason Hammel.
Before the NLCS started, Addabbo and his fellow Queens senators agreed to the wager with Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and his colleagues. Should the Mets win, the Illinois Senate will ship deep-dish Chicago-style pizza to the Queens senators; should the Cubs prevail, the Queens senators will send to the Illinois Senate thin-crust New York-style pizza.
The losing delegation must also congratulate the winning team on the floor of its Senate chambers, and the senators must wear the winning team’s apparel during a cleanup day within their districts.
With the Mets needing two more wins to defeat the Cubs and advance to the World Series, Addabbo and his colleagues expressed confidence that Queens’ home team will ultimately prevail.
“There are two things I know for sure: New York has better baseball and better pizza,” Addabbo said. “I hope that Senator Cullerton looks good in blue and orange, and I wish our counterparts in Chicago the best of luck in coming up with a creative way to keep the deep-dish pizza warm while on its way to Queens.”
The Mets took Games 1 and 2 of the NLCS before sellout crowds at Citi Field on Saturday and Sunday, carried by the strong pitching of starters Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard and the bat of second baseman Daniel Murphy, who hit a home run in the first inning of each game.
Murphy again homered in Game 3, while starter Jacob deGrom held the Cubs to two runs over seven innings. The Mets also benefited from two costly Cubs miscues: Yoenis Cespedes scored in the sixth on a Michael Conforto strikeout that got away from catcher Miguel Montero; and David Wright scored in the seventh on a sharp line drive off Cespedes’ bat that Cubs outfielder Kyle Schwarber couldn’t handle.
One more win will give the Mets their first National League pennant since 2000, while the Cubs are looking to break a 70-year-old pennant drought.
Updated Oct. 21, 9:30 a.m.
