Steve Bartman and Moises Alou of the Cubs battle for a foul ball in the 2003 National League Championship Series. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

The goat. The ghosts. The black cat. The meltdowns of 1969, 1984, 2003 and heaven knows how many other seasons. Bartman.

The yearly hope and the abysmal fades. The ivy covered walls and the addled brains of the fans. The legendary rave-out of a manager fed up with losing, the fans and the media. A countless parade of tired managers and players who go from great to trash as soon as they put on the uniform.

This is the 100 year legacy of the Chicago Cubs. 100 years since their last World Series win. 100 years of mostly really terrible teams and the “3000 (bleepin’) fans who come out here every (bleepin’) day, rippin’ every (bleepin’) thing you do.”

It’s been so long since the Cubs won a pennant, that this kid is an old man by now. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Allsport)

I have always enjoyed going to Wrigley Field to cover the Cubs for two main reasons. Seeing a ball game at Wrigley is a joy for a baseball fan. And there’s always the chance, almost every day, that you’ll see something during a baseball game that you’ve never seen before. And it almost always goes bad for the Cubs. A triple play. A no hitter spoiled with two outs in the top of the ninth inning on Opening Day. Two grand slams hit in the same inning against the Cubbies. You name it, I’ve seen it. Almost. (There’s always next year!)

In 2005, the Chicago White Sox earned a place in my heart forever. They won the World Series.  A Chicago team won the World Series IN MY LIFETIME. No goats, ghosts or black cats. Just solid baseball from a wonderful team with a manager who will always deserve a place in Chicago sports history along with Ditka, Payton, Jordan, Sosa and Fisk.

A White Sox fan celebrates the 2005 World Series Championship on Rush Street in Chicago. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

The results of the 2005 season for the Sox put the heat on the Cubs management like never before. They began to build a team to win the World Series. And they hired a no-nonsense manager, Lou Piniella, who is so different from White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, that he might as well live on the moon. The Cubs team for 2008 was built for one thing and one thing only: to win the World Series. This year. Period.

Manager Ozzie Guillen of the Chicago White Sox enjoys teasing other players and managers as much as managing a game. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Manager Lou Piniella of the Chicago Cubs has perfected the long, slow walk from the dugout to the mound and back like no other Major League manager. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Since May, both Chicago teams have been in first place in their respective divisions and leagues, with the exception of a few days for the White Sox. The Sox have had injuries galore and a Minnesota Twins team that just wouldn’t give up, breathing down their necks for the entire season. The Cubs have had a 2-4 game lead most of the year in their division with the Milwaukee Brewers, one of the finest smoke and mirror teams in the Major Leagues, nipping at their heals until recently. The Cubs have led the League in almost every category imaginable the entire season from team batting to runs scored to ERA…you name it. And aside from a every-year stint on the DL from Kerry Wood and Alfonso Soriano, they’ve done it relatively injury free.

The managers for both teams couldn’t be more different. Ozzie is a trickster, a joker, a guy with his heart on his sleeve that says anything and everything to the media. Lou is the seasoned veteran manager whose every move is calculated and who basically hates talking to the media. They both have gotten the best out of their players all season, using wildly different tactics and some surprisingly good players, especially on the south side of town where two players in particular, Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez, have become full-blown stars this year. The Cubs core players have proven star ability, like Carlos Zambrano, who threw the first Cub no-hitter since 1972 a few weeks ago, and Aramis Ramirez a third baseman with a lethal swing. But players like Mark DeRosa and Ryan Theriot have proven to be special cogs in the Cubs machinery this season. And Geovany Soto, the Cubs rookie catcher, may end up being the National League Rookie of the Year when it’s all said and done.

Until his injury, Carlos Quentin of the White Sox was leading the American League in home runs with 36 and had driven in 100 RBI’s. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Alexei Ramirez, a rookie from Cuba, has shown that he belongs as a starter on the White Sox roster. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Fans cheer as Aramis Ramirez of the Cubs celebrates a walk-off home run to beat the White Sox in June. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Carlos Zambrano, shown pitching against the Brewers in Milwaukee, became the first Cub to throw a no-hitter since 1972 by shutting down the Astros during a game played in Milwaukee after being canceled in Houston because of Hurricane Ike. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Mark DeRosa of the Cubs tips hit helmet to the crowd after hitting a grand slam against the Astros in August. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

The Sox, on the other hand, have swung from OK, to great to absolutely terrible all season long, with star players like Paul Konerko fighting off injuies and slumps and a bullpen that imploded following a back injury to Scott Linebrink midway through the summer.

Two first place teams from Chicago…with one improbable destiny…an all-Chicago World Series.

It would seem at this point that the White Sox have the toughest road. The Rays, Red Sox and Angels are formidable and the Sox had trouble with all three teams this season. The Cubs should slide right through their National League playoff opponents like they did all season. The team coasted to the NL Central title a couple of weeks ago, almost a foregone conclusion for many who predicated a World Series berth for the Cubs at the beginning of the season. And despite a potential Sports Illustrated cover jinx facing them, thanks to my photo last week of Aramis Ramirez raising his fist in victory after hitting a walk-off home run against the White Sox in June, they should go all the way to the big show this month. However, as many in Chicago have been constantly reminded…the Cubs are the Cubs, after all. The “Loveable Losers” with the key word being…..losers.

The White Sox could not have won their division in a more sensational manner. To win the title, the Sox managed a feat never before accomplished in Major League history. They beat three different teams in three days win the title. After a dismal last two weeks of the season, the Sox finished a 1/2 game behind the Twins. With a win over the Cleveland Indians, the Sox were forced to play a make-up game on Monday and defeated the Tigers, setting up a winner-take-all AL Central tiebreaking game against the Twins Tuesday night in Chicago. It was a nail-biter of a game; a pitchers duel between John Danks of the Sox and Nick Blackburn of the Twins. It was settled in the 7th inning when Jim Thome blasted a 461 foot solo home run off of Blackburn in the 7th inning. Thome, a 38 year old designated hitter and one of the nicest guys in all of sports, celebrated like a kid who just won the Little League World Series title.

Manager Ozzie Guillen and Jim Thome celebrate winning the AL Central title after a 1-0 win over the Minnesota Twins. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

But just the thought of an all-Chicago World Series is so tantalizing, so ridiculous, so unbelievable that it’s worth entertaining some thought. Actually, the same goes for having just the Cubs in a World Series. But it’s the first time in 102 years that both Chicago teams have been in the playoffs at the same time. If that’s not deep-dish pizza karma, I don’t know what is.

The last week of baseball season has Chicago fans on both sides of town looking forward to what could be a wild ride in the October playoffs. Can Ozzie make it through the American League with the injured players and the season-long up and down nature of their hitting and bullpen? Can Lou and his team built for a Title excise 100 years worth of Cubbie demons?

Stay tuned. This is gonna be fun.

Will Lou Piniella of the Cubs and Ozzie Guillen of the White Sox meet again in the World Series? Maybe hell could freeze over indeed. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

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Lawrence Tynes celebrates his game-winning field goal. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

“I just wanted to get out of the cold. I think I was inside before it went through. I knew it was good.”

—NY Giant kicker Lawrence Tynes on his winning field goal in the NFC Championship game in overtime that beat the Green Bay Packers for a trip to the Super Bowl.

Often the NFC and AFC Championship games are some of the best NFL football games of the season. They’re often better games than subsequent Super Bowls. This year, the hype of the game, the quarterbacks, the Giant road wins, the almost unbelievable season the Packers had, all were eclipsed by the hype…of the weather. All week before the game, weather forecasters around the country were talking about the first major Artic Air plunge into the U.S. of the winter, bringing with it single digit highs and barbaric wind chills to the midwest, just in time for the weekend.

Great. Just another day at the office for sports photographers.

The Getty Images crew for the NFC Championship game in Green Bay, photographers Jed Jacobsohn of San Francisco, Jonathan Ferrey of Portland, Jamie Squire of Kansas City and myself of Cheeseland by way of Chicago, and Los Angeles-based editors Christian Peterson and Maxx “Packer Boy” Wolfson, got a taste of what we were in for on Saturday night. We walked two and a half blocks from the hotel in downtown Milwaukee to Mo’s restaurant for dinner. It was 4 degrees and the wind was howling. A less than ten minute walk seemed like ten hours.

All week before the game, I fielded phone calls and e-mails from friends, family and co-workers about the game and surviving the weather. My good friend Chris Covatta called from Austin, Texas to commiserate. Chris and I had shot many a cold game in the past including a Bears-Packers game in Green Bay in the early 90’s when the temperature at the noon kick-off was 12 degrees. “I’ll thinking of you, buddy. I’ll be watching the game in front of the fireplace, eating a bowl of chili and drinking a beer.” Hey, thanks for that, ya two-bit slop artist.

I also talked to my boss in Los Angeles, Brandon Lopez, and told him I’d be expensing almost $30 worth of hand, body and toe warmers for the photographers. “JD, it’s 70 here today…just beautiful.” As Daffy Duck once said, “Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.” (Not what I really said.)

On the drive up to Green Bay the photographers watched the outside temperature gage on the dashboard of my car. It was 5 degrees when we left Milwaukee. Went it got to 0, the boys started taking pictures. Jonathan Ferrey grabbed his camera phone and sent a picture to his wife. At some point during the two hour drive, we all got phone calls from friends and family from around the country, all wondering the same thing. What’s the temperature and how were we going to survive? We all talked at length about it but when we got to the exit at Lombardi Drive in Green Bay, Jed Jacobsohn became obsessed with trying to figure a way out of shooting the game. “Can’t we just turn around and go back?” he lamented. Fat chance.

The temperature gage hits zero on the way to Green Bay. (Photo by Jamie Squire)

We parked and walked about 100 yards to the media will-call window to pick-up our credentials. We hustled back, jumped back into my car and the real cussing began. It was cold. Damn cold. To quote singer Tom Waits, it was “colder than the ticket takers’ smile at the IBar Theatre on a Saturday night.” After sitting there for ten or 15 minutes, I turned to the crew. “Guys, we’ve got to go into the stadium at some point.” There was no putting off the reality of the day.

Jonathan Ferrey, Jonathan Daniel and Jed Jacobsohn prepare to enter the “Frozen Tundra” of Lambeau Field. (Photo by Jamie Squire)

The first order of business was to go out and shoot “fan features.” The fans are completely nuts in Green Bay before, during and after the games. Lambeau Field may have the best tailgating of any stadium in the country. They were out in force, but there were many more tents set up than I had ever seen in the parking lot. Maybe these fans weren’t as nuts as I thought after all. A quick walk proved that…they were.

A tailgater in the Lambeau Field parking lot wears shorts. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

It took us about a half and hour to get completely dressed for the game. I spent a lot of time thinking about Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest, who had just died a week or so before. How in the world did he survive 30 below tempetures at over 27,000 feet in 1953 without proper outwear, Gortex wind and rain breaker clothing and…HAND and TOE WARMERS!? Packer fans are normal. THAT guy was nuts. Believe me, we used up almost all of those warmers too. We put them every place that we could put them to help us stay warm: in our gloves, outer coat pockets, near our spare camera batteries, in our boots on our feet and toes.

Eli Manning of the Giants celebrates winning the NFC Championship. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

Eli Manning does an impression of his brother Peyton as he calls a play against the Packers. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Brett Favre of the Packers blows cold air as he watches the replay screen during the game. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

In one of the few moments they had to celebrate, Brett Favre jumps into the arms of teammate Scott Wells after throwing a pass to Donald Driver for a touchdown. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Crazy Packers fans pose the question: Do these guys have wives? (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

For the record: At kickoff, the temperature was -1 with a -23 wind chill. By the overtime, it was -3 with a -24 wind chill. Felt pretty much the same from beginning to end. Cold. It was the second coldest game ever played at Lambeau Field, the coldest being the 1967 “Ice Bowl” Championship game between the Packers and the Cowboys. (And NO, I WASN’T shooting that game. I was just a kid. Really.) The temperature for that game was -13 and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the wind chill was -46. As we all know, no one even knew what “wind chill” was in those days, much less talked about it. Frankly, I wish they wouldn’t talk about it now, either.

Members of the New York Giants take turns taking pictures of their teammates with the George S. Halas Championship trophy in the locker room. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

The game was exciting, especially for the estimated 53.9 million people watching from the comfort of their homes, in front of their fireplaces, eating chili and drinking beer. The Chicago Tribune reported that it was the most-watched title game since Dallas-San Francisco in 1995 and “attracted the most viewers for a non-Super Bowl game since the series final of ‘Seinfeld’ in 1998.” The Packers were doomed by 29 yards of rushing for the entire game, an off-day for Grandpa Brett Favre and a Giant team that didn’t back down from the weather or the Packers. The game was tied 20-20 the entire 4th quarter. Giant kicker Lawrence Tynes missed two field goals in that quarter, the last of which with no time on the clock that sent the game into overtime. Just what we wanted. Over-damn-time in that weather. I almost went from my position on the Packer side of the field to the Giant side of the field to whack that dude in the head with my monopod. He saved himself a beating by hitting the game-winner less than three mintues into the overtime. I was tasked with shooting the trophy ceremony which thankfully was held inside the Giant locker room. Unfortunately, my cameras were completely fogged up once I got inside the heat and party of the locker room. I scraped frost off of my lens and kept shooting and managed to get some nice moments.

We survived. And I really don’t think it was the worst game in terms of cold weather that I have ever worked. I can think of 3 or 4 games just within the last few years where I felt worse. My only regret is that Getty friends couldn’t have stayed over for a few days. I would have invited them over to my house, gave them a lesson on how to operate a two-stage, 7 speed snow blower, and had them take turns clearing the 7 inches of snow we got Monday off my driveway, sidewalks and patio…in 10 degree weather, with a wind chill of -14. I, of course, would have stayed by the fireplace, had a bowl of chili and drank a beer while they worked. A winter fantasy, to be sure.

“Oh ya hey dere, my beer froze, fer crimmie sakes!!!” (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

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Adam Pretty/Getty Images

For the second podcast in our ongoing series, we take you to Beijing, China – home of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Chief executive officer and co-founder of Getty Images, Jonathan Klein, talks with award-winning sport photographer Adam Pretty as he prepares to capture the world’s greatest athletes in action.

Since joining Getty Images, Adam has covered several major sporting events including the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics, 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics, 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games and the 2003 Rugby World Cup. His work has been recognized with multiple awards including two World Press Photo Sport Stories awards and the 2004 Walkley Award for the Press Photographer of the Year.

Click here to watch Jonathan’s interview with Adam.

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Clive Mason/Getty Images

It’s the point of focus on the car which makes this shot work so well….it gives a different perspective.  I used a 24mm wide-angle tilt and shift lens to capture this shot, which is equipment generally used in architecture photography.

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Julian Finney/Getty Images 

This is an image of Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic in the mixed doubles semi final.  They are both swinging for the ball which is quite rare in a doubles match.  It’s very rewarding when you get a nice frame of both players in action so close together. 

They went on to win in the final and Murray became the first Brit to win a senior Wimbledon title in 20 years.

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Stu Forster/Getty Images

This image shows the West Indian captain and his team mates celebrating their NatWest Series win.  The lucky glint of sun shining on the medal really makes the image not to mention the happy smiley people! 

West Indies weren’t the favourites and they indulged in some animated celebrations at the end of it all.

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On June 12, 2006 at the FIFA World Cup in Germany the face of Australian soccer changed forever. In a match between Australia and Japan at the Fritz Walter Stadium on June 12, 2006 in Kaiserslautern, Australia looked down and out but with minutes to go Tim Cahill secured a win for the team with two memorable goals, and John Aloisi sealed the result with a scorcher minutes from time. The Socceroos had created history not only by scoring a goal in the World Cup but, they had also won their first ever World Cup game.  Fast forward 12 months and the Socceroos are now highly fancied to take out the 2007 Asian Cup.  With some new faces and Graham Arnold as coach the team arrived in Singapore on the 21^st of June in hot and humid conditions to acclimatise before heading to Thailand for their first group match against Oman.  The Australians took on Oman in a tough fought match with Oman scoring the opening goal and putting the Socceroos under pressure.  A lot of time wasting by Oman didn’t help the Socceroos, but second half substitute Tim Cahill came to the rescue only minutes from time to score and level the scores.  Australia next plays Iraq on July 13th.

74987934, Robert Cianflone / Getty Images Sport

75271105, Robert Cianflone / Getty Images Sport

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