during the postgame interview on the field as he holds the ball involved in that final out.

“I can’t stop smiling,” likely NL MVP Kris Bryant gushes. “This is the coolest feeling of my life.”

Pitcher Jon Lester and second-baseman Javier Baez share the MVP award for the National League championship series. Fans embrace the moment.

“Listen to them,” Lester says as the fans cheer.

“We want the World Series to start,” says Wally Scott, 54, a bleachers season-ticket holder from Palatine. He remembers soul-crushing postseason exits in 1984, 2003, 2015 and even eight years ago, when the Cubs had the league’s best record and were swept by the Dodgers.

“In 2008, I sat there after the last out. I had to be the last guy leaving. I just sat in my seat dejected, so depressed,” Scott remembers. “But this team gives a different feel … This is a team that is built to run for a while. And that’s what makes me the happiest.”

Well, that, and the fact that the Cubs (take a deep breath) open the World Series on Tuesday in Cleveland against the Indians.

Dodgers’ ace Clayton Kershaw, whom TV viewers listening to national broadcaster Jack Buck know as the greatest pitcher on the planet, came into Game 6 having shut out the Cubs in L.A.’s Game 2 victory at Wrigley. But Kershaw’s campaign to “Make Chicago Fans Wait Again” fell apart in the very first inning. Cubs’ leadoff man Dexter Fowler doubled and scored on a single by the Cubs’ Kris Bryant. Then came a Dodgers’ error, and before the inning was over, the Cubs held a 2-0 lead and Kershaw already had thrown 30 pitches.

Cubs starter Hendricks, MLB’s ERA leader in the regular season who lost 1-0 to Kershaw in their first matchup, gave up a hit on his first pitch and then cruised until he gave up a second hit in the eighth.

Longtime Cubs fan and legendary “Bleacher Preacher” Jerry Pritikin has been waiting for the Cubs to make the World Series since he was a 9-year-old Cubs fan. His father took a co-worker to a 1945 World Series game at Wrigley, but promised his son that he’d take him next time. Pritikin, who turns 80 in January, has been a fixture in the bleachers and around Wrigleyville for decades. Wearing his pith helmet with a propeller, Pritikin has a collection of homemade signs that he updated for Saturday’s clincher.

“Younger fans won’t understand this, but remember what (President) Gerry Ford said after Nixon resigned?” says Pritikin. who updated Ford’s famous quotation by adding the word “League” on a sign reading, “Our long National League nightmare is over.”

Contreras, an exciting 24-year-old rookie catcher, launched a ball into the left field bleachers in the fourth inning to make it 4-0, and jubilant Cubs fans literally danced in the aisles before starting a slow, mocking chant of “Ker-shaw.” That chant changed to a thundering “Rizz-O” in the 5th inning after the Cubs first-baseman lifted a home run deep into the right-field bleachers.

There is no collapse. There are no curses. The Cubs are going to the World Series.