Oct. 21, 2015 is 'Back to the Future II' Day, and the Cubs happen to be playing an elimination game

Over the last few years, little by little, the Cubs have built toward a championship run.

The team brought in curse-breaker extraordinaire Theo Epstein as president of baseball operations and Joe Maddon as manager. Anthony Rizzo has developed into an MVP candidate since his rookie year in 2012:

Some kid named Kris Bryant got called up to the bigs and had himself a rookie season that featured 26 home runs, 31 doubles and 77 walks, and might lead to an NL Rookie of the Year Award. 

Fellow rookies Kyle Schwarber, Addison Russell and Jorge Soler made their presences felt by mashing dingers, playing brilliant defense and hosing runners, respectively:

And starting pitcher Jake Arrieta went ahead and improved on his impressive 2014 campaign by having arguably the best second half of any pitcher in the history of baseball, and might have earned himself an NL Cy Young Award in the process.

All those improvements helped the Cubbies to a 97-win season and had their fans dreaming of a scene from a little movie you might have heard of called "Back to the Future II:"

So, in "Back to the Future II," Marty McFly travels forward in the space-time continuum to Oct. 21, 2015 so that he can save his future family, and learns that the Cubs have won their first World Series since 1908. And on the real-life Oct. 21, 2015, the Cubs play the Mets in Game 4 of the NLCS with their backs against the wall as they face a 3-0 series deficit (mostly thanks to Daniel Murphy ).

Sure, it might be impossible for Chicago to beat Miami, but they've still got a shot at fulfilling the prophecy as foretold by "Back to the Future II." They wouldn't even be the first Theo Epstein team to come back from down 3-0 in a Championship Series.