One unseasonably warm fall night in November 2016, the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs faced off in what was an absolute breathless World Series Game 7. Who am I kidding? The entire series seemed to be played at some sort of high altitude base camp. From the moment Game 1 began, it felt like I was on a bullet train convertible, without a seat belt.
And with all that said, Game 7 was something else altogether. As a sports fan with a dog in the fight, it felt similar to driving past a massive car accident. You don’t want to slow down. You don’t want to watch. Yet, there you are, peeking to see if there’s any carnage, and hoping and praying that whatever it is you see, the good guys are okay.
Throughout the four hour and 45 minute Game 7, my baseball life passed before my eyes with seemingly every pitch. I remembered those Crooked C teams I grew up with in the 1970s, and the dead years in 80s, and the rise of the 90s, and the treading water in the 2000s. I remember the close calls in 1995, 1997 and 2007, and I remember the 100-loss seasons. Honestly, there wasn’t a second of that game that didn’t make me think of another year, or series, or a player that I’ve either seen, or been told stories of.
You aren’t a Clevelander if you weren’t told stories of the great Bob Feller or Lou Boudreau. You aren’t a Clevelander if you haven’t secretly hoped for another player-manager, because of its historic ramifications. You likely yell “Hhhoooooollllliiiioooooo” occasionally, for posterities sake, and there’s a decent chance that you ‘muscle up’ at least once, when the Indians play the Red Sox.
The minute that Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak’s 75th anniversary was mentioned this year, a true Indians’ fan pondered the 57th game, and Ken Keltner.
I thought of Super Joe and Toby Harrah and Thunder Thornton and a litany of other players that filled in the cracks of my youth, either from watching, listening, or storytelling.
That’s the fun of the truly great baseball games. They weave tales that are historically gratifying, because not only are they history, but they honor the depth of history behind them. Not only are the games and players special, but so are the people that you share them with.
What made this game so special is that it seemed to wrap up the Indians 2016 season up in one complete bow, other than the outcome. With every failure, there was a resurgence. With every power volley by the supposed favorite Cubs, there was an equal and aggressive response from the home town Indians.
Who would have thought that the near-Indians savior was a player that was derided for much of the playoffs, and yet, there he was, a walk off away from cementing himself in Indians lore with one of the most important hits in Tribe history.
Up walked Rajai Davis, a 36-year old outfielder who had gone 3-for-32 in the postseason, and was all kinds of struggling. The fact that he was even in the game to begin with was a complicated mix that was several parts Michael Brantley’s shoulder, two parts Abraham Almonte’s suspension, and the rest plain shoddy play from rookie outfielder Tyler Naquin in Game 6 the night before.
Davis was quite simply the best defensive centerfielder on the team, which is sorta like comparing Mario Mendoza to Ted Williams.
And yet, there was a buzz in the air with Davis at the plate. Jose Ramirez reached first on an infield single, knocking out Jon Lester, and then Brandon Guyer doubled off of Aroldis Chapman, scoring Ramirez, making the score 6-4 Cubs. Chapman looked hittable, and Davis represented the tying run.
But…3-for-32 in the postseason. There’s no way Davis was going to do anything here.
There’s no way they were going to do anything could have been the Indians of the 70s motto. While there were a couple of teams over .500 during my initial volley into Major League baseball, this was a team that never came close to a pennant. I remember asking my Dad if the Indians were going to make it to the Series someday, and my Dad looked wistfully into the distance and said, “Someday son, someday.”
Yet, I couldn’t wait to hear “It’s a beautiful day for baseball” on the radio. While I grew up with Joe Tait, the basketball announcer, I initially looked at the multi-dimensional broadcaster as the voice of the Tribe. While the World Series was a pipe-dream to my five-year old self, the 1976 Cleveland Indians cemented baseball as my one true love.
My Dad had purchased two season tickets the prior season, and every day from April to September, I was either listening to Tait and Herb Score, or at that vast cavernous Municipal Stadium. While it reeked of everything under the sun that you could think of, I loved that pillared monstrosity.
I’ll never forget my first game, Chief Wahoo swinging over Gate D, the giant concourse, and seeing the field for the first time as you walked through the tunnel, grass unfolding before you like an ocean of green.
I remember seeing a game there against the Yankees that year in which there HAD to be a million fans, and a doubleheader against the Tigers in late September where there may have been less than 5,000.
I remember a lot of hair that year, whether it was Rick Manning’s flying around center, or Dennis Eckersley’s flowing on the mound, or Buddy Bell’s seemingly white hair patrolling the hot corner. That team had so much youth and promise, and while that all went away quickly, those 70s Crooked C Indians laid the foundation for a 40-plus year love affair with this team.
But win a World Series?
No way.
As Chapman began throwing to Davis, the Indians’ radio broadcaster Tom Hamilton began noting that “if you could square away on a Chapman fastball, his velocity will do the rest for you.” That’s when the magic happened. Davis took a Ball, before fouling off two pitches to fall behind 1-2. After another ball, and two more fouls, you could almost guess that the wily veteran, even while slumping, had timed his bat speed to that of the former Reds and Yankees left-hander.
Chapman unleashed a fantastic pitch right below the knees, and a lunging Davis reached for hit and squared away. The audible crack on the radio meshed with the TV set I was viewing, and I knew that sound. The low looper cleared the wall in left field, sending the Indians portion of the crowd into a frenzy, and more importantly sent me into a giddy mixture of laughter and sobbing that I’d become a little too familiar with since the Cavaliers had won a championship this past June.
As visions of sad Cubs fans blended together in my mind with a sea of horrible baseball memories of my own, I dared myself to believe.
The Indians were going to win the World Series.
I didn’t just believe it was going to happen, I KNEW it was going to happen.
With one-out, and a runner on first base, I absolutely KNEW it was going to happen. I knew the Indians were going to win the 1997 World Series. You know the situation. With Moises Alou on first base, Jose Mesa struck out Bobby Bonilla, and the Indians were two freakin’ outs from winning the first World Series of my lifetime.
That Sunday afternoon, I had sat in the living room of my then girlfriend’s – now wife’s – grandfather and had one of those baseball talks that I think we’ve all had as Indians’ fans. He told me stories of watching Bob Feller pitch, and he talked about having met Herb Score. “I want to see them win a World Series,” he told me a few times during that conversation.
My wife and several friends headed over to Damon’s in Erie, to watch Game 7, and the place was jam-packed full of fans, either rooting for the Tribe, or in true Erie fashion, rooting against them. The place seemed half full of uprooted Clevelanders like myself, or a conglomerate of pretend Marlins fans, and a sizable group of Pirates fans, wearing Bobby Bonilla Buccos’ jerseys, to showcase their brief allegiance to anything anti-Cleveland.
But screw them, we were winning the series. Mesa had just struck out Bonilla for crying out loud!
I felt it. If you’ve read this far, and are above the age of 30, you felt it too.
Like an idiot, or Charlie Brown getting ready to kick a football, I turned to my future wife and said, “We’re going to win THE DAMN WORLD SERIES!”
There was that one, brief moment in which I understood what it felt like. It was like water running through your fingers. It felt unbelievably satisfying, as years of struggle washed away from me, but I couldn’t grab ahold, and it washed through my fingers as quickly as it had come.
As the rest of that Game 7 unfolded, and ultimately ended with the Edgar Renteria hit off of Charles Nagy, scoring Craig Counsell, it felt like I’d been hit in the stomach by a cannonball. The game ended at midnight, and Damon’s began to clear out of baseball fans, but stayed open, as a local TV Crew began filming their special Sunday Night sports review show. As a group of high school football players filtered in for their big interview, I just sat there, numb.
I remember a few things after that. I remember telling my best friends to get out of my face. I remember telling a server she sucked, because she wouldn’t sell me another beer, as they were technically closed, and I remember being asked to leave, as they were shutting off most of the lights, one of the last fans there. It was nearly 1 a.m., and I think I was trying to figure out how to go back in time and somehow change it.
I woke up the next morning thinking that it wasn’t real. There’s no way this team didn’t win that game. There’s no way.
I spent much of that winter wondering what in the hell happened, not only to that team, but the players that the team had been built around. It was all such a blur, that winter, and honestly, the years leading up to it. That Kenny Lofton, Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, Sandy Alomar-led juggernaut that was surely going to win multiple World Series at some point in the 1990s. At the end of that 1997 season, Lofton and Baerga and Belle were already gone, and while that 1997 team almost brought a World Series home, it wasn’t the same team that brought all of that mid ‘90s magic.
The 1994 team was thwarted by both the Chicago White Sox, and ultimately a strike that wiped out the season, the 1995 Indians weren’t going to be denied. In a summer that I’ll never forget, not only were the Cleveland Indians good, they weren’t even arguably the best team I had ever seen offensively.
My Dad decided not to renew his season tickets after 1993 because he didn’t want to spend the money, but I dived in and bought two of my friend’s four season tickets in the mezzanine section in brand new Progressive Field, which I would continue to do over the following seven years.
I saw World Series. I saw 50 home run, 50 double seasons in only 144 games. I saw 100 win seasons, prodigious home run after home run, and a sign that said, “Long Haired Freaky People Need Not Apply,” and the sign was right!
But they didn’t win a World Series, and after 1997, they would never get back, even with Lofton returning, and Roberto Alomar joining brother Sandy, and Travis Fryman and Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez filling in gaps left by the original four.
But I knew they’d win one in my lifetime, right?
I ignored the feeling in my gut that this once again was Lucy convincing Charlie Brown that he was finally going to kick that damn football.
I ignored the near ninth inning debacle that saw closer Cody Allen walk the first batter, battle Jason Heyward into a near double play turned fielder’s choice, and have Allen’s replacement, Bryan Shaw allow Heyward to get to third with one out.
When Javier Baez bunted foul for an incredulous strike three, oh, I knew the Indians were going to win. After a fantastic play from Francisco Lindor up the middle on a Dexter Fowler grounder to end the top half of the ninth, I knew the Indians were going to walk off and win one of the most dramatic World Series in recent memory, if not ever.
I mean, Carlos Santana was going to shut up the doubters once and for all.
Jason Kipnis was going to destroy his home town Cubs, and assure that his neighbor growing up, Bartman, was going to continue to live in infamy.
Or Francisco Lindor, the franchise player, was going to place a stamp on his early career, and begin chiseling his own statue.
We were going to win the damn game!
And there was that feeling again. The same one I had felt back in 1997, only this time it was strangely familiar, even though the first time I’d felt it had been only seconds, and so long ago. This time, I savored it, embraced it, and held on for the ride.
With the game tied 6-6, and Santana, Kipnis and Lindor ready to face domestic abuser Aroldis Chapman, who stayed in the game after giving up the lead, the script might as well have been chiseled in stone. The Cubs were reeling, and the Indians were ready to pounce.
And then…they didn’t.
Fifteen pitches later, Chapman had a 1-2-3 inning, and that’s when the weather intervened, and the rain began to fall.
It’s these moments in time that seem to last forever. In 2007, the Indians were up 3-1 in the American League Championship Series against the Terry Francona-led Boston Red Sox. I did several guest spots on podcasts and radio shows discussing the series after Game 4, and I remember feeling oddly worried.
I felt the same way against the Cubs.
Both of those Indians teams had a special quality to them. That 2007 team had the quintessential 1-2 punch with CC Sabathia and Fausto Carmona in the rotation, and Rafael Betancourt and Rafael Perez in the bullpen. It was top end pitching unlike anything I had seen in my Indians lifetime.
This 2016 team maybe moreso.
No Michael Brantley. No Carlos Carrasco. No Danny Salazar. No Yan Gomes (even when he was healthy), and Roberto Perez before him. But I’ve never seen a team more synchronized behind a manager and a coaching staff. Corey Kluber made a run at the Cy Young. Francisco Lindor cemented himself as a star. Jason Kipnis proved his consistency. Jose Ramirez may have been the best Indians’ player. Carlos Santana continued to mock his doubters. And Andrew Miller, simply carried this team to the World Series.
So did everybody.
It was a team that had no business winning a World Series. It was a team that could win the World Series.
Then the pause ended, everything became a blur. A Kyle Schwarber hit and an intentional walk to Rizzo to face the liquid hot Ben Zobrist. A hit later, and the Cubs were back in the lead. Another Miguel Montero single, and they were in the lead by two.
I didn’t really think there was a chance to win the game in the bottom of the tenth, but then there was. Brandon Guyer walked with two outs, then scooted to second on catcher’s indifference. Up walked Rajai Davis again, and boy, talk about a storybook ending, right? How about a second game-tying home run?
He singled, scoring Guyer, and the winning run came to the plate with Davis at first.
Up came…
Michael Martinez.
In fairness, Martinez was the last guy on the roster, and the last to come into the game. He is a multi-dimensional player, and when he was brought in, he was buried in the line-up, so he wouldn’t have to hit in a couple of innings. But I noted his spot. I noted it because I’d written a piece earlier in the year trying to figure out how the hell he was on any Major League roster.
This was before he was DFA’d by the Indians, picked up by the Red Sox, DFA’d by the Red Sox, and reacquired by the Indians.
Surely God was mocking me. Surely the ironic twists of Martinez finding ninth inning at-bats in prior World Series games wasn’t turning into a tenth inning at-bat, with two outs, in Game 7, with the tying run on first.
Surely this wasn’t possible.
But it was, and a groundout later, and the unbelievable run was over.
The Indians had lost.
In many ways, this season was perfect.
I know, I know, we were missing two thirds of our top three in the rotation.
I know, I know, we were missing our best hitter and left fielder.
I know, I know, Michael Martinez made our last out.
I KNOW, I KNOW, WE LOST THE SERIES!
And it hurts.
But there’s a perfection to this season that can’t be understated. This team shouldn’t have been in the World Series, but worked like dominos from beginning to end, one falling into another, giving the reigns to another player to lead the team to a one-run loss in a seven game series that many are saying is one of the greatest of all time.
The steady workhorses were there, the Klubers and Santanas and Kipnises, who just did things all season long. But the Lindors and the Ramirez’s and the Chisenhalls and the Napolis and the Perez’s and the Tomlins, and even the Naquins, who kept handing the baton off to each other from day-to-day, giving the team unforgettable moments, even if there wasn’t a true superstar carrying the load.
This was a team that began the year with a scintillating rotation, that was arguably the best in the league. This was a team that ended the year with a dominant bullpen, that literally took starts when the rotation was being pieced together with duck tape and stitches.
This was a team. It was a team that kept reforming itself around whichever player was ready to hoist up the bootstraps, and they just kept winning.
And next year?
That team should get more complete.
So while I’m still recovering from the closeness this team came to shocking the World, I can’t help but feel there’s more to come in the next couple of years. I can’t help but think this team…
…THIS TEAM…is going to bring a World Championship to Cleveland.
Yep, there’s Lucy again. I’ll be right back, I think this time I’m finally going to get to kick that football…