U is for Unbelievable

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make...

Thanks for a great 2016 season, Cleveland Indians.

Last night was one of the most insane, jaw-dropping, intense, raw, beautiful, unbelievable baseball games I have ever witnessed.  There was nobody at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario in Downtown Cleveland that didn't know that the Indians had to keep the Cubs off the scoreboard in the early innings, a job that fell almost squarely on the shoulders of Corey Kluber, who'd been nothing short of the undeniable ace he's known as -- rock solid in his first two World Series starts.  If Kluber could pull off the greatest magic trick a major league pitcher was capable of wowing a fanbase, then the Indians would likely cruise into the elusive fourth win, making them this year's champion.  If only.

Corey Kluber, however, proved to be human after all and the strain of his third start on the high pressure World Series stage on second round of three days rest -- unheard of in modern baseball -- got the better of him and his fourth pitch of the night was rocketed to the centerfield bleachers by Dexter Fowler for a solo home run.  In an ordinary game, that would have tempered the life in the ballpark, but not the case last night as an overwhelming presence of Cubs fans had descended on Progressive Field.  If I were to believe the Fox Broadcast, there were barely any Indians fans there at all.  As I listened to Tom Hamilton call the game on WTAM1100, I could distinctly hear "LET'S GO CUBS!" being chanted in the stands.  It broke my heart a little.  Could we not even get full value of our homefield advantage on this already tenuous night?  There's something wrong about the tickets being so expensive that only the richest fans could be in the ballpark -- but, well, that's an issue for another day.

For the purposes of last night's game, the crowd reactions to umpire calls were muddled and mixed, half-strength for both teams doing their best to off the underdog label once and for all.

But as I watched Corey Kluber struggle -- and then later the unshakeable Andrew Miller get shook -- I felt this overwhelming blend of emotions that was a little bit of awe, a little bit of oof, and a whole lot of love.  These guys were literally trying to fight a state-of-the-art uber-combat unit with a rock and stick.  To call the Cubs an "underdog" in the same sentence as you call the Indians the same is a gross misuse of that term.  To say you're shocked and wowed by the tenacity of that scrappy-dappy team from Chicago's North Side is the equivalent of you gloating that Target had a better Black Friday than the Mom & Pop Shop across the street.  Yeah, no kidding.  It would be pretty absurd if the roles were reversed.

Yet that's almost what Cleveland did:  upset the professional sports world by being the team nobody picked for greatness winning it all.

But, you know what?  I realize the Cubs claimed that ultimate prize...  But, to me, this feels like the biggest Indians victory of all time.  With the score a whopping 5-1 in the fifth inning, I literally sat on my couch with tears streaming down my face.  I watched this team I loved so dearly desperately trying to bail water out of their sinking ship and I thought to myself, "I can't be in public tomorrow.  I'll take the day off.  I'll hide out."  But then something happened:  luck swung our way in the bottom of the 6th when two Indians runs scored off starter-turned-reliever Jon Lester's wild pitch.  5-3.  The joy was temporary as Cubs catcher Dave Ross hits a solo homer in his last game before retirement, knocking that score to 6-3.  What we needed was a miracle.

And guess what happened next.

Bottom of the eight inning, Brandon Guyer hits a double that brings home Jose Ramirez.  6-4.  And then the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life came right after:  center field Rajai Davis, who'd been fantastic defensively all postseason but struggled mightily with the bat in his hands, pulled off the old Pedro Cerrano Hollywood unthinkable drama of smashing a two-run homerun off the unbeatable Cubs closer, Aroldis Chapman.  

TIE SCORE. 6-6.

I was dying.  I was dead.  What I was actually doing was jumping up and down and screaming to wake the dead.  Sorry, roommates.  The last time I screamed that loudly during a baseball game was the epic come-from-behind tying run in that 2001 instant-classic game against the Mariners I wrote about a few days ago.  But this was Game 7 of the World Series.  Once The Ball That Davis Hit went out, something joyful snapped on inside of me.  Suddenly I knew, no matter the outcome of this night, I was going to want to talk to every single person I encountered in the foreseeable future about this game.  About the importance of never giving up, no matter the odds stacked against you.  

And after the conclusion of the scoreless ninth inning (almost not the case on what looked for half a second like a Jason Kipnis solo homerun that hooked foul) -- that's when the rains came.

Now after midnight, the water slashing down from the heavens was visible on my muted television while Hammy lamented in an uffish voice about this stall in momentum and I watched with newfound disbelief as the tarp was rolled out over the field.  At this point, my sister-in-law Jen and I were deep into texting, her husband/my older brother Casey long ago asleep along with her three young sons, and so I was her pipeline for keeping up with the action.  Later, my baseball soulbrother (that's a thing, right?) Shane chimed in and the messages were flying about the action.  My heart pounded out of my chest.  Would they have to suspend the game?  Could they finish it tonight?  Fifteen minutes later, the tarp was rolled back up and the 10th inning was a lightening strike of Cubs players taking advantage of pitcher Bryan Shaw's return to the mound after the unexpected break.  They put two more runs on the board before starter-turned-reliever Trevor Bauer came on and cleanly ended the inning.

Bottom of the 10th, the Indians had another steep mountain to climb -- we're always climbing, always! -- when Rajai Davis put the ball in play to score Brandon Guyer from second, getting us within one run of the unthinkable upset.  But we simply ran out of gas as Michael Martinez grounded out softly to third and the Cubs erased 108 years of anguish for their high-paying fans as they mobbed the mound.

The Indians did not win it.  The Indians did not win it.  Oh my god, the Indians did not win it.

At least not according to the scoreboard.

But these are the facts as I see them:

Fact #1:  With the injuries of key Indians players plaguing the team before they even got to the ALDS, no one -- no one -- picked Cleveland to make it past the Red Sox, let alone make it all the way to the World Series.  And even once they got there, still, there was no love.  I muted the television broadcasts and listened to the radio one instead, but I was dismayed how little they showed Indians fans in the crowd, even when the team was playing at home.  That's just rude, national media, seriously...

Fact #2:  The Indians are a small market team with small market funds which means they have to use wily and cunning to get anywhere and where that got them was Game 7 of the World Series.  They have to play as a team, united, one unanimous voice.  They have to be willing to play small ball -- they have to be willing to chip away, not depend on the longball, to get on base and move the runners any way possible.

Fact #3:  Terry Francona pulled off more miracles in this uncharted waters of no big names and a plague of injuries by being strategic, clever, and brazen and got away with more gambles than a team like Cleveland has ever experienced before.  In Tito We Trusted.  Forever.

Fact #4:  Asking three starting pitchers to work on three days rest on the biggest stage of their careers was incredibly daunting and incredibly risky but our guys said, "OK," zero hesitation, and did their best, along with the support of one of the most reliable bullpens I've ever witnessed.

Fact #5:  THEY HAD FUN.  THEY DID NOT QUIT.  GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE.  They hustled.  They were invested.  They were scrappy.  They fought and fought and fought.

And that's really the most important part of this story.

Whoddathunkit that an Indians loss in Game 7 of the World Series would feel so oddly uplifting?

Before the game last night, I was talking to my friend Becky, telling her about how I was starting to wonder if it truly was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all...  By the end of last night's game I was convinced, for the first time in my long, surly, wary life that in the end, love was actually worth it.

from Homefield Advantage: One Cleveland Indians Fan's 2016 Postseason Scrapbook