World Series ratings on decline reminds us of Cubbie-blue ratings jolt of 2016

The World Series came to an end this week, and reportage repeatedly told of one fact – the Boston Red Sox/Los Angeles Dodgers matchup was a television ratings bust. Although most World Series of recent years have been disappointing – with one exception.

That was 2016, when on the night of two years ago Friday, the Chicago Cubs managed to prevail over the Cleveland Indians to win Chicago’s second baseball championship of this century – and their first in 108 seasons.

IN FACT, THE final game of that World Series had an average of 40 million viewers, with some 115 million people supposedly watching the series matchup at some point during the seven games.

Cubbie fans, of course, want to view this as some sort of sense of their superiority – as though the whole world was waiting for their victory. Which strikes me as being as ridiculous as that Super Bowl claim that people all over the world really care about the NFL championship game.

For the record, that 2016 World Series had an average of 12.9 percent of households watching the game, with 22 percent of television sets tuned in. By comparison, this year’s World Series had figures of 8.3 percent of households and 17 percent of households.

Of course, we could also compare it to 2005, when the White Sox managed to prevail in winning Chicago’s first World Series of the 21^st Century. The one that Cubbie fans always like to downgrade as insignificant, if not meaningless and irrelevant.

IT HAD SOME 11.1 percent of households, and 19 percent of televisions tuned in on average for its games. Not that much of a difference from the ’16 experience, which had its broadcast ratings boosted by being a seven-game series, compared to the ’05 four-game sweep for the Sox.

Not that any of these numbers really matter. Because to the fans of the teams, they’re watching regardless, and the memory of that final out made them forget suburban Northbrook native Jason Kipnis' big home run for the Indians that could have been the knockout punch. Fans could care less what the fair-weather types think.

Just as I’m sure Boston fans this week are thinking the rest of the nation doesn’t know what they missed by not tuning in -- although we know they're crazed for throwing beer cans at the World Series trophy.

The World Series is over. Meaning that baseball for 2018 is finished. We’ll have to wait ‘til springtime. Which is when we’ll see for ourselves if the Las Vegas oddsmakers have any clue what they’re talking about.

FOR THE CUBS, they’re being given 10/1 odds of winning the 2019 World Series, while the White Sox are at 65/1 odds. Which actually puts them ahead of all the other teams in their division except for Cleveland (12/1 odds).

.

And one final thought. A comparison of statistics involving Chicago's two 21st Century World Series experiences. The Cubs' victory celebration of '16 supposedly attracted some 5 million fans, compared to 1.5 million for the White Sox' celebration of '05. None of whom felt compelled to throw anything at the World Series trophy, like they did in Boston.

Anybody who seriously believes either of those figures probably thinks the all-Chicago World Series will occur next season. A fantasy we in Chicago have waited more than a century to see for real.

  -30-

EXTRA: White Sox -- Happy trails to youuuuuuuuuu, until, we meet, again!

Perhaps it was oh so appropriate that the Chicago White Sox finished their 2018 season at home Wednesday in such a godawful way. What with the first pitch of the game being dumped into the left field seats.

As the sun sets on '18, … 

Later on, the Cleveland Indians managed another three runs off a tremendous home run – one that actually motivated some nitwits sitting in the outfield to start chanting that the fan who caught the ball ought to “throw it back.”

… some of us look toward next season

TO THAT WHITE Sox fan’s credit, he didn’t. Because that’s a Chicago Cubbie-type thing to do. Even while rooting for a team that flirted with losing 100 ballgames this year, White Sox fans still have some sense of pride and dignity.

Anyway, the White Sox have now played their share of 81 home games this season. All that’s left is a road trip this weekend to Minneapolis.

While I don’t doubt there are some Sox fans who will take some sort of perverse pleasure out of rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers to win their division in the National League.

A cruel joke prior to Wednesday's final game

Because if that happens, it will mean the best the Cubs can qualify for is a wild-card playoff spot – and the possibility that they’ll get knocked out of the playoff picture early on.

YES, I’M AN American League fan at heart. Personally, I don’t care who wins the National League championship – except to the degree I’m interested in seeing who the AL champ takes on in the World Series.

Decent-sized crowd for meaningless game; the value of $1 hot dogs

And a part of me feels for that Sox fan who showed up for Wednesday’s final home game, flying both a black-and-white “Sox” flag along with the “L” flag that is just as much a part of Cubs tradition as that “W” they like to fly. Instead, the 10-2 defeat to the Indians almost seems like Cleveland handed the White Sox' derriere to them.

A final farewell to 'the Rate.' Photos by Gregory Tejeda

Which would have been depressing to the White Sox faithful – except it was $1 Hot Dog Wednesday. A cheap dinner and a ballgame always goes a long way toward satisfying the mind and the tummy.

  -30-

War of the honored symbols; or are they really nothing more than mascots?

The baseball fan in me noticed the reports that the Cleveland Indians are removing (finally!) the Chief Wahoo logo that has been a part of the team culture for some 70-plus years. A good thing to see the absurd, cartoonish image no longer linger.

Which of these will have louder, ...

Or maybe it won’t be that simple.

BECAUSE I ALSO noticed the reports about the ongoing dispute over Chief Illiniwek; the alleged honored symbol of the University of Illinois who was formally abolished years ago – only to have certain ideologically-inclined fans of the Fighting Illini act as though they’re engaged in a noble cause by retaining the chief’s memory.

... more obnoxious proponents?

I won’t be surprised to see Indians fans and conservative ideologues go out of their way to snatch up the remaining supply of Wahoo-logo merchandise (the team will drop the symbol come the 2019 season) and wear it as a measure of spite.

Which in a sense would be a good thing – we’d now clearly be able to identify the idiots in our society. They’d be the people wearing Wahoo-emblazoned caps, t-shirts and jerseys.

Just as we can tell the people at the University of Illinois who are determined to live in the past when their silly image of a native chief was regarded as dignified – rather than as the cartoon it truly was. In one sense, no better than that of Wahoo.

Am I only one who sees similar grin?

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported Monday about a recent incident where a professor opposed to the chief imagery went into a restroom at what used to be called Assembly Hall, found an alumnus in chief regalia who apparently planned to make an unofficial appearance during a basketball game, and videotaped him.

The professor was arrested for supposedly violating laws against recording someone in a public restroom (a law intended to keep perverts from taking pictures of women during their private moments), but the state’s attorney for Champaign County refused to prosecute.

Of course, the chief backers are trying to portray the professor as some sort of pervert for using his camera in a restroom. Although it could also be argued that people determined to keep the chief image alive aren’t exactly the most rational of human beings.

Spokane Indians baseball figured out way to pay tribune

In short, the fact that the University of Illinois did away with Chief Illiniwek back in 2007 hasn’t brought this particular battle to a close. I expect that people on the Ohio scene will soon have similarly-absurd images to counter with.

PEOPLE DECIDING TO turn up at ballgames with their faces painted red and white to make themselves appear to be Chief Wahoo. An image that was officially commissioned by the ballclub back in 1947 by then-owner Bill Veeck (yes, the very same) who said he wanted something that, “would convey a spirit of pure joy and unbridled enthusiasm.”

Which strikes me as being as ridiculous as those Illinois alumni who argue on behalf of Illiniwek that he was an “honored symbol” who portrayed the people of the Illiniwek Confederation of old with dignity.

Is there really a difference?

He wasn’t a mascot, they’d argue, like Bucky Badger of the University of Wisconsin. You’d never catch the chief dancing with cheerleaders or giving a football quarterback a high-five following a successful touchdown pass.

They’d claim the dance he’d do at half-time of football and basketball games was actually authentic to the peoples who were native to what is now Illinois. I’ve known students who portrayed Illiniwek who claim that such clownish behavior would have got them in trouble.

NOT THAT ANY of that really matters. Throughout the years, it has adapted to being a caricature, one possibly just as ridiculous as that cartoonish Indian face with its ridiculous grin (so reminiscent of the “sambo” images that black people find so offensive) that some Indians fans will want to cling to.

Perhaps they will think this is part of their own ongoing fight to “Make America Great Again.” As though the idea of our society is based on images that kept certain peoples in their place and let them know they really didn’t fully belong.

Is calling this State Farm Center the real offense?

Not that I think there aren’t respectful ways of teams incorporating imagery of native tribes into their marketing. Although I suspect that many of the people who want screaming, screeching savages would consider those images dull and confusing.

Some people will fight for anything, no matter how ridiculous. Personally, if I were a Fighting Illini fan (my brother went to school there, I didn’t), I’d be more offended by the notion that the basketball team let their long-time home ditch the Assembly Hall moniker for State Farm Center. Now that’s something tacky.

  -30-

612 or 609 – are 3 home runs really the difference for baseball’s Hall of Fame?

Chicago ballplayer likely to get into Hall

In just over a week, the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce which ballplayers of the 1990s will be the newest inductees for immortalization with a bronze plaque at their museum in upstate New York.

Based on some of the information that has come out thus far, one-time Chicago White Sox slugger Jim Thome will be among the inductees. It seems the 612 home runs he hit during a nearly two-decade career are enough for him to be considered one of the game’s all-time greats.

The one who likely won't

YET AMONGST THE other ballplayers up for Hall of Fame consideration is one-time Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa – the man with 609 career home runs and the only ballplayer ever with three seasons of 60 or more home runs.

If you look solely at the statistics and take nothing else into account, the two of them ought to be comparable. In fact, one could make an argument that Sosa was far more significant to the Cubs than Thome was to the White Sox.

Thome may well have have hit his 500^th home run while wearing the White Sox uniform, but Sosa had 545 of his home runs in the baby blue of the Cubbies.

The way Cubs fans will spin Thome

Sosa was also a major player in that 1998 season where he and St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire gave baseball fans a show many will forevermore remember as they pursued the single-season record for home runs. Then, they followed it up with an encore in 1999.

YET AS FAR as the Hall of Fame is concerned, the question will be by how far Thome exceeds the 75 percent of sportswriters with a ballot who support his candidacy.

A bigger question will be whether this is the year that Sosa finally falls below 5 percent support (he was just over 8 percent last year), which is the level at which he gets knocked off the ballot.

Or are there just enough people with pleasant memories of Sosa’s clownish on-field behavior that he’ll live on for another year’s consideration?

Sosa, of course, is the ballplayer who is tainted by the perception that he was among the ballplayers of the 1990s who used anabolic steroids to bolster himself.

Sox fans have tried to forget this happened

WHICH HAS MANY fans thinking of him as being the equivalent of one-time pitcher Roger Clemens and slugger Barry Bonds – two other stars whose statistics would have one think they’re shoo-ins for Cooperstown admittance.

I’m sure Cubs fans are going to go through their own squirming routines when the final Hall of Fame results are announced Jan. 24. They’re going to hate the notion that a White Sox player will get top honors, whereas the man whom they once thought of as becoming the new “Mr. Cub” (replacing Ernie Banks in that niche) remains a baseball “nothing.”

White Sox fans, of course, will snicker at that notion, particularly since White Sox fans were on to the notion that there was something phony about Sosa back when Cubs fans were proclaiming him as the ultimate evidence of their ball club’s superiority.

Of course, Thome isn’t really a part of the White Sox story, even if he played a few seasons in Chicago (and is a Peoria native who grew up rooting for the Cubs and the home run antics of Dave Kingman). I’m sure that when he gets Hall of Fame induction, he’ll be remembered primarily for his contributions to those Cleveland Indians teams that won league championships in 1995 and 1997 and were generally among the American League’s better teams of the ‘90’s.

Thome surpassed his childhood idol

I’M WONDERING HOW much the Cubbie types will want to insist Thome is only an Indian, and that Chicago has no claim to them. Of course, White Sox fans will forevermore have Sosa to sling at Cubs fans when they get cocky about the fact they actually managed to pull off one lone championship a couple of years ago.

Sosa is a millstone to the Cubs, which is why he hasn’t already had his moment of immortalization a few years ago – even though he is without a doubt one of the best ballplayers from the Dominican Republic to play professional ball in this country.

Even Cubs management say they can’t fully embrace his place in their legacy until he comes forth with the “truth” about whether he used steroids to bolster his strength artificially.

Something that Thome has never had to address. Which goes a long way to explain how two one-dimensional sluggers who are only 3 home runs apart will be remembered so differently.

  -30-

EXTRA: Back to 'Wait 'til next year?'

Are we back to flying the 'L' flag?

The dreams of Chicago Cubs ball clubs capable of winning championships in two consecutive seasons are now down the toilet -- the Cubs' 11-1 loss Thursday ensured the Los Angeles Dodgers will be the National League champions for 2017 and will go to the World Series beginning Tuesday.

It's a low blow to those Cubbie fanatics who were delusional enough to think their fave ball club is now among the league elite and was somehow entitled to a second-straight World Series appearance.

ALTHOUGH IT REALLY shouldn't be. Winning two straight championships in professional athletics is difficult. There are a lot of teams that would consider winning one championship (the way the Cubs did in 2016) to be significant. Nothing takes away that accomplishment.

It will be curious to see now the Cubbie faithful react to losing. Will they become obnoxious in their whining that somehow they were entitled to victory in 2017? Such arrogance is considered tacky when it comes from New York Yankees fans, but then again, the Yankees back up such talk with winning ways.

What I don't see is something along the lines of Bill Veeck during the 1940s stint that he owned the Cleveland Indians. He had them when they won their last (to this date) World Series ever in 1948, and when it became mathematically impossible for the Indians to repeat as champions in 1949, he conducted a ceremony in which he buried the World Series championship banner the Indians had flown that season.

Implying that the championship days were over, and it was time to focus on the future.

WHICH TO THIS date are still World Series-title-less -- to the point where I'm sure Cleveland baseball fans would be thankful to have come as close as the Cubs did this year to repeating (rather than losing to the Yankees in the Division Series round of this year's playoffs). Or Pittsburgh Pirates fans who made playoff appearances, but have been unable to break their own streak of four decades without a championship.

Kike matches Reggie's 3 homers

What I'm more inclined to expect is Cubbie fan whining along the lines of how 2016 is supposed to live on forever -- and how 2005 (the year the Chicago White Sox won this city's first World Series title in this century) is a year to be forgotten.

It will be this obnoxious attitude that will fuel the dislike that fans of Chicago's two ball clubs have for each other.

And could be the impetus of what could become an ultimate World Series, from the Chicago perspective -- a rebuilt White Sox with a Cuban connection at its core against the Cubs, perhaps by 2019. Which would be the centennial of that World Series that lives in Chicago baseball infamy and is in desperate need of erasure.

  -30-

White Sox rebuild progressing, but will Yankees 'will to win' get in the way?

The great rebuild of the Chicago White Sox into a pennant contender progressed a step further Wednesday when the great young talent Yoan Moncada (supposedly the best ballplayer in the minor leagues) was promoted from Charlotte, N.C., to the big club on Chicago’s Sout’ Side.

Did the White Sox' future begin Wednesday?

Yet there also was a related move that could portend the reason why the White Sox ultimately will not prevail in winning a World Series, or even an American League championship in coming years.

IT ACTUALLY IS an old phenomenon in baseball, familiar to every fan of an American League ball club (although those of you Chicagoans who think you’re baseball fans but actually pay attention only to the Cubs and the National League wouldn’t know this).

It is the New York Yankees.

One of the realities of the Yankees having won 27 World Series and 40 American League championships is that there have been many other ball clubs that had solid teams and seasons that “might have won” in other years, but wound up falling short to the ball club from the Bronx.

Even the White Sox experienced this same phenomenon back in the 1950s and 1960s when they had those 17 straight winning seasons and a ton of second place teams. With the Yankees finishing ahead of them so many times.

Sox' Robertson returns to pinstripes ...

YET THE FACT that there is now a roster spot for Moncada on the White Sox is because of the trade that the White Sox made with the Yankees to help rebuild New York’s American League ball club into a contender this year.

Todd Frazier, who played third base for the White Sox, is likely to become the Yankees first baseman (a spot where they have been weak this season) and top Sox relief pitcher David Robertson is likely to become a set-up pitcher who becomes the guy who pitches right before top relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman – who isn’t pitching as well this season as he did last year in his half-season with the Chicago Cubs.

... after Chapman fails to match Cubbie ways

The Yankees could easily turn Robertson into their top relief pitcher if Chapman doesn’t get his act together soon. Which is what makes this trade so significant – the Yankees were able to go out and get a replacement whereas many other ballclubs would be stuck with the big-bucks Chapman contract and couldn’t even think of finding a replacement.

Lopez managed many 2nd place teams

The Yankees, who haven’t won a World Series title since 2009 and haven’t been in the playoffs for three years, are serious about wanting to contend now – and likely will make moves to keep in contention for future years.

MEANING ANY EFFORTS by the White Sox to ride a “Cuban revolution” of Moncada, Jose Abreu and Luis Robert (still in the minor leagues, for now) and other top minor league ballplayers acquired from other teams in trades this year could wind up being thwarted by the resurgence of the New York Yankees.

Which would be oh so predictable.

Ichiro's best ball club fell behind Yankees

There are too many American League ball clubs that have had their dreams of championship play halted by the Yanks.

Not only the White Sox of 1964 (98 wins, including a winning streak of the last 10 games of the season – which fell behind the 99 wins the Yankees had that year).

BOSTON, CLEVELAND AND Detroit fans can also claim horror stories about wonderful ball clubs that couldn’t get beyond second place, or the first round of the American League playoffs.

And let’s not forget the Seattle Mariners, who have never won a championship of any kind during their 41 seasons of existence, largely because their glory years of the late 1990s coincided with those Yankees teams of Derek Jeter that won four of five World Series titles in the same time period.

Will White Sox improvements be enough to match Yankee upgrade?

Then, in 2001, those Mariners managed to tie the baseball record for the most wins during the regular season (116, by the 1906 Chicago Cubs that lost the World Series to the White Sox), only to lose in those playoffs to the very same Yankees.

Is that the same fate to befall the White Sox of the late 2010s and 2020s – to finish behind New York? Once again turning the phrase “Damned Yankees” into an epithet meaning more than just a long-ago Broadway show!

  -30-

EXTRA: Chicago wins its second World Series title of the 21st Century

It seems the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday didn’t manage to blow it big time. They won a World Series championship – their first in 108 years. Although it took extra innings in the final game to achieve.
 

Did 1st pitch honors 'sted of Charlie Sheen

It’s also the second World Series won by a Chicago baseball team in this century – let’s not forget the Chicago White Sox won a title back in 2005. Even though Cubs fans have been going out of their way for the past week to try to ignore that fact.

THE SARCASTIC SIDE of me wants to say “It’s about time” those lazy slackers on the North Side managed to win something on behalf of Chicago. Quite frankly, I’m tired of dealing with out-of-town crackpots who presume there has to be something wrong with Chicagoans as a whole because we take the loser Cubs seriously.

But some of us do, and I don’t doubt that they’re feeling a certain level of glee that White Sox fans felt some 11 years ago. Hope you Cubbie-fan types enjoy your parade that the city likely stages for you in coming days. Although I somehow suspect that the White Sox title meant more to the city and then-Mayor Richard M. Daley than this year’s Cubbie victory does to Mayor Rahm Emanuel – who did finally deign to show up at the ballpark for Game 7 on Wednesday in Cleveland.

As for the celebration, I’m sure Cubbie-types will get all worked up and think it’s a historic moment. I know there are Sox-fan types who can tell you exactly where along their parade route they stood, and how close they were to first baseman Paul Konerko when he voluntarily handed over the final ball from Game 4 to team owner Jerry Reinsdorf.

Not that any of this is in any way a sign that our city is “united” behind a ball club. That will never happen. The character of Chicago baseball is the very split, and the hard-core of each side would consider it sacrilegious for any kind of unity to occur.

 

Hit a grand slam (not a Denny's breakfast)

HOW ELSE TO explain those Bridgeport types who actually deigned to wear caps bearing the Chief Wahoo logo in recent days. I strongly suspect those caps will be mutilated in coming months – perhaps the first time that arch-rival Cleveland makes a visit to Chicago in 2017 to play the White Sox.

Because seeing the Indians in the World Series was a reminder that the White Sox weren’t, and may have hurt even more than the Cubs’ presence there. Although I did get my kick out of seeing that for Game 7, the Indians used for their first ball ritual one-time White Sox slugger Jim Thome. Thereby sparing us the sight of actor Charlie Sheen, who wants us to think he really played for Cleveland.

 

Hit a more-legendary 4-bagger in '05

I’m sure there are some Cubs fans who felt a tinge of annoyance at having a Sox slugger so prominently displayed – even if he also was an Indian (and a Phillie and Twin).

I wonder how long the resentment will carry out on Jason Kipnis, the Indians infielder from suburban Northbrook who hit that home run in Game Four that put the hurt on Cubbie blue hearts for a little while.

ALTHOUGH I’M SURE the Addison Russell grand slam home run of Tuesday night helped console them. While also reminding White Sox fans about that similar shot Paul Konerko hit back in Game 2 of ’05.

Which brings us around to what will be the lasting bit of trash talk that Chicago baseball fans will now start to engage in for years to come. Who was better – ’16 Cubbies or the ’05 Sox?!?

As much as I already hear that “best team in baseball” nonsense being spewed all year by Cubs fans, anybody with sense knows that the Buehrle/Garland/Garcia/Contreras pitching rotation would shut down the baby blue bears over and over and over again. 

We're long overdue for a rematch, don't you think?

Which is why we need to have an all-Chicago World Series, and soon! Although there are times I wonder if Chicago could handle the stress level that a Sox vs. Cubs series would create in the chill of a Second City October?

  -30-

EXTRA: Gods of baseball setting someone up for a historic whammy!?!

Perhaps this church in suburban Homewood has the right idea; the good Lord himself isn’t taking a rooting interest in the World Series.

Although the gods of baseball (to whom “Jesus” is Alou, the uncle of former Chicago Cub Moises) are likely setting up a doozy of an ending to this year’s World Series – which could come to its conclusion Tuesday or could draw out as long as Wednesday.

ONE PART OF me can’t help but speculate that for the Cleveland Indians to come this close to victory and still manage to fall short would truly be cruel and unusual punishment.

Also the hermano of Felipe and Matteo

Of course, for the Chicago Cubs to have such a miraculous comeback would be so out-of-character for the ball club. If anything, it would be totally appropriate for the Cubs to be the team with the early lead that manages to find a way to blow it.

Remember 1984? And I don’t mean the George Orwell book!

I know Cubs fans have been buying into the “best team in baseball” nonsense all season, and some are convinced that a Cubs ultimate victory MUST be pre-ordained. Even though the sensible part of my baseball fandom knows there is no such thing – even less so than crying in baseball.

IF IT REALLY comes down to the Cubs managing to avoid having to say “Wait ‘til Next Year” for the 109^th time, it most likely will be due to some sort of act in the next couple of days by the Indians that blows it on a historic proportion.

Something that finally puts Fred Merkle’s “boner” to rest once-and-for-all. Which, by the way, was the only reason the Cubs managed to win that 1908 National League title instead of the New York Giants and even play in the World Series at all that year. Something that taints an Indians player for the rest of his baseball life.

 
So if you’re really amongst those who has to see the Cubs prevail in 2016, place your bets on an Indian gaffe – something so bad that not even Cubbie incompetence can blow it. Something so bad that Chief Wahoo takes on an eerie overtone to it.

Because if you’re seriously counting on Cubs skill to prevail, I’m pretty sure I can say that you’ll be crying at the sight of the “World Series Champion Cleveland Indians” piling on top of each other on their field in celebration – and having to be thankful you didn’t have to watch that sight live Sunday night at Wrigley following a Game 5 loss.

  -30-

The goat, vs. Rocky Colavito

Is this destined to be the All-Loser World Series. The one between cursed ball clubs – in which the image of Rocky Colavito gets to beat up on a goat!
 

Whose 'curse'...

The World Series for 2016 has turned out to be a matchup between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs. Both teams are charter members of their respective leagues, meaning they’re both over a century old.

BOTH HAVE ONLY two World Series victories in their histories (1920 and 1948 for Cleveland, as opposed to 1907 and 1908 for the Cubs). Both have old fans who have never seen their team win the whole thing, and have endured decades of horrendous baseball in the process.

 

... will prevail?

Meaning anybody who’s going into this week thinking that the Cubs just have to come out ahead is seriously misguided. It would be just as much of a moral victory for baseball if this were the year of the Indians.

Heck, one could argue that with the way the Cubs created an allegedly lovable image that makes some people think ivy-covered walls is what baseball is all about and that winning is secondary, the team hasn't suffered at all.

They never played home games in the “Mistake on the Lake,” as in the Lake Erie-based stadium of some 76,000 seats that could look absolutely desolate when only 6,000 or so were showing up to see the Indians contend for last place in their division throughout the years. The less said about “Dime Beer Night,” the better.

Which team will these two spirits...

ONE ALSO HAS to admit that the Curse of the Goat that Cubs fans also cite as the source of their losing teams has a contender in the Curse of Rocky Colavito – Rocky being the slugging ballplayer of the 1950s whom the Indians traded away to the Detroit Tigers for Harvey Kuenn.

It was supposed to be a home run hitter for a potential batting average champion. Rocky went to Detroit and played respectably, while Kuenn never played as well for Cleveland.

By the time the Indians reacquired Colavito in a trade in the mid-1960s, they had to give up a ton of young talent to do so. And by then, Rocky just wasn’t the same ballplayer himself.

...be rooting for this week?

I suppose Cubs fans could claim they have their own bad trade history, what with letting Lou Brock get away to the St. Louis Cardinals. But the point is that this World Series is going to be one in which a team gets to kill off its demons and finally give its fans the championship they’ve been waiting for; no matter who wins.

IT MAKES ME wonder how many cemeteries across northern Ohio are going to wind up with Indians pennants on the gravesites of now-deceased fans who never got to see their team win the whole thing?

Or is that sight destined to occur across the north side of Chicago. Because among those who are tied spiritually to the South Side, there will be those rooting for an Indians victory. I’m not kidding – I’ve talked to enough of them to know Cubdom doesn’t unite the city, no matter how much Cubs fans want to think the whole world is rooting for their ultimate victory.

Is having to play ballgames here enough reason ...

What does amuse me is that the 1948 Indians team that was the last to win a World Series for Cleveland has its Chicago ties. Its player-manager was Lou Boudreau – the prep sports star of Thornton High School in Harvey who later in life paired up with Jack Brickhouse in broadcasting Cubs games on WGN-TV.

And let’s not forget Bill Veeck, who owned that Indians team. It was his first major league team he ran outright, after having worked while a kid for the Cubs when his father was team president who helped put together the teams that won National League championships every three years throughout the 1930s.

YET EVEN THOSE teams always fell short come October. The Yankees of Babe Ruth, then Joe DiMaggio, and the Detroit Tigers were the teams that came out on top. While Cleveland has to live down the shame of being the team that let a second-rate wildcard like the ’97 Florida Marlins beat it in the World Series.

... to be entitled to break a 'curse?'

Thereby leading to our current predicament of seeing whether this is the year of the Cubs, or the Indians. Cleveland’s team this year isn’t a pushover – it whomped all over Boston and Toronto in the playoffs, and isn’t going to be intimidated by Cubbie lore.

So before North Siders get too cocky, keep in mind that it could easily be you come a week from now who will be agonizing aloud, “Why God? When will it FINALLY be our turn to win!”

  -30-

EXTRA: Beisbol heroics on Sabado from a pair of Latin American catchers

For those people who want to downplay the great significance that Latin America plays in modern-day professional baseball, Saturday was likely a swift kick to the huevos.
 

Carlos Santana became a Cleveland hero ...

For both the American and National leagues had more games in their ongoing quest to produce league champions who will face off against each other in this year’s World Series.

THE CLEVELAND INDIANS gave themselves a significant jolt in their chances of being one of those World Series-bound ball clubs – what with them beating the Toronto Blue Jays 2-1 to take a two games to nothing lead over their Canadian competitors.

While the Chicago Cubs started off their round of playoffs with an 8-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Three more wins, and the Cubs could have their first league pennant since 1945.

In both games, the big bats came from catchers who hail from Latin American nations – Carlos Santana of the Indians from the Dominican Republic and Miguel Montero of the Cubs from Venezuela.

Both men managed to hit home runs that gave their teams the leads they ultimately held. Both may well have had the highlights of their professional careers on Saturday.

FOR SANTANA, HE hit a line shot off Blue Jays pitcher J.A. Happ that managed to clear that 19-foot high wall they have at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, which may be as ridiculous a corporate ballpark name as Chicago’s new Guaranteed Rate Field.

 

... to be followed a few hours later in Chicago by a Cub

While Montero hit a four-run home run for the Cubs, coming in as a pinch hitter and breaking up a tied score that the Dodgers had just managed to accomplish.

Just at a time when the Dodgers thought they were going to outsmart the Cubs, a little bit of muscle broke the game open.

Just as how Santana broke up a double shutout game by putting the Indians on the board; creating a mood throughout Cleveland that had fans convinced that victory was theirs. And for at least a day made him the more important “Carlos Santana” than the legendary guitar player.

I WOULDN’T BE surprised if people in Cleveland and on the North Side were now gearing up for an Indians/Cubs World Series scheduled to begin Oct. 25. For what it’s worth, Halloween will be a travel day between games six and seven – if it turns out that those games need to be played.

 

For a day, he's just a guy named 'Carlos'

Although anyone with baseball sense knows nothing should ever be taken for granted until it’s a done deal. Anybody who has watched the Indians sweep the Boston Red Sox and handle Toronto thus far ought to be able to see they’re not going to be the least bit intimidated by the Cubs – no matter how much some people are determined to think it is inevitable that there will be an ultimate Chicago victory.

Toronto fans surely think things are about to change come Monday with the return of playoff games to Ontario, while Dodgers fans know that with six more games to play against the Cubs, they could still rebound.

Which is why baseball truly is the greatest of games, and only a fool will be paying any attention to the Bears Sunday as they play (and possibly lose to) the Jacksonville Jaguars.

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EXTRA: Baseball history may be made elsewhere other than Land of Wrigley

For those of you who are absolutely convinced that it has to be the Chicago Cubs winning a championship this year – that there’s no way that fate and the cosmos could possibly permit any other outcome – here’s a grasp on reality.

Will it be Cleveland that gets to add a championship banner to its collection?

There were two other playoff games held Monday, with the Washington Nationals managing a victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers that puts them but one win away from advancing to the next round of National League playoffs – and closer to the first World Series appearance by a D.C. ball club in 83 seasons.
 

A World Series hero after leaving Chicago

LET ALONE THE only victory for a Washington team since 1924.

They’re not even alone in the trying-to-make-history category!

Because at about the same time that the Cubs were taking on the San Francisco Giants in the first inning of what they hope is the final game of this round of playoffs, the Cleveland Indians were managing to pull off the final inning of their 4-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox.

Thereby clinching this round of playoffs for the Indians; who haven’t had a World Series title since 1948. We don’t have to have a Chicago Cubs team in the World Series for it to have historic overtones this season.

Hall of Fame-bound, but first a World Series 'goat'

AND AT THE very least, the Red Sox’ defeat ensures we won’t get the Fenway/Wrigley ballpark series that some baseball fans fantasize about way too much for it to be healthy.

Of course, none of this is at all set in stone. A Washington team would have to get past the Cubs to advance, and the Indians will have to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays in order to win an American League championship.

Maybe we’re not even meant to have anything historic about this year. Maybe we’re destined for a Toronto/Los Angeles World Series.

A baseball brawl between ball clubs that think they’re long-suffering because they haven’t won a World Series since 1993 and 1988 respectively. The series that allowed Joe Carter and Kirk Gibson their moments of baseball immortality.

Will Capitol Hill scene get to celebrate a local championship in '16?

THEY’RE ALSO ONES that cause their own twinges of grief when viewed by Chicago baseball fans. For Carter was once a Cub whom some fans are convinced team should never have traded away. While Gibson’s home run came off former Cubs pitcher Dennis Eckersley.

Besides, any White Sox fan with sense knows that if there were really any sense of justice in the world of baseball, that ’93 American League pennant would have been flying over New Comiskey Park all these years instead of inside Skydome.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Cubs jumped out to an early 3-0 lead as of when this commentary was written. Whether they’ll be able to hold it, or blow it and have to return for another game Tuesday in San Francisco will be seen.