I’ve been anticipating this series all baseball season.
I heard the Facebook chirping of Billy Hockey about the New York Yankees having the best record in the American League. I drove daily past the Yankees banner on my neighbors’ front porch. Most annoyingly, the perceived slights from games at Yankee Stadium are seared into my hippocampus.
Let the trash talking begin, Yankee fans. I’ll dumb it down for you — that’s the part of the brain that controls long-term memory. It’s not pronounced like an African behemoth; it’s hi·puh·kam·puhs.
As a Cleveland Guardians fan, I need to unholster my big fat Irish mouth before the American League Championship Series is decided. I root with the minority. I could walk the length of Ford Street and meet 10 fans sporting Yankee ballcaps. I would be the only person wearing the big red C.
Rooting for Cleveland in this David vs. Goliath matchup did not come to me in a dream last night. It’s a loyalty thing from the early 1980s when I worked as a reporter and sports editor in suburban Cleveland. The Indians grew on me.
You could attend a Saturday afternoon game at Municipal Stadium and find shortstop Jerry Dybzinski in the pew next to you at evening Mass. You could interview left fielder Kevin Rhomberg after a game, shake hands, then he would insist on touching you last. It was his compulsion. An umpire once stopped a Yankees game to tell players to keep their hands off Rhomberg.
The prize for most bizarre character went to 1980 AL rookie of the year Joe Charboneau. When his father ditched the family in Santa Clara, Calif., Super Joe turned to bare-knuckle boxing matches in warehouses and boxcars to earn money. He was dyeing his hair long before this generation found it cool. He once fixed a broken nose with a pair of pliers and a few shots of whiskey. He holds the record for the shortest career (201 games) by a rookie of the year.
Cleveland owns the longest streak of not winning a World Series. It’s been 75 seasons since they beat the Boston Braves in the 1948 Series. They got back to the Series in 1954 and seemed poised to win the opener at the Polo Grounds in New York, but a rookie named Willie Mays made his famous overhead catch and the Giants rolled. Every time my newspaper did a story on local baseball legend Johnny Antonelli, owner of 28 Firestone Tire stores around Rochester, I was reminded of the catch and the Indians’ fate. Antonelli won Game Two and earned the save in Game Four. Sweep.
I suffered through the 1995 World Series loss to the Atlanta Braves and I was reminded often how Cleveland lost the ’97 Series to the Florida Marlins on an 11th-inning single in Game 7.
My friend’s autistic son has a savant-like memory and would greet me in the bathroom at basketball games.
“Hi Jim. You’re the fan of the Cleveland Indians who lost the 1997 World Series when Craig Counsell scored from second base on Edgar Renteria’s 11th-inning single off Charles Nagy.’’
Then he would exhale. Geez, thanks.
When the Indians made the 2016 World Series, I reunited with three ex-roommates – we all worked for the same newspaper – at a downtown Cleveland bar before Game Six. With each beer, our confidence grew that the Indians, holding a 3-2 series lead, would snap their streak during the final two games at Progressive Field.
We couldn’t afford $300 for a ticket so we milled around the left-field gate and shared our backpacks full of canned beer. The Indians got crushed, 9-3. At home the next night, I watched Cleveland rally from a 6-3 deficit to send the game into extra innings, endured a 10th-inning rain delay, then their rally fell short for an 8-7 loss. Game, set, streak to the Cubs, who snapped a 108-year World Series drought.
It’s tough being a fan. As a sports editor, you try to remain dispassionate. When the Buffalo Bills went to four consecutive Super Bowls in the 1990s, my job was to meld the stories and photos into a package for our readers, not bellyache about field goals sailing wide right or blaming referees. As a fan, I whine about inconsistent strike zones or the Little League wall in right field at Yankee Stadium. When the Guards last played there, Aaron Judge hit two homers and Juan Soto another that would have been flyouts in any other ballpark. Instead, the Yankees won the season series, 4-2.
I’m still irked by the Yankee Bleacher Creatures from April 22, 2022. Cleveland left fielder Steven Kwan crashed into the outfield wall, cutting his chin and forehead and leaving him dazed and sprawled on the warning track. Yankee fans responded by heckling and celebrating the injury. Center fielder Myles Straw scaled the wall to confront the hecklers. Yankee fans responded the next inning by tossing half-filled beer cans and debris at Straw and right fielder Oscar Mercado. That is the indefensible, classless behavior that gives the New York franchise a bad name.
This all comes from a reformed Yankee fan, a guy introduced to the team as a 10-year-old in 1967 when second baseman Horace Clarke led regulars with no power and a .273 batting average.
When sports became a profession, I began to resent the large-market spending versus the small-market disadvantages. You want to talk payrolls? Here’s how the four playoff survivors rank in USA Today’s annual salary report:
- New York Mets − $305,624,274
- New York Yankees − $303,322,047
- Los Angeles Dodgers − $249,823,654
28. Cleveland Guardians − $93,333,629
My friends already are offering bets on the ALCS. Next door neighbor Felipe, always wearing his Yankees cap, wagered a beer. Cousin Mike did the same. The long-distance wager of a beer arrived from my boyhood Morristown neighbor, Chris Schroh, now running an aviation sales team in the San Diego area.
Chris’s father introduced him to the Yankees in 1977 at age 7, and he holds fond memories of World Series titles and games on WPIX. But his house is divided. His daughter Meghan has decided that, after 27 Yankees World Series titles, she will root for her buddy from Cal State-Fullerton, Cleveland ace Tanner Bibee. They became friends while Bibee led the Titans pitching staff and Meghan was an elite defender on the soccer team.
“I told her, ‘Why don’t you wait until Tanner hits free agency and the Yankees sign him because Cleveland can’t afford him, and you can root for him as a Yankee. But she is impatient and wants him to win right away.’ ’’
I agree. I hope to collect on all three bets.
Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at jimholleran29@gmail.com or view past columns under “Reflections of River Rat’’ at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog/
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