The AL Championship Series started tonight but I just don't care.
But that is not what this post is about. This post is to Tribe fans everywhere.
I am 64 years old and have been a diehard fan of the Indians since 1960. They are my team. I have seen the Cavs play in person a couple of times and been to some Browns games in the dead of winter at old Muncipal Stadium. These were my teams because they were Cleveland teams, my hometown teams.
But the Indians were always my team.
In reflecting on the loss on Wednesday and the entire season, here is what I have come to believe.
The glory in your season comes from the season itself, not the outcome. Chasing the dream of winning the World Series, of breaking the string of years that stretch from 1949 to, well, whenever we win the World Series, is foolhardy.
Getting upset over not winning the World Series is foolhardy. There is a greater than 95% chance every year that we won't win the World Series.
So why should the success or failure of our team be tied to it?
My epiphany came when I saw the Nationals lose at home to the Cubs last night. You know how many times in the past 6 years the Nationals have lost in the NLDS? Four times in the four years they were in the playoffs. They are worse than the Buffalo Bills in futility because the Nationals don't even make it out of the first round of the playoffs.
You see, if the Nationals and their fans felt that their season came down to the WS then their fans should not come to any games but WS games in the future. The Nationals should, by all rights, play to a nearly empty house (except for families and friends of the players and people who got freebee tickets) every night. Their fans KNOW they are going to win the NL East so why bother coming?
The thing is that a lot of people come to watch baseball for baseball sake. They love the game.
It is when the fans and players and management have the attitude that "I will only consider this a successful season IF..." that the fun is taken out of the game for the fans.
Last year Francona had the players thinking one game at a time. This year during the streak Francona had his players thinking about one game at a time. But somehow, because of the near miss last year and the fact that the pundits and odds makers were all saying the Indians were a lock to win the WS, people started to get the idea that THIS was the season. THIS time we were going to win the WS championship.
And look what happened. Everybody lost sight of the ultimate baseball truths:
(1) the best team on paper doesn't always win. You could go on and say hardly ever wins.
(2) you can never count on your players to play as well as you want them to.
(3) S--- happens, meaning that injuries happen, bad luck happens, fate happens and, of course, a blind squirrel sometimes does find an acorn. All of these conspire to make sure that the best team doesn't always win. Imagine how Yankees fans were feeling when Yan Gomes said that on his game winning hit in game 2 he was just trying to hit the ball to the right side to advance the runner to 3rd base and wound up hitting the ball down the left field line. Isn't that the definition of the blind squirrel finding an acorn?
So many things can keep your team, our team, from winning the series. Yeah, we can blame Francona and, to some extent, he is to blame. He is to blame because he couldn't pull ANY rabbits out of his hat to win this series. He couldn't, this year, overcome (1) through (3) above. You just can't do that every year.
So, my advice to Cleveland fans is to remember that they can't control destiny. They can only enjoy the ride. I am mad as hell that the Indians didn't advance but, truth be told, playing like they were playing against the Yankees sealed that they weren't going to GET to the World Series, let alone win it. It just wasn't in the cards for them this year.
Maybe next year the stars will align and the Indians will win. Maybe I will die before the Indians win the WS. But I can tell you this: On my deathbed...if I am talking about baseball on my deathbed...I won't be saying "Man, why couldn't the Indians just win the WS once in my lifetime?" If I am thinking about baseball at all, if I am talking about baseball at all, I will be talking about Giambi's pinchhit HR in 2014 when we were streaking to get to the wildcard game, Davis' HR of Chapman in 2016 and the streak and all the other records from 2017.
If I die talking about those things I will likely die with a smile on my face because that is baseball. You can't predict it. You can't count on the result in a short series to go your way. What you can count on is that if the body of work for a team in a season or over several seasons looks good, you SHOULD be happy as a fan.
Let's ask your average diehard Browns fan if they would take the Buffalo Bills' frustration over not winning a Super Bowl in so many tries over what they have to deal with now. I hope they would all say "Hell Yes" now and after 4 seasons of that 'frustration'.
If the Indians go to the playoffs for the next two years and then have an exciting team for the next 5 after that and NEVER win the WS during my lifetime, that is a GREAT victory for the franchise, much greater than the one-and-done of the Marlins in 2007.
So, Indians' fans. Rejoice about the ride and never worry about the sudden stop at the end. Just like last year when many Indians' fans I talked to were not that upset after the WS because they knew they had gotten their money's worth out of their team, so it is true this year. We got MORE than our money's worth out of this team.
Peace
No comments:
Post a Comment