Saturday, October 29, 2016

When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Turn Pro

In a year that has ratcheted from the banal to the bizarre, with presidential politics plumbing unprecedented depths while sagebrush insurgents walk free after the armed expropriation of a federal facility, it comes to this: the Cleveland Indians versus the Chicago Cubs, both perennial doormats, in the 112th World Series.

That’s right, folks, the year keeps getting “curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice might say in “Adventures In Wonderland.” Cleveland, which hasn’t won a World Series since Mickey Mantle was a teenager (1948), faces the even more woeful Cubbies, which hasn’t won a World Series since “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was a rookie (1908).

It’s tough picking a team to root for in this one. The Indians, the parent club for my beloved Portland Beavers, were a traditionally beleaguered bunch. Spending my summers at Multnomah Stadium, I saw many a great player such as “Sweet” Lou Pinella graduate to the Indians, only to be promptly traded to the Yankees. He wasn’t alone.

My affinity for the Chicago Cubs dates back to Ernie Banks, known as “Mr. Cub,” who wowed the fans at Wrigley Field, and the fact that I had to spend a week on the streets of the North Side of Chicago when our GMC panel truck broke down en route to Detroit on a cross country road trip right after graduating from high school.

Who do I like to win the World Series? I’ll never tell. But I know this: it will be the team that decides to take it up a notch -- to go for that brass ring that has eluded them for so long. It will be the team that won’t have to admit, as Yogi Berra put it so eloquently: “you wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.”


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