Chicago, Cleveland are kindred spirits in more ways than baseball – Chicago Tribune
“Hello, Cleveland!” as they say in the movies.
The Cubs and Indians meet Tuesday in the opener of a World Series at least partly defined by their decades-long struggles and the epically elusive epic quest the winning ballclub will at last complete.
There’s no need for introductions between the cities.
Chicago knows Cleveland as surely as it knows itself.
Cleveland knows Chicago, another notch in the Rust Belt.
They share Great Lakes winters that too often seem to stretch to Memorial Day and baseball summers too often over by Labor Day.
Their pro football teams disappoint. Their basketball teams climb to the top only when the greatest player of his generation takes them there.
This Indians-Cubs World Series is the block “C” versus the circle “C.”
It’s navy blue with red and white versus royal blue with red and white.
Both franchises’ identities were shaped in no small way by the genius of the late longtime baseball executive Bill Veeck.
Veeck would go on to own the White Sox twice. He was a Cubs employee in the 1930s whose vision and supervision led to the installation of Wrigley Field’s beloved bricks-and-ivy outfield walls, upgraded bleachers and center-field scoreboard.
Veeck also was the Indians owner in 1948, the last time they won a World Series.
His player-manager that championship season was Lou Boudreau, the pride of Harvey, Ill., and a future Hall of Famer and Cubs announcer.
It was Veeck who commissioned the Indians’ mascot design, the (downgraded but not retired) caricature Chief Wahoo, which over time would become controversially out-of-step and oft-protested.
Chicago and Cleveland are very much baseball cities, although they are not normally October baseball cities.
There have been 111 World Series to date. The Cubs and Indians have been around for all of them, yet each has only two titles to show for it and none in a very, very long time.
That is just history, however, and the stage now is set for something historic.
Each ballclub has won seven games in this postseason. Ten doesn’t get the job done.
It’s time for someone to crank it up to 11.
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