Half a life ago

I was in college the last time the Indians were in the World Series. Remember that team? I can still name the whole lineup - Thome at first, Baerga at second, Vizquel at short, Fryman at third, Manny, Kenny, and Joey called Albert manning the outfield, Sandy behind the plate... Oh wait, Baerga and Belle were gone by then, and Fryman didn't come until the next year.

Funny how fragile memory is. I should have at least remembered that Matt Williams was at third.

Those were some great teams - five first place finishes in a row, culminating with a 1997 pennant. I was studying in Luxembourg that autumn, the junior year that changed everything. I didn't get to watch any of the playoffs, not that I can remember anyway, but we did get to see a few World Series games. Back then, we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to get to a baseball game, and MLB.TV hadn't been invented yet.

We watched a couple of games at my host family's house. The games were condensed, so they lasted less than two hours. I tried not to find out the scores before watching, but sometimes a student would give it away. Kramer!

My host father is, well, a racist. He watched a game with us and I'll never forget his amusement at the fact that Devon White was a black guy with the last name White. It is, in fact, my strongest memory of the entire World Series. How strange is that?

Other games we watched at a local bar right next to our school. It was full of old, grumpy men and my housemate and I were two college girls demanding that an old, grumpy bartender play a foreign sport that nobody watched there on the single, small screen television in the corner of the bar. I think we watched two games in there under the unwelcoming eyes of the bar's aged patrons. But he let us watch.

The things you do for baseball.

I don't remember too much about the specifics of the Series, but I do remember the disappointment as the fake team with the rent-a-players and the evil owner poured onto the field in triumph. I had liked the Indians as the "other" Ohio team and had even seen a game at Municipal Stadium back when they were ripe for a comedy to be made about them. That Game 7 loss was tough.

A Cubs-Indians World Series is gonna be classic. Hopefully, Cleveland won't be on the losing end this time.