Thanks Boys - It was Totally Worth It

What. A. Night. It hasn't truly sunk in yet what Caleb, Jacob, Ethan and I witnessed, but eventually it will. For a video recap of our day, here's a 5 minute video I threw together (https://youtu.be/bn_Uz-B6gD8) I'm not even that upset the Indians lost. I'm really not. When they lost in game 7 of the '97 World Series I was sick for days. I still can't bring myself to watch the highlights from that game almost 20 years later. But I've already watched the highlights from Game 7 this year 10 times. When the game ended Thursday morning at nearly 1 a.m. I let out a sigh, took one last glance at the stadium beside us and we were on our way. That was it. No moping or pouting or wallowing in self-pity. There wasn't even that sick feeling in my stomach that I've felt far too many times. In fact I actually laughed a bit and smiled - I had just watched one of the greatest Game 7's in World Series history, to end one of the greatest series in history, AT THE STADIUM with my sons. Well done Cubs and your fans. It's long overdue. If my team was going to lose to someone in the World Series, I'm glad it was you. And it happened because my boys had to convince me to go. What. A. Night.  Bear with me - this rambling is more for me so that I won't forget those 36 hours and for the boys to read someday when they'll fully understand what we saw. If it entertains anyone else so be it, but it's more for me and them someday than anyone else.

There are lots of reasons why I wasn't very upset, in no particular order....(1) I've mellowed a lot over the years. My mom would be so proud...and I think Holly might be too! I used to take these types of things WAY too seriously. It's nice to

know I may finally be growing into an adult in my late 30's. (2) I loved the Cubs as a kid and I've been rooting for them all year so I was happy to see them win (as happy as one can be when his team loses at least). (3) I got to witness history - real, crazy, once-in-a-lifetime history. And I got to do it with my boys. (4) The Indians weren't supposed to be in the World Series - when you lose your #2 and #3 starters and are without your best hitter, you don't last long in October. Where would the Cubs have been if you took away Arrieta, Hendricks and either Rizzo or Bryant? That's what the Indians were missing without Carrasco, Salazar and Brantley - three of the best 6 or 7 players on the team. I thought they'd get swept by Boston. And I really thought they'd get knocked out by Toronto. So getting to the World Series, let alone getting to a game 7, was WAY beyond any expectations I had a month ago. If there was ever a "just along for the ride" run to the World Series, that was me for the past few weeks. What a run they went on against all odds - and it went down to the final play against a team that was the best in the league all season long. A team that flat out dominated the National League - and the Tribe was SO close to knocking them off.  (5) Going along with #1, I've changed a lot spiritually over the past few years. The things that used to matter SO much don't anymore. Baseball really doesn't matter....God has been shaping me and cutting away the worldly things that shaped my mood and attitude in the past and has replaced them, one-by-one, with the things that matter to Him. I've got a long way to go, but I'm moving in the right direction thanks to a deeper relationship with Him through my church, small group and others. I'm so grateful He's not done with me yet. So at the end of the day, I was able to

TRULY ENJOY the experience regardless of the outcome. I don't do that as often as I should. How would my life be different if they had won the game? It wouldn't - maybe I'd be a little more excited today, but that stuff never lasts. Those temporary ups and downs never last long and never bring long-term satisfaction. They were never supposed to.  My joy, happiness and contentment are not found in anything this world has to offer. April is going to come around soon and all the Cubs fans that are on cloud nine today are going to be right back to fretting about winning again. So enjoy the moments this world has to offer, but don't rely on them. This earth will ALWAYS let you down. Jesus never will.

Flashback to Tuesday night....I told the boys before they went to bed, "If the Cubs win game 6, I might consider driving up to Cleveland to watch Game 7 on the TV's outside the stadium." They went to bed super excited hoping my poor Indians would lose game 6 which of course they did. I don't do things on a whim. That's not how I'm wired. We can't even manage to take vacations and trips that we plan months in advance sometimes. I always talk myself out of trying "unreasonable" things because I'm reasonable to a fault. Deep down I knew we weren't really going to go. I went to bed at midnight - after a crushing loss in Game 6 with zero plans to drive up there. I kind of felt bad for planting that seed in their little heads before they went to sleep.

Then came Wednesday morning. As the boys woke up and heard there would be a Game 7 that night, they were begging to go. They weren't the ones that would have to take off work and drive 7 hours up and 7 hours back...or mess with trying to find a parking place that didn't cost $100, pay for gas or a hotel, try to keep everyone together in the midst of thousands of people. What they were getting out of this deal was two days out of school, watching movies and sleeping in the car, and dad buying them food to eat that mom wouldn't let them have (which I did very little!). The deal seemed pretty one-sided from my point of view as the party pooper. At 7:45 a.m. I made up my mind we were not going. It was too much - I hate driving long distances. There's no way I could make it up there and back and stay awake for 24 straight hours. At Holly's request I looked up hotels....priceline is awesome. $50 for a room 30 minutes south of Cleveland....But what if we couldn't even see the screens? There were 5-10,000 people watching in the plaza area in game 6. I could see, but the boys couldn't unless we took some step stools. How can I take them to the bathroom without losing my spot? What if we drove all the way up there and they lost 10-0? How big of a waste would that be? There's no way the boys can stay awake for the game. They'll be complete grouches by the time it starts, let alone when it's over. And then there are the days to follow. They don't recover well from lack of sleep. These are the "logical" questions I came up with to talk myself out of going. So it was final - we're not going. With backpacks on and lunches packed we waited for the bus. Nobody was very happy. When it drove by the house I told Caleb to wave it on - I needed a few more minutes to think about this.....At 8:15 I changed my mind. What the heck - let's do this. We were on the road by 9:15 - having thrown together the following things in the car:  bottles of water, a couple step stools, a change of clothes for everyone but me (I knew I forgot something), some chips, beef jerky and the lunches they had packed for school. Road trip!

We arrived around 4:30 and found a place to park that didn't require me selling one of the kids to pay for it. $40 didn't seem too bad considering it was $100 near the stadium. It's game 7, and watching the game was free. I would love to say the car ride was like I dreamed it would

be...pure bliss with no arguing or fighting or whining as they sang my praises for being the best dad in the world. That totally didn't happen, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Backpack, step stools and cameras in tow we made our way to the plaza between the Indians and Cavs stadiums outside of the left field gate. At 5PM (three hours before the first pitch) the place was insane. People EVERYWHERE. I didn't know there were that many people in Ohio, let alone Cleveland. Thankfully, most of them were waiting to get inside. We set up camp directly in front of one of the giant screens and waited....and waited...and waited as we listened to a rap/rock concert that nearly made our ears bleed. "How much longer?"...."2 1/2 hours"...."How much longer?...."Just 1 1/2 hours"...as the plaza filled up with thousands of people, I was glad we got there early and got up front. They just kept coming and coming and coming.....The step stools became seats for the boys since we were in the front row. So they didn't have to stand for the whole time after all.

As we waited some cheerleaders came by and loaded up the boys with freebies (hats, Indians eye black stickers, little foam fingers). I didn't even have to buy them souvenirs which was great, because there was no way I could get out of the spot we were wedged into. I struck up a conversation with two older

gentlemen that brought their lawn chairs and sat right beside us. They had tickets to Game 6 and stuck around to watch game 7 on the screens. They'd grown up in the area and been fans since the '50's. I told them how I'd become a fan in the late 80's when the Indians were terrible, how I had no affiliation to Cleveland whatsoever, and that I'd taken the boys out of school and driven 7 hours that morning just to watch the game on TV outside the stadium. One of them said, "Best decision you could have made." Agreed. One of the guy's wives was from Effingham, IL so he knew all about Robinson being the home of the Heath bar. They had driven through Vincennes many times on trips from Ohio to Illinois. What are the chances? 

As game time approached, the energy grew. This was the first game 7

championship game to ever be played in Cleveland. History was going to be made one way or another and everyone knew it. Are the Cubs and Indians really playing for the championship tonight? The whole scene was surreal. It was better being outside than inside. No doubt. I heard there were anywhere from 30-40% Cubs fans inside, but in the plaza it was 90% Indians fans. With Tom Hamilton (voice of the Indians) piping through the speakers, the game started. Added bonus - we didn't have to listen to Joe Buck!

A leadoff homer from the Cubs quieted the place really fast. But the Indians tied it in the 3rd on a Carlos Santana single, and it was starting to FEEL like the Indians were going to win. Shots of Charlie Sheen and Lebron James on the big screen brought wild cheering from the crowd. Shots of Bill Murray and Joe Buck

brought boos. I can understand booing Joe Buck, but not Bill Murray. Then in a blink of the eye they were down 5-1. Even Andrew Miller was giving up runs. Every ball the Cubs hit in the air seemed to carry out of the park. Did they move the fences in? Is the wind blowing out 30 mph? What's going on??? The energy was sucked out of the entire city. It's Cleveland. They don't win these games. We should have known better than to get our hopes up. Ethan (age 7 who was rooting for the Cubs) turns to me and says, "Remember we watched that Believeland show about Cleveland always blowing it? They're doing it again." Thanks for the support buddy. Remember who your ride home is.

At some point in the middle of the game a man with a camera and a notepad came up to Caleb and asked him his name and where he was from. Under any other circumstances, this would be creepy, but this time it was fine. He was a

photographer and had taken a picture of Caleb and wanted to make sure he got his name for the caption. I had no clue at the time he was with the Associated Press so I kind of blew it off assuming it was some guy from a local paper or somewhere else. However I did a quick google search for his name yesterday and the guy was from the AP so his photo was plastered on news articles all over the place - including the main page of the Albuquerque newspaper. (https://www.abqjournal.com/881658/indians-fans-again-must-wait-until-next-year.html/bc-bbo-world-series-cleveland-reaction-img-jpg-jpg) . Enjoy your 10 minutes of fame kid.

Something needed to happen, and it needed to happen soon. It did when the Cubs took Hendricks out of the game in the 5th inning. Thank you Joe Maddon! With runners on 2nd and 3rd, a wild pitch scored two runs as Jason Kipnis never stopped running from second. It was Kenny Lofton from 1995 all over again (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv3uVVz_7nQ). It was 5-3 and something was brewing.....but then it wasn't again. 6-3 game in the 8th inning with two outs and nobody on. Four outs away from another "oh so close" loss and Aroldis Chapman waiting to come in. Ethan was comfortably enjoying the Cubs lead and Caleb and Jacob were really starting to get into the game waving their towels and bouncing up and down on every pitch. At some point Jacob sat on my lap between innings and said, "This is the best day of my life." He says that about once a week, but it sure sounded good at the time. Ethan kept asking me what time it was. There were times I was convinced he was more interested in how late he was getting to stay up than the game itself. Once it got past midnight, he was elated. An innocent infield single brought Chapman into the game. A great at bat that resulted in an RBI double from Brandon Guyer made it 6-4 and brought Rajai Davis to the plate - the guy that failed to throw out a tagging runner early in the game on a VERY shallow fly ball and who had gone 3-for-32 in the postseason. Chapman hadn't given up a homerun since June and Davis hadn't hit one since August. He hit .190 in September and was

benched for half the games in the postseason. The only reason he was playing was because Tyler Naquin derailed in Game 6. Just hit the ball somewhere and run fast is all I was hoping for.  It seemed like the at bat lasted 45 minutes, but apparently it was only 7 pitches long. Foul ball...foul ball....then it happened. The last thing anyone expected: https://youtu.be/fLOrlJWpQX8 Bedlam. Pandemonium. Whatever words you want to use to describe what happened when that ball left the park wouldn't do the moment justice. Apparently they shot off fireworks above our heads, but I never saw or heard them. It was MADNESS. I had an instant deja vu flashback to when I was in the stadium in 1997 when Sandy Alomar homered off Mariano Rivera in the exact same situation in the Division Series. 8th inning, two outs = four outs away from elimination (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZgx2kxJ-lg). I can't decide which one was better....I don't have to. I'll take both. Caleb swears he prayed that he would hit a homerun. Who knows. When the ball left the park, there was a 99.9% chance the Indians were going to win the World Series. And I think most of the Cubs fans thought the exact same thing. After all, they are the Cubs. The Indians had so many walk-off wins during the season that it was only fitting for them to win the World Series with another one. I actually predicted a walk-off win in a text to my brother before the game. But it's Cleveland. Of course they would find a way to hit that .1%. I thought Kipnis won the game in the bottom of the 9th when he yanked a deep drive down the right field line, but it hooked foul. He later struck out. Then the rain came.

It seemed that all the excitement and energy was drained out of the place when the tarp came on the field and there was a 20 minute rain delay before extra innings began. Of course this game would last longer than 9 innings. It had to. When the game started back up again, it was almost like the reset button had been pressed. I don't know how much it actually affected the game, but the energy was different. The Cubs had time to regroup. The Indians emotional high disappeared with the stoppage of play. Unless you were there, it's hard to describe, but it just "felt" different. Three ground ball hits and two intentional walks later it was 8-6 Cubs. I honestly remember thinking I just wanted this game to be over. By this point, we had been standing outside of the stadium over 7 hours. I was physically, emotionally and mentally spent. Two outs, nobody on in the 10th. One out away from it being over. But then there was a walk followed by an RBI single from Rajai Davis (where was this Rajai Davis all October??), and now another dramatic homerun would win the World Series. 6 of the 7 runs the Indians scored came after they had two outs and nobody on. Why not one or two more? And the last man you'd want at the plate - the utility guy that only comes in to play defense is the last hope. I was hoping for an error, a walk or a hit by pitch because I knew Michael Martinez wasn't getting a hit. A weak grounder to third and it was over. 8-7. Sigh....It was 12:40 a.m. And we had just watched what may have been the greatest ending to a World Series ever.

The boys heard some colorful words they don't usually hear, but all in all it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be on the walk back to the car. It's not like these people hadn't been through this before. They're pretty much used to it at this point. I'm sure it would have been much worse had the Cavaliers not won the title a few months before. I fired off a few questions on the walk back to the car: "Do you guys realize what you just saw?", "Do you know you were at a very historical event?", "Did you know when you're older that you'll be able to tell your kids that you were at the game when the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in over 100 years?". They said yes, but they don't get it. They won't for a while and that's OK. It is a memory for all of us that will never be forgotten. We got to the hotel at 1:53 a.m. The boys were asleep by 2. At least one of them got their teeth brushed Holly so that's a win. What a night.

We were up at 8:30 and on the road at 9 a.m. Thursday morning for the 7+ hour trek back home. By the time we drove all the way home it was hard to believe all that happened in just a little over 24 hours (over 14 of which were spent in a car). Holly was talking about the game with the boys and said something about "the game last night" and Ethan corrected her saying, "No, it was this morning. It started yesterday, but it ended today. That's really cool." Yes little man, it was. 

I wanted to go, but I didn't want to go. I'm sure glad I did. So to Caleb, Jacob and Ethan - thanks for begging, whining, pleading and guilting me into saying yes. I wouldn't trade that day for anything and I'll never forget it. I don't think you will either.

Love,
Dad