Elitorial: Indians, guided by fate, just won't die

It was third baseman Jim Thome's 27th birthday, and in his honor, the Indians emerged from the dugout to take on the Anaheim Angels with bright red knee-high stockings, Thome's trademark. As odd as it may sound, several players and many closely associated with the team will never forget this game; they believe that this moment of unity marked their season turnaround. This is where the Indians became a team, not simply an ensemble of individuals thrown together at the outset of the season. That night, the Tribe routed the Angels 10-3. Since then, the Indians have kept the stockings, and have kept on winning. Two months later, they're in the World Series, and they're favored to win.

So it's the Cleveland Indians and the Florida Marlins, an October matchup that no one would have dreamed of. How about this for a list of October heroes: from Cleveland-- Jaret Wright, Sandy Alomar, Brian Anderson, and Tony Fernandez; from Florida--Edgar Renteria, Livan Hernandez, and Charles Johnson. It was supposed to be the year that the Yankees recaptured last year's magic, the year that the Orioles would finally catch the breaks and put everything together for a championship run, or the year that the Atlanta Braves would silence their critics and lose their label as choking dogs. There were many possible endings, but it appears that the most unlikely of them is about to occur.

After a rather dull regular season (memorable only for the individual achievements of a handful of stars), suddenly the unexpected has occurred, turning this season upside down, and making it one of the wildest, most exciting post seasons in memory. In the ALCS between the Indians and the Orioles, four of the six games could be up there on a list of ALCS classics. Games One and Two, decided by a total of four runs, were the only contests that were not one run games and decided in the final inning. In no other series in recent memory has there been a series with so many bizarre and unexpected twists. Game Two: With two outs in the eighth, Marquis Grissom, the number nine hitter in the lineup, hits a go-ahead three-run homer off of Armando Benitez, a pitcher that dominated batters during the season. Game Three: Orioles pitcher Mike Mussina fans a record 15 batters, yet the Orioles still lose on a botched squeeze play in the 12th. Game Four: The Indians overcome a 5-2 deficit facing Scott Erickson, a pitcher that shut them down in Game One, and win on a Sandy Alomar single. Game Six: Tony Fernandez, in for Bip Roberts, a last-minute scratch, hits a homer to break a scoreless tie in the 11th. The Indians win the series, despite hitting a miserable .193 and striking-out a record 62 times.

Meanwhile, the Marlins-Braves series wasn't so bad, either. Florida beat Greg Maddux twice and saw rookie Livan Hernandez tie Mussina's mark the next day, as he struck out 15 in a critical Game Five victory. But as well as the Marlins have been playing, how can you go against Cleveland? This is a team that was four outs away from falling 2-0 in a best-of-five game series to the defending champion Yankees, but somehow, Sandy Alomar planted a Mariano Rivera pitch into the outfield seats to tie the game. This had all the signs of being a disappointing year for the Indians. Miserable pitching, a lagging offense, and a lack of hunger plagued them for most of the year. But now, the Indians have found themselves; their bullpen has outpitched the two premier bullpens in the majors, their lineup continues to manufacture runs and get the big hits, and the team continues to play as if it simply can't lose. Don't mess with fate. The Yankees taught you that last year. You can just sense that it's an Indian October.

So, the ALCS ended appropriately on Wednesday night, with Roberto Alomar at the plate, representing the winning run, and Jose Mesa on the mound. It was just a year ago that Alomar hit the game tying single with two outs in the ninth and the game-winning homer in extra-innings off Mesa to oust last year's Tribe out of the running. But this time, Mesa caught the inside corner on a called third strike, and Alomar and baseball fans across the nation were left stunned.

No big deal, say the Indians. It's just the stockings.

--by Albert Chen

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