These Fans Are Here to Warm

To say that the World Series merely shifts to Cleveland for Game 3 tonight is like saying a tornado is a simple change in the weather. The differences will be sudden and severe, a shock to the senses.

The Florida Marlins and Cleveland Indians left the balmy temperatures and fair-weather fans of Pro Player Stadium, where the teams split the first two games, for the wilds of Jacobs Field, where some of America’s heartiest souls will brave the elements and stand and scream on every pitch, if that’s what it takes to will their Indians to victory.

Toto, we are definitely not in Miami any more.

You’ll be able to feel the difference. Temperatures are expected to dip into the 38-degree range with a chance of rain and snow flurries, conditions more favorable for hanging sides of beef than curveballs. Forget the ground crew. Somebody call a Zamboni driver.

And you’ll be able to feel the difference. In South Florida, the Marlins play in a converted football stadium named after an underwear company, and fans dress in tacky teal and do a silly dance called “the Fish” and leave World Series games early. They haven’t suffered enough during the Marlins’ five-year existence to really appreciate October baseball. Cleveland offers a true World Series experience.

More than 45,000 fans pack Jacobs Field, one of the country’s finest baseball-only stadiums, for every home game, and these people are starving for a winner, having gone 49 years without a World Series championship.

Sun, rain, hail, sleet or snow, there will not be an empty seat in the house tonight, and the only thing more stunning than a pitcher throwing a World Series perfect game would be for an Indian fan to leave early.

“The fact that I’m at third base every night and play nine, 10, 11 innings, whatever it takes, and I go home with a splitting headache is a tribute to our fans,” Indian infielder Matt Williams said.

Added pitcher Orel Hershiser, “We have 20,000 less fans, but they’ll make as much noise, if not more. [The Marlins] will get to see what live baseball is all about.”

It wasn’t always like this, of course. Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove was an Indian first baseman from 1979-85, when the team played before small crowds in cavernous, cold Municipal Stadium, and winning seasons were only slightly more common than 85-degree days in January.

Then Jacobs Field opened in 1994, with a view of the downtown skyline and all the modern amenities, and Cleveland re-embraced its team with a mammoth bear hug.

Sellout crowds and sold-out luxury suites generated the revenue to increase payroll, which helped the Indians keep good young players and get some others, who helped them win three consecutive division titles and reach the World Series twice in three years. And now, they are all the rage in northern Ohio.

Asked to reflect on the dark years, Hargrove said, “Gosh, you make it sound like the Middle Ages,” and then he went on to make it sound like, well, the Middle Ages.

“We have 45,000 people now who yell as loud as they can, and before there were only 10,000 people who yelled as loud as they can,” Hargrove said. “The feeling is like night and day, to where people were at times fearful of letting others know they liked the Indians to now, where they’re falling all over themselves trying to get the last Indian T-shirt or baseball hat.”

They probably will have to add mittens, ski masks, thermal underwear and heavy jackets to that list tonight. This World Series just went from South Beach to the South Pole. It’s going to be so cold, a Cleveland Browns’ game might break out.

“But there will be no excuses here,” Marlin Manager Jim Leyland said. “Are we going to be cold? No question. But if we’re sitting around looking at each other and shivering, we’ve got problems.”

The biggest problems will be for Game 3 starting pitchers Al Leiter of the Marlins and Charles Nagy of the Indians.

“The ball becomes like a cue ball, with a slick feeling,” Leiter said. “It’s a matter of getting a grip. Obviously you’re not sweating, so you can’t get any moisture to get a good grip.”

Nagy grew up in Connecticut and attended the University of Connecticut, so he’s used to pitching in the cold.

“I don’t mind it,” he said.

Leiter grew up in New Jersey and remembers “pitching many games in the cold and snow.”

The important thing to remember, Leyland said, is that conditions are the same for both teams.

“This is not the time to be playing mind games, worrying about the weather,” he added. “We’re playing the World Series. The fingers and the feet might get cold, but the heart stays warm.”

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TONIGHT’S GAME

Florida Marlins at Cleveland Indians

TIME: 5:15 p.m.

TV: Channel 4

PITCHERS: Florida’s Al Leiter vs. Cleveland’s Charles Nagy