Indians and Fans Feeling a Classic Fall

It was 12:06 a.m. here and no longer Mike Hargrove’s birthday when the Cleveland Indians lost the World Series.

The manager stood helplessly in the dugout at the moment Edgar Renteria of the Florida Marlins cracked a pitch by Charles Nagy through the middle of the Indian infield. The ball rolled untouched into center field. Craig Counsell crossed home plate, Florida won Game 7 in 11 and there was no place for Cleveland’s team to go but back to Cleveland.

Jim Thome couldn’t bring himself to leave. The first baseman--a Cleveland player his entire career --flung down his cap, the one with the grinning

Indian above the bill. Thome, not grinning, squatted between the pitching mound and the plate, face in hands. Here he was, unable to look, as Florida’s players and fans pranced around the field.

Brian Anderson couldn’t stand it, either. A left-handed pitcher in Anaheim from 1993-95, he called his parents in Ohio during the 1995 World Series and said of the Cleveland team he adored as a kid, “Doggone it, they’re going to win it without me!” Here he was, an Indian at last, but still they didn’t win.

Jaret Wright? Well, most of his personal history came in Anaheim, where he was still going to high school while Anderson was an Angel pitcher. Here he was, 21 years old, pitching Game 7 of the World Series, a few outs away from giving Cleveland what it has desired for so very long.

Forty-nine years.

No championship for 49 years.

Dudley Michael Hargrove--Mike on your scorecard, “Grover” to his friends-- was born on Oct. 26, 1949. How could he have known that on his 48th birthday, approaching the turn of the century, Hargrove would find himself within three outs of becoming a Cleveland hero for life?

In the hours before Sunday night’s epic game, Hargrove could hardly bring himself to think about it.

“What would this mean to the city?” the Cleveland manager repeated a question, before his birthday’s unbelievable bash.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Hargrove said, trying to find the words. “I could tell you what it meant to the fans in ‘95, when we ended 40 years of frustration in bringing a winner to them and the city went absolutely bonkers. I would assume that it would be pretty much the same this time, if we can get the job done tonight.”

But could they?

The ball was in Wright’s hands. And later in Anderson’s hands. And eventually in Nagy’s hands. One by one, they came into the game, trying to give everyone in Ohio a night to remember. It was the night of nights. It was the 180th game of this season. It was a game the Indians had in the palm of their hands, 2-1, ninth inning, Jose Mesa on the hill.

Wright, the cool kid from the coast, had made the two runs stand up. He had pitched fearlessly. He gave up a double to the second Marlin he faced--Renteria-- and then silenced 67,204 voices by not allowing a hit until Bobby Bonilla’s home run in the seventh. A rookie? To Cleveland, for two hours, Jaret Wright turned into Bob Feller, Sudden Sam McDowell and Jack McDowell, rolled into one.

“He gave us everything we wanted,” Hargrove says later, in a voice sad and hoarse, “and then some.”

Anderson did the same. He was asked to get one out in the eighth inning, the last one. He got it.

Wright sat watching, clapping.

“Your stomach’s churning,” Wright says. “You feel like you’re going to throw up.”

Three outs to go. Three more outs and Cleveland is having the birthday party of Hargrove’s life. Three more outs and Anderson’s parents are painting Geneva, Ohio, red. Three more outs and everyone in the Buckeye state is grinning like that face on Thome’s cap.

And then a run scores, in the Florida ninth inning.

And the ninth inning becomes the 10th, and the 10th becomes the 11th.

A run.

A kingdom for one more run.

In every other game of this Series, the Indians had scored a minimum of four. All they needed now was one more.

And all of a sudden, a run scores . . . but it isn’t theirs.

Dazed, the players leave the field. Some remain seated in the dugout. Some, such as Thome, look lost. Others gather in a hallway, comforting wives and kids. A few, such as Wright, stand in front of their lockers, trying to make sense of it all.

“You find comfort in the fact that you had a chance, just to be part of it,” Wright says, 21 and not long-suffering, as Cleveland is.

The party is over.

So is the manager’s birthday.

Hargrove says on behalf of his players, “Feel for them, feel the loss. But don’t feel bad about who they are, or where they’ve come from, or where they’ve gone. They should feel proud of themselves, because they were champions. They were winners.”

Oh, how everyone in Cleveland wants to feel it, wants to believe it. Oh, how difficult that will be.