Stale urine, decades-old beer, overcooked hotdogs and chemically saturated lake breezes. For most people, this questionable m?lange evokes waves of nausea, not nostalgia. But any died-in-the-wool Cleveland Indians fan knows it as the unmistakable odor of the old Municipal Stadium.
I grew up thinking that a .250 batting average was All-Star caliber and that Julio Franco was the second coming of Babe Ruth. I had some vague notion of what those mythical “playoffs” were, but since they had never made their way to the shores of Lake Erie in my lifetime, I didn’t worry too much about them. Instead, I just appreciated the fact that my family could relocate from our upper-deck seats to the front row. The team’s losing record made even cavernous Municipal an intimate setting, and there I learned the basics of the game from my dad, along with the basics of being an illogically loyal Indians fan.
In 1993, the year I first played organized softball, the Indians made two important moves. They traded for slick-handed Omar Vizquel whom I, a burgeoning shortstop, instantly worshipped. They also played their final game in Municipal Stadium, and prepared to relocate to shiny new Jacobs Field. The next year was one of exciting firsts. My softball team won the Shaker Heights 9-10 age division, and it appeared that the youth-laden Indians were headed for the playoffs as well, via the wild card.
But the players’ strike intervened, and my hopes were delayed for another season. When the labor dispute of millionaires versus billionaires was finally resolved, national pundits wondered if already-struggling baseball could ever reclaim its disillusioned fan base. But Cleveland’s love affair with the Indians, which would result in a record 455 consecutive sellouts of the new stadium, was just beginning.
I decided that 1995 season to forsake cushy girls softball for the challenge of hardball. I played for the Little League Yankees, and my only comfort, while looking at the photographic evidence of me sporting that hated navy cap, is that my team was as mediocre as the Major League version deserves to be. Though my Omar-inspired fielding skills were fine, fastballs hurled by the physically precocious 12-year-old boys I now faced in the batter’s box were a far cry from the gently lobbed rainbows I’d hammered on in the girls’ league. I grew frustrated.
My patient dad and older brothers spent hours working on my swing with me, telling me to watch the Indians for tips. But none of my favorites had a textbook swing. Manny Ramirez stepped in the bucket, Jim Thome swung too big, Omar too small, and Albert Belle was simply too horrible of a person to imitate in even the tiniest way.
Despite these foibles, the Indians were the best team in baseball that year, and I was obsessed. Raised in an NPR household, I began listening inveterately to AM sports radio talk shows hosted by heavy-breathing, crudely opinionated men with monikers like Mike “Mega Dago” Trivisanno. In defiance of the puzzled librarians who tried to steer me to the Judy Blume section, I took out library books like Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball.
When we lost the World Series to the Braves dynasty, I was heartbroken yet comforted by the old saw, “There’s always next year.” And for a while there was. The Indians consistently made the playoffs until 2002, when their brutal financially-driven dismantling of the team that had captivated Cleveland finally caught up to them.
I was skeptical of the promises that we would reap the benefits a few years down the line, and although I went to games and wore my Indians cap with pride, I was no longer singlemindedly devoted. I still played softball, but my summers were busy with work and commitments and simply being a typical teenage girl. The names in the box score grew less familiar, and when Omar Vizquel, my hero and lone remnant of the 1995 team, signed with the Giants, I dramatically decided that I’d never truly love a team again in the same innocently devoted way.
This summer, though, my faith has been restored in the Tribe. It turns out that they were serious about that rebuilding thing, and 10 years after that magical 1995 season they’ve come full circle with young players like Grady Sizemore (my new Omar) leading the charge. With my high school commitments gone and my post-college plans uncertain, I needed the Indians in my life again to reassure me that I will be a Cleveland fan no matter my physical location. I’ve recaptured some of my former obsession and can sympathize with those legions of boys who sacrifice valuable study time for the nightly Sportcenter ritual. And while most baseball devotees acknowledge the fact that the Indians will probably make the playoffs, only the blindly devoted fans are completely certain that 2005 is the elusive “next year.”
