COLAVITO'S CURSE CONTINUES! - by John Herrington

COLAVITO'S CURSE CONTINUES!
by John Herrington
WMV Web News Cleveland
Story filed October 27, 1997

It was a little after midnight when the fat lady sang.

She picked a terrible song; she hit a lot of sour notes, but she sang.

And it's over.

The American League Champion Cleveland Indians are still the AL champs, but not World Champions.

It was a bad ending for a day that began well.

The pastor of a suburban Lutheran Church--it was Reformation Sunday--said he was certainly glad the Indians had won the sixth game of the World Series the night before.

"If they had lost," Rev. Dennis Stylski said, "I would be up here talking about 'the Grace of God' to a congregation with long faces silently answering back, 'Oh, yeah!'"

And before Game 7, one fan said the Series was taking too much of a toll on his "anxiety level."

He said he was going to videotape the seventh game.

"If things come out well, then I'll watch it," he said. "If they don't, I won't."

One believes he will not watch the tape.

"The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville
nine that day..."

That's how Erie Thayer (oh, very well; for the purists among you, Ernest Lawrence Thayer) begins "Casey at the Bat."

Actually, "the outlook" wasn't too brilliant for the Cleveland Nine all baseball season.

They weren't supposed to do all that well in regular season, some said. They weren't supposed to get into the playoffs, some said. They certainly weren't supposed to win that playoff series from the New York Yankees, some said. No way they would beat the Baltimore Orioles for the American League championship, some said. And, even if they did, no way would they beat the Atlanta Braves in the World Series, some said, assured that the Braves would again be in the Series.

But Atlanta was not in the Series.

And with the Florida Marlins in the Series, things were looking a bit brighter for the Cleveland Nine.

Just maybe, some said.

"A struggling few got up to go, in deep despair," Ernie Thayer wrote in his famous sports poem, and he continued, "The rest clung to that hope which 'springs eternal in the human breast.'"

Fans of the Indians know about that "eternal hope" stuff. Man, do they!

Hey, some 300-400 of those fans were at the airport on a cold, rainy Monday morning to welcome the Cleveland Nine home even if they are not World Champions. And a downtown parade and rally are part of Tuesday's "Team Spirit Day." One reporter said the city was expecting one of the biggest rallies "ever in downtown Cleveland."

And this is for a bunch of guys who did not win it all.

(In Miami, plans were being made for three parades--one of those was to be on a waterway with fans in boats.

(Editorial comment: Harrumph! Try your boats on Lake Erie at this time of year, Marlinites!)

Obviously, this team of Indians is a winner with Cleveland; dare one say they are the composite Casey?

That poem?

Yeah it has an ending:

"Oh! Somewhere in this favored land the sun is 	shining bright;
"The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
"And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
"But there is no joy in Mudville--might Casey has struck out."

And someone tell that fat lady to shut up! We know it's over... for the moment.

Now, about next year...