Admit it. You were greedy. You wanted the complete humiliation of a 9-1 win and were mad that Greg Bird hit a three-run homer for the Yankees in the ninth inning of Game 2 Wednesday.
It ended with a flaccid 9-4 score.
Humiliation is rude and anti-social but nine out of 10 amateur social scientists in the five-county Cleveland economic district say exceptions may be made when the New York Yankees are the party on the smelly end of humiliation. Historic references must be made to an obscene number of World Series titles and the Nettles-Charlie Spikes trade in order to qualify for forgiveness.
You SHOULD be happy to have a sweep in New York, and you are. You SHOULD be delighted that the Indians got an early lead, allowing you to tend to family obligations in the dinner hour even as you savored a lead that was increasingly comfortable.
You definitely thought about “Cleveland Rocks” as Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” pierced through the Yankee Stadium atmosphere.
That dinner-table meatloaf digests better with 13 hits, including two home runs. (How did Gomes ever get up to 10 homers?)
Embed from Getty Images
You can justify your ugly attitudes toward the Yankees in front of your children when it backed up by a victory. It always felt a little rude and undignified when the Indians were losing to everyone and Derek Jeter was beating Cleveland with ease.
Now we have pitchers whom much of civilized society never heard of (Ryan Merritt, 2-0, 1.74, and Craig Breslow, suddenly proficient after stinking up the joint – 5.53 — with Minnesota). Even nine Indians strikeouts are tolerable when the Yankees leave 13 men on base.
You are hereby permitted to ignore the fact that Zach McAllister gave up a three-run homer to Greg Bird, the 2015 version of Aaron Judge, to make the game seems closer than it really was. Yankee fans used to do the same thing with Mike Stanton.
Nope, we all go home happy this time. We all get a day off on Thursday and minor-league reinforcements are permitted on Friday. (Minor league fans are advised to visit Cleveland after the minor leagues conclude.)
We might not get serious again until October. Please note, it is NOT COOL to sell World Series tickets to fans living outside Ohio.