With a World Series Win, Players, not Just the Franchises, Will be Liberated

In 1983, Cal Ripken, Jr. had one of the best seasons ever turned in by a shortstop to that point. As a result, the Baltimore Orioles won the American League East (and, eventually, the World Series), and the BBWAA voted Ripken the league MVP. The next year, he turned in a season that was virtually identical, and no other position player was nearly as good. However, the Orioles were disappointing, finishing fifth in a seven-team division. That fall, Ripken finished tied for last in the MVP vote. He did not receive a first-place vote on any ballot, losing to reliever Willie Hernandez 306-1. Twenty-six other players also received more votes.

In baseball, it's often not what you accomplish, it's what your teammates do.

Wednesday night's Game 7 will be wrenching to one of two long-suffering fanbases, not to mention the players and associated front-office personnel and others affiliated with the losing organization. Nonetheless, it's also a wonderful opportunity for liberation, not just for the teams from their various bogus curses, but for the players themselves. These two teams have wasted so much, whole careers, spectacular seasons. Those years dwell on the island of All-For-Naught with permanent caretaker Don Mattingly. Win or lose, they've been liberated from that, and not just in the sense of participating in a World Series, but participating in one of the World Series, a seven-game nail-biter that's going to be remembered—unlike, say, the drought-breaking Chicago White Sox championship of 2005, which has vanished from memory as thoroughly as if some Soviet apparatchik had deemed they be airbrushed out of the history books.

The Cubs and Indians have often been great, but on an individual rather than a group basis. These inevitably solipsistic campaigns in which players had no choice but to achieve for themselves, are worth cherishing in the same sense that you might be able to imagine the taste of a very fine wine that was poured into Roman amphorae, loaded onto a ship, and then sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean. You weren't there, you didn't and can't taste it, but you can savor them in your imagination. One of my favorites is a little half-season by a journeyman catcher on the 75-87 1984 Indians. Chris Bando, a 28-year-old switch-hitter, channeled Mickey Mantle for 75 games, hitting .291/.377/.505 with 12 home runs and 33 walks. That same year for that same team, Bert Blyleven had one of his finest seasons, going 19-7 with a 2.87 ERA. He finished a distant third in the Cy Young Award voting, trailing the aforementioned Willie Hernandez and Royals reliever Dan Quinsenberry.

One of the best Cubs pitchers of the postwar years was righty Rick Reuschel, a heavyset guy with great control and a penchant for getting grounders. As was typical in those days, the Cubs worked his arm off by his early 30s, and if he's remembered today it's usually for his late-career Bartolo Colon phase in which he pitched excellently for the Pirates and Giants while looking like your middle-aged uncle, the one who always falls asleep at Thanksgiving after one beer, two glasses of wine, all the dark meat, and his chronic sleep apnea. Before that, though, Reuschel had years like 1977, in which he went 20-10 with a 2.79 ERA for an 81-81 team. He, Bruce Sutter, and (why won't he stop showing up?) Willie Hernandez were the only pitchers on a team that couldn't hit at all and probably should have finished much worse than its 81-81 record.

On August 28, 1983, the Indians made a spectacular trade, sending starting pitcher Len Barker to the Atlanta Braves for cash and three players to be named later. Barker's arm turned out to be done, and he went 10-20 with a worse-than-it-is-now 4.64 ERA in three seasons with the Braves (Braves manager Joe Torre was said to have pushed for the deal, not his finest moment). Center fielder Brett Butler and third baseman Brook Jacoby were among the players to be named. Jacoby, a mid-range power-hitter, was an All-Star for Cleveland. Butler was somehow not, but he was among the best leadoff hitters in the game during his day, for example hitting .311/.377/.431 with 14 triples, 63 walks, and 47 stolen bases for the 60-102 team the Indians put on the field in 1985.

None of it mattered. The trade, as it good as it was, didn't lead to anything else except a different set of bodies than would otherwise have played for the few fans who attended Indians games in those days.

Cleveland also saw the first flowering of the ageless Julio Franco, who came over from the Phillies in the huge Von Hayes deal, a transaction Philadelphia fans resented for years after. Cleveland got five players for their outfielder, but on a long-term basis the trade came down to Franco for Hayes. Franco spent eight years with the Indians, hitting .300 and not-mastering shortstop. They later traded him to the Rangers for Jerry Browne, Oddibe McDowell, and Pete O'Brien, which was, well, not good—but that's the point.

The Cubs almost have more of these kinds of players than you can usefully list, including the entire careers of Ernie Banks and Ron Santo. More fun to recall are now-obscure players like Bill Madlock, kind of the Pablo Sandoval of his day in that he could hit a ton but was always a bit too heavy to play a good third base. He played three years with the Cubs and won batting titles in two of them, hitting .354 one year and .339 the next, rarely striking out, getting on base at a .400 pace. In the former season the Cubs went 75-87. In the latter season—you guessed it—75-87. You will be relieved to know that Willie Hernandez was still in the minor leagues.

So, whoever wins tonight, be relieved for all the players involved. They got to have mattered. They won't be like Don Mattingly, beloved but trailed by a sense of incompleteness, a journey never completed. This is not a fate you would wish on anyone, that of great accomplishment, but, and having to take Jeff Loria's money so as to get another shot at fulfillment. Some indignities should never be suffered, and certainly not witnessed.