The jinx of Ralph Terry...

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Where did Thursday through Saturday go?  Workout wise – nowhere – though Friday was 25,000 steps and 12 hours of hauling heavy things to the Chagrin Valley Hunt Club for the annual Chef’s Unbridled fund raiser the Fieldstone Farm sponsors.  I finished that day quite exhausted and ready to just collapse at home and listen to the Indians game.  Miggie had other plans for me, though.

I went to her daughter’s place enticed by ribs.  I love ribs and they had TV and the Indians, recent owners of Major League Baseball’s longest winning streak ever – 22 straight games (the New York Giants of 1916 own the longest unbeaten streak of 26 games.  They had a tie between win 12 and 13 of that streak) would be shooting for number 23.  I have been watching, but not writing, about this streak for the quite obvious reason that I did not want to jinx it.  True baseball fanatics understand this concept without question; lesser mortals are confused.

“Do you really think anything you do has any impact on the outcome of the game?” Miggie asked with surprise.

Simply asking such a question categorizes her someplace I do not want to be.  Before leaving for her daughter’s house, I had gone into my closet to retrieve an Indians 1965 game jersey that had been hanging there since a member of the Cleveland Athletic Club had given it to me in the early 90’s.  I had believed it to be the jersey of Sudden Sam McDowell and felt that Tee, in whose house I would be eating ribs and watching baseball and who was a true sports maniac (he understood curse issues without question) should have and display it.  He was thrilled, but when we did some research on the jersey number – 32 – discovered that it belonged to Ralph Terry, not Sudden Sam.

The Indians went on to lose that night and thus end a most incredible streak.  It may stand for a hundred years and be the signature item of this team and the franchise and what it has accomplished over the past several years accumulating and developing such a talented group of players.  The following morning though, aware the streak had ended, I contemplated what I had done to cause the shift in the cosmos and the resulting lost.  And then it hit me.  I called my cousin…

“Donnie – I figured it out!  You know how we lost the World Series in ’95, ’97 and 2016?  Well – it was because I had that jersey buried in my closet instead of out where the world could see and enjoy it!  I was a horrible fan and the Tribe paid the price.  Now that Tee has it and will display it, we’re a cinch to win the World Series this year!”

Miggie was listening and rolling her eyes in disbelief.  Donnie – on the other end of the line – was all in.

“I think you’re onto something, Maddox Man (another day’s story),” he said in complete understanding.

I went to the game later that day with three of my children and Miggie and the Indians won, starting a new streak.  Thank you, Ralph Terry.  Go Tribe…the World Series is yours to take.