This past June, Cleveland won a championship. Actually, we won quite a few. First, Cleveland native and UFC fighter Stipe Miocic, won his title as heavy weight champion (he's actually defended his title this past weekend). From there, the Cleveland Monsters won the Calder Cup. It was when the Golden State Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals and our Cavs came through and WON. IT. ALL. I can't put into words what I felt that night. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. However, I can tell you how proud I am to be from Cleveland and being an Indian's fan right now.
I am a Cleveland native, born and raised. My love and passion for Cleveland began when my parents took me to Cleveland Indian's games. Have you noticed I didn't talk about the Indian's winning a championship this year? Well, I think they will. During the championship train that was going on this summer, I noticed some feelings of ambivalence about whether we were going to win those or not. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing at all. I think that's how people are currently feeling about the Indians. Get all that dumb crap about how "there's always next year" out of your head, this isn't about that. I think there's ambivalence of being a Cleveland fan that, yeah, were still loyal fans after a gut-wrenching loss, but an internal and mostly external scream of "YEAH, LET'S FREAKING GO AND WIN THIS THING ALREADY!" this year.
It's not even post-season yet, but Indian's fans are rallying for the pennant now. It's like a figurative huddle of humming around Cleveland right now every time the Indians win. Every time they win, the hum gets louder and more fans are coming out to expand that hum. A loss? The huddle meets tomorrow, come humming. A inside the park home run walk-off? Add the cheers, screams, clapping and Tyler Naquin's rock-on gesture . Since the championships have been won this summer, we've been creating music here. We will call the championships that have been won in years past and this year the instrumentals. (The pounding beat of John Adams' drum at Tribe games are obviously already part of that). Right now, were creating a concert for the world to see.
Our rock stars are ready.
