Season Ending

Maybe the Cleveland Indians will have a great game at season's end. We can hope. Today's the last day we can go to Progressive Field and heartily yell “Charge” to cheer on the home team.

I have to admit I only went to one Indians game this year, this week. I should go to another one. Whether they're winning or losing, spending a few hours at a Major League Baseball game is worth the effort of getting there. When we went to the game, great-seat tickets in hand, my daughter and I arrived downtown on a warm Fall weekday evening. Downtown was quiet, and parking was not only available but ample. We walked across the courtyard between Quicken Loans Arena and Progressive Field towards the Ontario Street gate, and then we saw why parking was so available--the ballpark was mostly empty, and it was 7:10, a full five minutes after game time. The announcers were already working, the players were on the field, and people were trickling in pathetically.

It was a weekday, and people had to work and go to school the next day. The local team had been losing and lots of Detroit fans showed up to support the Tigers. Clevelanders are angry about the trades this year, looking for familiar names on the roster and recognizing Sizemore and Hafner (neither of whom were at the ballpark when I went to a game).

The beer man strode up and down the aisles yelling “it's the beer man” in his groggy, painfully projected voice, and I was glad to see and hear him again. The smell of breaded chicken and roasted peanuts filled the air, and my stomach rumbled. Blue, pink, and lavender cotton candy floated above a female vendor's head and I wanted the ultra sugar high of cotton candy melting on my tongue.

The Cleveland fans were wearing white, navy, and red hats and jerseys and T-shirts. The Detroit fans were wearing gray. It was hard to tell when the home team was doing well because there was as much cheering from the visiting team as the home team. Despite the sparse turnout, the crowd was appreciating a game where by the fourth inning it was clear who would win. It was the kind of game where you stopped thinking so much about the score and started watching the pitches and where the guys were standing in the outfield. We watched the players play.

We ate some cotton candy and Cracker Jack and talked about how close we were to the field. We could see the players talking to each other in the dugout and watch the bat boys pick up the balls at close range. Balls were flying all over the place, and we watched fans handily catch them in gloves or fly toward them after they bounced off the fence behind the catcher. We admired Cleveland's skyscrapers rising above the bright lights of Progressive Field and were impressed by the greenness of the playing field.

We laughed. We watched people take pictures of people they were with and of the batter standing ready to make a hit. We noticed the few kids who were out past their bedtime, but more excited about being at the ballpark than any of the adults. We caught bits of conversations--about how the fans are in Detroit, about eating great lobster at John Q's, about the people caught by the billboard camera and hamming it up.

On the way toward E. 4th Street and Euclid Avenue and toward our car on Public Square, we walked past the large cement planter commemorating the site of the Central Market and the immigrants who have come to make Cleveland their home. Old photos are collaged together with colorful, carved produce to produce a work of art. A plaque tells the history of the market whose final name, when it closed in 1986, was the New Central Market.

Funny, I haven't thought about that market for years. When Gateway opened in 1994, it was a municipal accomplishment built in a vacant area. Until now, it never occurred to me that the Market Pavilion inside the ballpark was named after the historic market. Cleveland's history lives on in Heritage Park, a section honoring the Cleveland Indians players and memorable Indian moments and displaying the Ray Chapman memorial plaque originally installed in League Park. Baseball is woven into Cleveland's history just as much as our markets and immigrant heritage are.

Today is the last day of Major League Baseball until April 2010. Get out to the Jake and get up the hope. And plan on going back next Spring for the home opener, still hoping.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia Taller, whose passion for words has led to creation of the Lakeside Word Lover’s Retreats, an outgrowth of her work with Skyline Writers. Her favorite foods are red wine, salmon, ice cream, and chocolate. She loves to read, write, tour wineries, ride her bike, ease into yoga, and cook gourmet meals for friends. Find her at http://www.claudiatallermusings.blogspot.com.

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