Kritik und Lob » nd shut them out.So tense and silent were the fa

Friday night, I took my Dad to the World Series at Wrigley Field.Whatever happens in the rest of the games this October, that fact will be the most important thing about 2016 for me.People told me it was great that I was bringing my Dad to the Series. This confused me: Was it even a question? Who else would I bring? I am a Cubs fan because of him, and my uncle Jimmy Schneider and games on WGN after school in the spring and fall.It was both filial duty and karmic payback.We arrived 90 minutes before the first pitch and breezed through security. The Cubs had wisely opened the gates earlier than usual, which dissipated the crowd I had feared. But the early-entry folks created outrageously long lines in the souvenir stores, so we skipped them and headed up straight up to Section 416. Taking the elevator and walking past the sections cordoned off as an auxiliary press box down the left field line was surreal.The World Series. At Wrigley Field. With my Dad.My dad, Bill Savage Sr., went to his first Cubs game as an 8-year-old in 1948, and as he always tells me, Theyve been breaking my heart ever since.Well, the Cubs bats broke a lot of hearts Friday night, but their 1-0 loss to Cleveland is baseball. Its still a seven-game series, and we were down 2 games to 1 to the Dodgers just last week.But in some ways, the game itself wasnt my focus, just like Jorge Soler didnt focus on getting out of the batters box on his triple in the seventh inning.In the other pair of seats sat my best friend, Rich, and his mother.The World Series. At Wrigley Field. With my best friend.I cannot honestly say the loss didnt hurt, but it was still the World Series. At Wrigley Field. With my dad and my best friend.Rich and I have been going to Wrigley since before we had season tickets, back in the early 80s. When bleacher seats still went on sale day-of-game only, before lights, much less gourmet hot dogs, craft beer, or video boards.Weve seen some other Cubs postseason history together. The 1998 163rd game, where we beat the Giants to make the playoffs as the wild card. The seventh game of the 2003 NLCS, where Josh Beckett schooled Kerry Wood and sent Cubs fans home brokenhearted yet again. And the 2015 NLDS clincher versus the Cardinals, when Kyle Schwarber put that homer on top of the right field video board, when hopes for Theo Epsteins plan to make the team a perennial contender began to seem realistic.On the El ride home, my dad and I chatted with a couple of other fans, and one of them asked how long Id had season tickets. Since 1991, I replied. My friends Rich, Old Style, and I bought them when we won our baseball fantasy league thanks to Ryne Sandberg hitting 40 homers in 1990. You?This is our first year, he said.Nice timing, my father replied. And we all laughed.It was half past midnight by the time we got back to Rogers Park. The train, once we got on it, was plenty fast, but it had taken us an hour to go 150 feet from Gate D at Wrigley to the Addison CTA station. When the Cubs win, much of the crowd stays to sing along with Steve Goodmans Go Cubs Go and the Blues Brothers cover of Sweet Home Chicago. When they lose, everyone heads for the exits at once.Next time, Ill know better and walk to a different station.But of course, there will never be a next time. Not that I might not ever get tickets to another Cubs World Series game, or that the Cubs might not return to the Fall Classic in 2017 or beyond.But I will never again go to the first World Series game at Wrigley Field after 71 years without a pennant.With my Dad and my best friend. Discount Vans Shoes .ca! Kerry, Two nights after the Scott-Eriksson incident in Buffalo, the Bruins returned home to play San Jose. In that game, Zdeno Chara put a check on Tommy Wingels that clearly targeted his head. Cheap Vans Shoes Shop . It was the second consecutive win for the Pacers (2-5), who lost their first five preseason games. Jeff Teague led the Hawks (1-5) with 17 points and eight assists and Al Horford had 12 points and seven rebounds. Mike Scott scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half. http://www.vansoutletstore.com/ . -- Stanford squashed Oregons national championship hopes again, schooling the Ducks in power football. Cheap Vans Shoes For Sale . -- Devin Hester is done returning kicks in Chicago. Wholesale Vans Shoes Online . One game after a miserable showing in Oklahoma City, Gay tied a career high with 41 points and the Sacramento Kings cruised to a 114-97 victory at the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night. The Cleveland Indians had won their only World Series appearance in 1920 when they returned in 1948.The Indians made it 2 for 2 when the defeated the Boston Braves to win the 1948 championship in six games. The Indians defeated the Braves 4-3 in Game 6 on Oct. 11, 1948. The Indians would go on to win three more American League pennants but not another World Series championship.Heres the report from The Associated Press on the day the Indians won their last title.-----By GAYLE TALBOT(Associated Press Sports Writer)BOSTON, Oct. 11 -- -- Thanks to stout-hearted relief pitching by Gene Bearden in the tense closing minutes of play, the Cleveland Indians staggered through to a 4-3 victory over the Boston Braves in the sixth and deciding game of the world series today.In winning its first championship in 28 years, the Tribe also was the beneficiary of a lucky double play in the ninth inning which probably saved Bearden from serious trouble.One moment the crowd of 40,103 was sitting on the edge of the seats, expectant of a rally that would square the series at three games apiece, and carry the playoff right down to a seventh contest tomorrow.The next moment it was all over for the Boston fans but for the sad filing through the exits, and the Indians were boisterously pounding Bearden across the back and half-carrying him in triumph off the field.Eddie Stanky, a steady little character right through the series, opened the ninth by drawing a walk as the crowd roared. Connie Ryan ran for him. Then came the heartbreaker. Sibby Sisti went in to pinch-hit for Warren Spahn, who done a brilliant piece of relief chunking for two innings, and attempted to sacrifice Ryan to second with the tying run.Instead, he bunted under Beardens pitch and lofted the ball straight up, directly in front of the plate. Catcher Jim Hegan snared the horsehide and fired it to Joe Gordon, who was covering first, for a double play.The Braves were dead Injuns. Tommy Holmes, hero of Bostons victory in the opening game, lined out to Bob Kennedy in left field to end the contest and make all Cleveland happy.Only the previous inning, the eighth, the Braves brought the customers to their feet by slugging Bob Lemon, Clevelands starting chunker, from the hill and scoring twice to draw within a run of the Indians, who apparently had been coasting to an easy win behind the big righthander.When Bearden inherited the ugly situation, the bases were loaded with Braves only one was out. Two Bostons scored on a long fly to center by Clint Conatser and Phil Masis ringing double off the left field wall. Both Conatser and Masi were pinchhitters. But that was all as the great southpaw bore down to get Mike McCormick on an infield roller.Cleveland scored its first three runs off Bill Voiselle, one of them a home run over the left field wall by Joe Gordon in the sixth. Spahn, doing his second relief chore in as many days, gave up the last Indian marker in the eighth before he got his bearings.It proved, of course, to be the winning run of the series. Ken Keltner, a terrible batting bust in the first five games, set it up by smashing an infield hit off Spahns glove. Thurman Tucker , who replaced Walt Judnich in the Indian outfield for the closing tussle, pushed Keltner around to second with a smack to center, and Ed Robinson drove him home with a single to right.That, as it turned, out was the last the Indians saw of Spahn. He stuck out Hegan to end the inning, and in the ninth set down Bearden, Bob Kennedy and Larry Doby in succession with his elusive curves. In yesterdays game at Cleveland he struck out five of the last six Indians to face him.Lemon, going for his second series triumph, was well in sight of it before the Braves ganged him in the eighth. Up to that point he had yielded six hits to the National leaguers and seemed to have the situation well in hand.After doubles by Dale MMitchell and Manager Lou Boudreau had put Cleveland in front in the third.dddddddddddd Boston contrived to score on an assortment of odds and ends in the fourth to tie it up.Bob Elliott got on when Lemon failed to field his dribbler down the third base line. He reached second as Bill Salkeld worked Lemon for a walk. Mike McCormick brought him on around with a smash through the box into center field. Elliott barely sliding in under Tuckers throw to the plate.Voiselle, whose proudest boast going into todays game was that he had never been licked by an American league club, kept the Indians in tight check through the first frames except for Boudreaus scoring punch down the right field line. Going into the sixth the tall man from Ninety-Six, N.C., had sawed the Indians off with four hits and had struck out a pair of them.Gordon, who had made only three previous hits in the series, opened the sixth with a towering homer over the left barricade at a point about 350 feet from the plate. It was Joes 33rd circuit smash of the year.The Indians eked out their second score of the inning when Tucker drew on a walk, moved around on Robinsons sharp single to right and raced home as Hegan hit into a forceout. Actually, it should have been a double play to end the inning. Stanky took Elliotts peg at second for the force and fired to first in plenty of time for the double, but Earl Torgeson let the ball bounce from his mitt.In other words, the new world champions would not have scored their run if Voiselle had received perfect support, and they would not have pushed the clincher across in the eighth if Spahn had fielded a little more briskly on Keltners shot off his glove.Vosielle gave way for a pinch-hitter in the seventh after having allowed seven hits. It was a valiant effort by a pitcher who worked only nine complete games during the season and finished with a won-lost record of 13-13.Lemon said after the game that he simply tired in the eighth. Three double plays helped him out of jams in earlier innings but this time he got in too deep.Holmes opened the inning by pelting a single to center. Al Dark filed out, but Torgeson rapped a short double down the right field line to hustle Holmes around to third and inject furious activity in the Cleveland bullpen.Lemon, unable to settle down, walked Elliott to fill the bases -- the fourth time the Boston third sacker had reached first in the games. That was when Boudreau called a halt and wig-wagged for Bearden.The crowd, though hostile to the Indians, gave the southpaw a pleasant greeting as he strolled in. They recalled his great effort of the third game, in which he muzzled the Braves with five scattered hits and shut them out.So tense and silent were the fans as Bearden pitched to Conaster that the voices of the Cleveland infielders yelling encouragement to the lefty could be heard clearly in the grandstand. Conasters fly to Tucker gave Holmes plenty of time to scamper home. And then Masi, pinch-hitting for Bill Salkeld, really caught hold of one.For a moment it looked as if the ball might clear the fence, but it banged against the boards high up and bounced back as Torgeson roared home and Elliott reached third.Then, with the tying and winning runs aboard, Bearden forced Mike McCormick to rap weakly to the box, and he tossed him out with much to spare. The series was over, except for Bostons brief flare-up in the ninth.For Bearden, todays stint climaxed nine days of remarkable industry. It was he who shut out Detroit a week ago last Saturday to help carry his club into a playoff for the American league flag. And it also was the purple heart veteran of the Pacific fighting who kicked tar out of Bostons Red Sox.---The AP Corporate Archives contributed to this report ' ' '