9502030122
DETROIT FREE PRESS
951025
Wednesday, October 25, 1995
METRO FINAL CHASER
1D
MITCH ALBOM
1995 WORLD SERIES
Copyright (c) 1995, Detroit Free Press
CLEVELAND ROCKS
BY TAKING CENTER STAGE, LOFTON SAVES DAY FOR TRIBE
CLEVELAND -- It was almost 50 years ago and the World Series was a thing
that was played during the day, under the sun, as baseball should be. Irving
(Sonny) Dwosh, now a retired carpet layer, was just a few years out of
school. On game days, he and his father went to Peterson Nut Company and
picked up 25 pounds of peanuts. Sonny carried one bag, his father carried the
other. They set up on Third Street, near the bridge that straddles the
freeway.
"Good spot," his father said. "People have to walk past to get to the
game."
They didn't need a license, they didn't worry about cops, they didn't have
a tag that said "Official World Series Food," they just filled the plastic
bags with peanuts and sold them, four bags for 25 cents, which was twice as
good as what they sold for inside Municipal Stadium. And then, around the
seventh inning, father and son packed up and walked inside to see the rest of
the World Series. Nobody asked for tickets. The guards were all gone by then,
so they sat wherever they could find a seat -- "those games weren't even
sellouts," Sonny recalls -- and under early October skies, they watched the
final innings of the 1948 Fall Classic, and they cheered when the Indians won
the title, never knowing that would be the last time Cleveland had something
big to cheer about in October.
The Indians beat the Braves that year. It was 1948. And here they were,
Tuesday night, nearly five decades later, playing the Braves again for the
championship of baseball. The city was nervous. The Indians had lost the first
two games, and the fear was that, after all this time, after this wonderful
comeback story of a season, the clock had struck twelve, and they were back to
being the pumpkin of baseball.
But wait.
Man with hoop dreams
There is a guy on the Cleveland roster who doesn't remember any of the bad
old days. He was born during the Vietnam War, he grew up in East Chicago,
Ind., and all he needed to know was that he owned a rare athletic genius that
blessed him in any sport he tried. He played baseball in high school, then
gave it up to play major college basketball. He went to a Final Four one year
with the Arizona Wildcats. Kenny Lofton wasn't thinking about the Indians'
curse back then -- heck he wasn't even thinking about pro baseball! He was
thinking about dunks -- and at 6 feet, 180 pounds, he had little business
dunking. He did it anyhow. He has that kind of brashness. It is what let him
pick up a bat again, already in his 20s, and decide "let's see where this
baseball thing can take me."
Kenny Lofton is now more than a baseball player, he is a force. He makes
pitchers sweat when he's in the box, and makes them sweat even more when he
reaches base. He is probably the fastest man in the game, and he plays as if
he knows it. There was another guy who used to do this. His name was Rickey
Henderson. In 1989, Henderson shook up the World Series almost as much as the
earthquake.
Lofton did this Tuesday night, right from the moment all the flashbulbs
exploded in this beautiful stadium, Jacobs Field. He opened the Indians'
offense with a single up the middle. The crowd roared. Then Lofton began to
work the pitcher, John Smoltz, and Smoltz, thinking about Lofton stealing,
came down the pipe with a fastball to Omar Vizquel, and Vizquel drilled it
down the rightfield line, and look out, Lofton was running, like a fast
break, like a track lap, his hat went flying off as he rounded third and he
never once thought of stopping, not until he crossed the plate.
Safe. Lofton was the first Indian to get a Series hit in this city in 41
years and the first to score a run.
And he wasn't done.
The real hero
In the third inning, he smacked a double to the centerfield gap. Once
again, he raced home, this time on a hit from Carlos Baerga. In his next
at-bat, he a poked a single. And in the seventh, he walked, raced to second on
a hit-and-run, stole third and came home on a deep grounder by Baerga. It was
as close to making something out of nothing as you can get. Lofton now had
scored three runs, had three hits and had assured himself a place in the
nightmares of Atlanta pitchers. And as much as anyone, he is the reason
Cleveland still has a chance in this Series.
Oh sure, this morning fans are buzzing about Eddie Murray's game-winning hit
in this Game 3 that came in the bottom of the 11th. But that's because people
remember endings more than beginnings and middles. The fact is there is no
11th inning if Lofton doesn't do what he did in the first, third, fifth and
seventh.
Make no mistake. What people are watching with Lofton is what they watched
when Streisand first did Broadway, when Bill Gates came up with his first
microchip -- namely, the opening stage of a star career. Already in this
World Series he hitting .417 with five hits and six runs scored. He is the
best weapon that works against the amazing Atlanta pitchers; he can hit them
and shake them up.
The Fall Classic is played at night now. Peanuts cost $1.49 a bag. But the
bridge over the freeway is still here. The Peterson Nut Company is still here.
And this morning, so are the Cleveland Indians, alive and kicking. They have
Lofton to thank for that.
BASEBALL; WORLD SERIES