CLEVELAND, Ohio --Enough with Team Typo.

Enough with Sports Illustrated's week-late cover story on the "classic" Chicago Cubs-Indians World Series and with their esteemed baseball writer Tom Verducci's follow-up in the current issue.

What's next: "The Chicago Cubs: The Prairie Years"?

Special "Animal Planet" episodes?

Enough, I say, with the cute, cuddly, cuddlesome Cubbies.

And with their precious fans.

And with their belief that only they owned destiny.

I make 108 the over/under on Cubbie warm and fuzzy retrospectives. Before spring training starts.

The "The's"

I'm not sure about that "classic" stuff. In Cleveland for the last 52 years -- taking away June 19, 2016, and Cavaliers 93, Golden State 89, which, for a 3 games to 1 series score, was sort of a reverse Indians -- it means the definite article "The" is part of what makes it "classic," as in "Drive," "Fumble," "Shot." It's just a loss that stings more.

The Indians' entry on the list before the 3-1 thing, Jose Mesa's blown save in Game 7 in the 1997 World Series, had no shorthand name, however.

But I remember a gentleman affiliated with the Indians, whose name I will not disclose, sitting at the Miami airport the next day, both hands clasped around his throat, croaking, "Hey, look! I'm Mesa!"

108

Before, throughout, and after this World Series, you heard more than enough about the number 108 -- years since a Cubs World Series championship, stitches on the baseball, meters to the outfield corners in Wrigley Field, words in the Gettyburg Address.

Just kidding. The Gettysburg Address is 272 words long. Or as we seamheads say, 2.518 of the old pills and seeds.

The number 108 also had some involvement either with yoga or the kama sutra. The latter is true if you believe the stories in "Ball Four."

Team Typo

The first time the Cubs were called that was in the March 27, 1902 edition of the Chicago Daily News. Headlined "Selee Places His Men: Manager of the Cubs Is in Doubt Only on Two Positions," the "lede" (in journalese) of the story reads: "Frank Selee will devote his strongest efforts on the team work of the new Cubs this year."

The story is not bylined. Maybe the rewrite man decided to capitalize the C," or even the typesetter. The word "cubs" (lower case) was a familiar term even then for untried young players, much as it was for young reporters back in the days of typewriters, paste pots and copy editors.

Chief Wahoo

It is clear that an immature animal is going to be more endearing than Chief Wahoo, whose name might not be as offensive as the Washington Redskins, but who hangs out in the same neighborhood, political correctness-wise.

Then again, the recent presidential election results belted political correctness "off the reservation" (Bob Uecker, as play-by-play man Harry Doyle, describing an opponent's home run in the 1989 Indians fantasy "Major League"), so maybe there is hope for Wahoo yet.

Cap Anson and Bill Veeck

There is racism in mascots and then there is real, segregationist racism.

Adrian Constantine "Cap" Anson, for "Captain," a notorious racist and proto-Cub, has been widely viewed as influential in establishing baseball's color barrier. When Anson finally quit managing or playing for the Chicago team just before 19th Century rounded third and headed for the 20th, such was the esteem in which he was held that the young, pre-Cub players, without their "Pop," were called "Orphans" in the Chicago papers.

Against this backdrop, let me claim for us Bill Veeck, who owned the 1948 Indians, Cleveland's last World Series champions, and who integrated the American League with Larry Doby and made baseball legend fact when he signed Satchel Paige.

All Veeck did with the Cubs was plant the ivy on the Wrigley Field walls, which led to ground rule doubles for balls that vanished into the thickets of the stuff.

Kid stuff

The whole youth angle, whether of baby bears or children, is an important part of the Cubs' appeal.

"The friendly confines," is what "Mr. Cub," Ernie Banks, called their antiquated, dwarf ballpark, Wrigley Field.

Everybody loved Banks except manager Leo Durocher, who presided over the Apocollapse of 1969 as the New York Mets streaked past the Cubs in September on their way to winning the World Series. Durocher once said, "Ernie Banks -- never forgot a writer's name, never remembered a sign."

Wrigley Field made for better child care than anything in Dickens or "Annie." Cubs games were played in God's own light until Thomas Edison's invention made a rather overdue appearance at Wrigley Field in 1988.

The ballpark was in a better neighborhood than Comiskey Park on the South Side, the "baddest part of town," where Bad, Bad Leroy Brown lived in the song, and so the North Side became a place for cheap baby-sitting for decades.

The games were over before twilight, and if the daytime heat sapped the players' vim, it had no more effect than the night life on Rush Street during the Cubs' many free evenings.

Thus, the Cubs hooked' em as kids, and the whole sunshine, blue sky attitude meant Cubs fans for decades cared less about winning and losing than catching some rays in the bleachers.

The numbers

I realize the Indians have only gone 68 years without a World Series, which still is not exactly a snap of the fingers, even when compared to the Cubs. But who wants to wait until 2056 to equal the Cubs?

And about this long-suffering stuff: The Cubs have now won three World Series (1907, 1908, 2016) to the Indians' two (1920, 1948). The Cubs have won eight pennants (1907, 1908, 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1945, 2016), to the Indians' six (1920, 1948, 1954, 1995, 1997, 2016.)

The real long shots

Television viewers nationwide were nauseated by the Joe Buck/Kyle Schwarber bromance.

The latter did courageously return from injury in time to be a big World Series contributor, but it was the Indians who lost two pitchers, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, from their rotation for the playoffs and their best position player, Michael Brantley, for almost the entire season.

The Cubs also had the sixth-highest payroll and the fifth-best attendance. The Indians, of 30 teams, were 23rd and 28th.

The Cubs won 103 games, the Indians 94.

Who was the real underdog?

Go away!



For the most part, Indians fans graciously said that, had anyone but the Tribe been in the World Series, they would have rooted for the Cubs. Their reward is drowning in the sea of treacle about the Cubs' uplifting victory in This Time of National Strife.

There is a point, albeit small, to that.

But it's as if the pain here is inconsequential. It's as if the only broadcaster who died disappointed about the Fall Classic was Harry Caray. Herb Score did too, and Herbie had a waaay better fastball.

Still, the song "Go Cubs Go" asks: "Hey, Chicago. What do you say?"

Oh, put a sock in it.

Just go. And the sooner, the better.