When the Cubs were eliminated from this year’s postseason, I decided I wanted another team to root for, just to remain invested in October baseball in 2026, in part because after this year’s World Series, we don’t know when we’re going to see Major League Baseball again.
For me, the choice was easy: The Cleveland Guardians. Let’s talk about the Guardians while we await their afternoon Game 3 against the Rays, which begins at 12 noon CT (game thread will post at 11:30 a.m. CT).
The reason I’ve picked
the Guardians should be obvious — their 77-year World Series drought. As Cubs fans, we absolutely understand long droughts.
Guardians history parallels Cubs history in many ways, too. For one thing, the teams both won exactly two World Series before 1950.
From the beginning of their American League franchise in 1901, the Cleveland Indians were consistent contenders for much of that time, but won the World Series only twice, in 1920 and 1948. This despite having two of the greatest players of the pre-Live Ball Era on their team, Napoleon Lajoie and Tris Speaker. They never even won an AL pennant with Lajoie on the team, and it can be argued that their 1920 pennant was a bit of an accident because the White Sox, who were later learned to have thrown the 1919 World Series, did their best to do the same in the 1920 AL pennant race. You can read more about that here.
Cleveland defeated Brooklyn in the 1920 World Series, their first such title.
Then they went through a two-decade stretch of sort-of contending, finishing with 15 winning seasons between 1921 and 1940, but never winning a pennant. They led the AL through much of 1940 but the Tigers overtook them in September and won by one game.
The team muddled through much of the 1940s, finally breaking through and winning 97 games in 1948, defeating the Braves in the World Series. They appeared to have a pretty good team at that point. They won 90 or more games four of the next five years, but could not break past Yankees dominance until 1954, when they blazed through the regular season with a then-AL record 111 wins.
The Giants swept that Indians team in the World Series and after 1959, when they finished five games behind the White Sox, a long period of poor play began. (Does that sound familiar?) Apart from the strike-interrupted 1981 season, the Cleveland franchise would not finish closer than 11 games out of first place until 1995, when their good young core led by Manny Ramirez and Kenny Lofton went 100-44 and got back to the World Series, where they were dispatched four games to two by the Braves.
This version of the Indians was very good. Including 1995, they made the postseason six of the next seven years and got back to the World Series in 1997, where they lost in soul-crushing fashion. They led the Marlins in Game 7 2-1 with one out in the ninth when Miami tied the game on a sacrifice fly by… Craig Counsell. In the bottom of the 11th, the Marlins walked it off and the winning run was scored by… Craig Counsell.
Including this year, Cleveland, now the Guardians, has been in the postseason eight of the last 11 seasons. You obviously know what happened in 2016. That was joy for us and again, the crushing of souls for Cleveland fans.
This year’s Guardians have a “won’t quit” vibe around them, led by one of MLB’s most underappreciated superstars, José Ramírez (though it was his error that helped lead to three unearned runs for the Rays in ALCS Game 2). They’re fun to root for and with a 77-year drought on the line… I’m hoping they can end it this year.
Won’t you join me?
