Todd Porter: Is Boston underestimating the Indians?
Through two plane rides, a couple of subway station exchanges and a short walk to Fenway Park, here's what Boston thinks of the Indians.
<p class="MsoNormal">Yawn.
<p class="MsoNormal">They're the tossed salad before the strip steak.
<p class="MsoNormal">"The Indians?" the friendly Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus driver asked. "They're young. I don't think they have a chance against us. But they've had a good season."
<p class="MsoNormal">Bostonians have a way of complimenting and rubbing dirt in your face at the same time.
<p class="MsoNormal">"A lot of us are just hoping to get out there and show what the Indians are all about," said Ryan Garko, Cleveland's 26-year-old first baseman who was watching reruns of his favorite show, "Smallville," last October.
<p class="MsoNormal">"We don't get as much attention as the Yankees or Red Sox. That doesn't mean we don't have great players. This is a chance for us to show the country we have superstars and great pitching like the other teams."
<p class="MsoNormal">After silencing the Yankees and their obnoxious fans in the City That Never Sleeps, Cleveland's Indians arrived in Boston to a sleepy midday town.
<p class="MsoNormal">Crowded subway cars gave away the scent of choice here: Au Naturale.
<p class="MsoNormal">Really, aside from a radio jockey's offer to personally finance the fumigation of Jacobs Field from the Canadian midges, there wasn't much talk about the American League Championship Series.
<p class="MsoNormal">A light mist fell over Boston. The tarp lay on Fenway Park. The grass is fresh cut.
<p class="MsoNormal">The Indians are ready to write the next chapter in a season that is nothing but bizarre.
<p class="MsoNormal">Hope and promise started in April at Jacobs Field with a flurry.
<p class="MsoNormal">Literally.
<p class="MsoNormal">The home-opening series against Seattle was snowed out. Then the Indians played a "home" series against the Angles in Milwaukee. And to get here, they clinched a spot in the ALCS on a balmy 85-degree night in New York City -- in October.
<p class="MsoNormal">"This year ... it's been fun. It's been cool," catcher Kelly Shoppach said.
<p class="MsoNormal">"We had a good time with it to be the home team in a visiting ballpark with a roof on it. ... The Milwaukee fans showed up and hosted us right."
<p class="MsoNormal">The elements, the doubleheaders in Seattle, the Milwaukee homestand, those were tools for Eric Wedge. His sharpened his team's mental toughness.
<p class="MsoNormal">"We've been through about every imaginable adversity you can think of," he said.
<p class="MsoNormal">When the bugs flew in last week, they pestered the mentally weak Yankees.
<p class="MsoNormal">Joba Chamberlain walked Grady Sizemore and advanced him two bases on wild pitches, including the game-tying run.
<p class="MsoNormal">But Cleveland pitcher Fausto Carmona? They were like charms around his head.
<p class="MsoNormal">This season, this run, these young players on a comparative shoestring budget are four wins from playing in the World Series.
<p class="MsoNormal">Nothing about this summer made sense, yet, all makes perfect sense now. Yes, maybe the stars and the planets have aligned to break a world championship gap that's closing in on 60 years.
<p class="MsoNormal">The Indians, in Boston at least, have no chance. No one should expect any different.
<p class="MsoNormal">It's been that way all season. The Indians are too this and not enough that.
<p class="MsoNormal">They're vanilla.
<p class="MsoNormal">"All year long we've heard how we can't keep up the pace," pitcher Paul Byrd said. "We can't put the Tigers away. We're going into a slump. There was a feeling of this is too good to be true. Now, we've beaten the Yankees."
<p class="MsoNormal">In Boston, the British aren't coming. The Indians are.
<p class="MsoNormal">Paul Revere isn't making a Midnight Ride to warn anybody, either.
<p class="MsoNormal">-- The Repository