C’s the day before: Chicago, Cleveland ready

CLEVELAND — The baseball season ends with someone else celebrating. That’s just how it is for fans of the Indians and Cubs. And then winter begins, and, to paraphrase the great meteorologist Phil Connors from “Groundhog Day,” it is cold, it is gray and it lasts the rest of your life.

The city of Cleveland has had 68 of those salt-spreading, ice-chopping, snow-shoveling winters between Tribe titles, while Chicagoans with an affinity for the North Siders have all been biding their time in the wintry winds since, in all probability, well before birth. Remarkably, it’s been 108 years since the Cubs were last on top of the baseball world.

• World Series gear: Cubs | Indians

Game Date Time (air time/game time) Matchup TV Gm 1 Oct. 25 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CHC @ CLE FOX Gm 2 Oct. 26 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CHC @ CLE FOX Gm 3 Oct. 28 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CLE @ CHC FOX Gm 4 Oct. 29 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CLE @ CHC FOX *Gm 5 Oct. 30 8 p.m. CLE @ CHC FOX *Gm 6 Nov. 1 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CHC @ CLE FOX *Gm 7 Nov. 2 7:30 p.m./8 p.m. CHC @ CLE FOX * If necessary | All times listed ET • World Series coverageShop for postseason gear: Cubs | Indians

So this World Series, which begins Tuesday night at Progressive Field, is one of shared circumstances and sentiments. These are two cities, separated by just 350 miles, on the Great Lakes with no great shakes in the realm of baseball background, and that has instilled in their people a common and eventually unmet refrain of “Why not us?” But for one of them, the tide will soon turn and so, too, will the response:

• World Series Game 1: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. ET air time | 8 ET game time on FOX

“Really? Us?”

Yes, you.

Imagine what that would feel like for Norman Rosen. He’s 90 years old and wise to the patience required of Cubs fandom. But in 1945, he was young, he was spry and he was skeptical of those crazy people lined up outside of Wrigley Field, waiting for tickets to a World Series game against the Tigers. Norm was walking home from a date with his girlfriend, Sally, and the two thought the sight of all those people literally camped out was pretty silly.

But then, after he continued home, Norm had a thought: “Who knows when this will happen again?”

He didn’t know the answer would be 71 years in the making.

Norm doubled back late in the night and got in line. When the ticket window opened in the morning, the people who had set up tents and seats took their sweet time getting to the window, so Norm strolled right up and bought a pair of standing-room ducats. Sally was still in high school, so he showed up at the school and asked her guidance counselor for permission to take her to the afternoon game, and the guidance counselor gave the go-ahead.

The Cubs lost, but Norm won. He and Sally were married for 67 years, and they started a family full of rabid …

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