Other Voices: Thanks due Cubs, Indians for needed break from politics

By The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board

America, did we ever need that.

Is there a better moment in sports than the final pitches of an extra-innings showdown in Game 7 of a World Series? Not many, surely.

And Wednesday night? Well, the drama was extraordinary, given the pent-up passions of Cubs fans around the country desperate to end one of the great storylines in all of sports: the 108-year-old curse of the Cubs. Only The Curse could make Cleveland’s own dry spell since 1948 seem less compelling a reason to cheer for the home team that night.

Of course, a big win never comes without a crushing loss, and so for all the joy flowing across the country from the dazzling end to the Cubs’ remarkable season, Cleveland is dealing with sadness as big as Lake Erie.

Both teams played hard, with heart and with sportsmanship. We’d like to give a special shout-out to a surely grieving Corey Kluber, the Texas native who was aiming to be the first ace since 1968 to win three games in a single series when he took the mound for Cleveland on Wednesday.

For most of us here in Texas, though, the emotional extremes of Wednesday’s thrilling, 10-inning conclusion to the seventh game of the 2016 World Series fell somewhere between the giddy heights of Wrigleyville and the tears washing into the Cuyahoga River. And thank goodness, because the tension watching those final innings, after Cleveland’s two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth tied the game and put Cubs fans’ anticipatory celebrations on ice, was about all we could stand.

But no matter which team we cheered for, or really even if we rarely cheer for baseball at all, we all needed this World Series. America is days away from an election that has millions of us on edge. Last night’s top-of-the-10th dilemma — whether to put a midnight pot of coffee on — may prove to have been but a dry run of late-night jitters Tuesday after the polls close and returns start coming in.

So it was good to be reminded that life is full of things untouched by politics. The passion fueling the fans in both cities was palpable. It was so powerful that it proved irresistible for millions of their countrymen and women.

So congrats to both teams. As for your team, ‘“Next year” starts right now.

The above editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Thursday.