On Tuesday night, the Cubs will return to Cleveland for the first time since November 2, 2016, the night a 108-year-old curse fell in extra innings and the Cubs won the World Series. The Cubs and the Indians will also be meeting in a regular season game for the first time since Game 7 of the World Series.
"It's going to be interesting of course," manager Joe Maddon said. "Although, part of that whole series is the fact people don't even realize we were down three games to one going back to Cleveland. So you're down, you get it to 3-2 and win that fifth game and you have to win two games on the road in a ballpark where [the Indians] play really, really well. So you got to give our guys a ton of credit. Just the give and take of those games and how our guys battled. We always talked about we never quit and that was our slogan for that year internally.
"It will be fun to walk those steps, the locker room, the weight room where the boys got together and rallied to come out in extra innings and did what they did. It's pretty spectacular. And I think retrospectively when it's all laid out there, years from now, it's going to be looked at as one of the more interesting World Series or Game 7s ever played."
Cleveland has a history of welcoming newly crowned champions back. After winning the NBA Finals in 2015, the Golden State Warriors returned to Quicken Loans Arena the following season and star point guard Stephen Curry said he hoped it still smelled like champagne. It sparked some outrage amongst the Cavaliers faithful and was another bullet point in the Warriors-Cavs rivarly.
The Cubs, at least Maddon, are more focused on reliving those memories rather than gloating. While the 2018 version of the Cubs is similar to the 2016 team and a lot of the star power is still here (Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Jon Lester), a lot of notable players from the 2016 World Series are no longer with the Cubs, like Aroldis Chapman, Dexter Fowler and David Ross. Fowler and Ross each hit pivotal home run in Game 7 of the World Series.
In 2016, the Cubs were the best team in baseball, finishing the season with 103 wins. Heading into this early season match up, the Indians and Cubs are in different positions within their division despite having similar records. The Indians are in first place in the AL Central with an 11-8 record, while the Cubs are in fourth place in the NL Central with a 10-9 record. The Cubs are also coming off a series win against the Colorado Rockies and appear to have sorted out their top of the order quandry with Albert Almora Jr. leading off and starting in center field, in addition to moving Javier Baez's hot bat into the second spot.
It's the first of two games to be played at Progressive Field before the Cubs welcome the Indians to Wrigley Field in May. First pitch on Tuesday night is at 5:10 and 6 p.m. on Wednesday night, which can be streamed on NBC Sports Chicago.