You ain’t seen nuthin yet.
The Browns will blow out the Bengals on Sunday and start a miraculous run. They will finish the season 10-6, grab a wild card berth, cruise through the NFL playoffs and win the Super Bowl.
Hey, it’s 2016 in the 216. Anything is possible.
OK, maybe not that.
But this has indeed been a magical year for Cleveland sports.
Given all of their injuries, the 2016 Indians making the World Series was even more improbable than the overachieving 1997 team making it — our last team to get this far.
If you look at the rosters of those powerhouse Cleveland teams of the second half of that decade, the ’97 version was the weakest of them all.
They were a closely knit group that got on a roll, got lucky and stayed healthy. And then there we were, walking into a ballpark in Miami in the month of October.
Never fear. I’m not going to talk about Game 7, the end of which I witnessed from about 60 feet behind home plate. But I thought it would be fun to climb into Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine and dial up Oct. 18, 1997, the date of Game One.
Francisco Lindor was 2 years old.
The Indians were playing a team that no longer exists ... in a stadium whose name no longer exists ... a stadium that is no longer used for baseball.
Good thing. Pro Player Stadium was a spectating disaster. Because the joint was built for football and was essentially locked into a rectangular configuration, some of the seats were 600 feet from home plate and 128 feet in the air.
I interviewed a Florida Marlins fan from Coral Springs, Fla., who was sitting waaaaaaay up in center field, one of the worst seats in the baseball history.
“You gotta watch out for the helicopters so you don’t get hit in the head,” he joked.
His sister was fun, too.
“We actually got here at 3 a.m. and we’ve been climbing up ever since.”
The corresponding seats at Jacobs Field — yep, that name is gone, too — would have been the 17th floor of the BP Building.
And, yes, the BP Building is no longer the BP Building.
This time around, we’ll be playing in one of two baseball gems: the immortal Wrigley Field or the classic but underrated Dodger Stadium, aka Chavez Ravine.
No matter how many times you’ve seen Dodger Stadium on TV, you can’t fully appreciate how nice the setting is.
The 54-year-old park is cut into the top of a huge hill. Standing at the entrance to the upper grandstand behind home plate, you get a spectacular, 360-degree panorama that includes rolling hills, tall palm trees, soaring mountains, the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles and the famous Hollywood sign.
Speaking of Hollywood ... that year’s Oscar for Best Picture: The English Patient.
Stop running! I’m not going to make you watch it again!
A look at the Oct. 18, 1997, edition of my favorite newspaper shows what a difference 19 years can make.
A big ad promised anyone who purchased a house in the emergent Glenmoor development would receive a free golf cart.
Sun Television and Appliances was adverting state-of-the-art equipment, such as a Magnavox “remote control Hi-Fi stereo VHS VCR.” (R.I.P., Sun. Went broke the following year.)
The Toth GM dealership was offering a new 1997 Oldsmobile Aurora and an even newer 1998 Olds Intrigue. (R.I.P., Aurora and Intrigue.)
The top half of the front page of my favorite newspaper contained the smiling faces of two awesome columnists. The side-by-side columns were written by syndicated humorist Dave Barry and ... right you are.
In real news, the U.S. and Japan were close to reaching a shipping agreement that was expected to defuse “a looming confrontation between the Coast Guard and Japanese vessels entering and leaving U.S. harbors.”
And don’t we all recall that terrifying international crisis.
Something else has changed, too. The 1997 Indians had the third highest payroll in baseball, at $58.9 million.
The 2016 Indians have the 22nd highest payroll — at $114.7 million.
It’s not just the upturn in the cost of living. That $58.9 million in 1997 translates to $87 million today — yet another indication that, when it comes to pro sports, we have lost our collective mind.
But I’m certainly not going to rain on what could be another massive victory parade.
Go Tribe!
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com. He also is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bob.dyer.31.