The Jake rocks as Tribe wins ALDS

David S. Glasier
DGlasier@News-Herald.com
Two outs.
Bottom of the ninth inning.
Indians leading, 6-4.
JoeBo on the mound.
Tribe on the verge of beating the Yankees and advancing to the American League Championship Series.
Small wonder that the atmosphere at Jacobs Field was charged Monday night as closer Joe Borowski faced Yankees catcher Jorge Posada.
Wait a minute.
The game was being played at Yankee Stadium.
Still, thanks to Indians ownership's decision to throw open the gates at Jacobs Field for all playoff road games, just shy of 10,000 fans were hanging on every JoeBo pitch as midnight drew near.
The faithful - young, old and in-between - had their eyes glued to the TBS telecast showing on the main scoreboard above the center-field bleachers.
"It doesn't matter. We're still up by two,'' one of the fans said to no one in particular after Borowski gave up a one-out, tape-measure home run to Bobby Abreu.
JoeBo, ever resilient, bounced back from getting taken deep by Abreu to dispose of playoff non-legend Alex Rodriguez.
"One more, one more,'' shouted the same guy who wrote off Abreu's bomb as no big thing.
Posada tormented JoeBo and the cheering throng at the Jake by darn near slamming another home run. The long drive to right field curved foul, barely.
Just a few second later, JoeBo closed the deal by striking out Posada.
At the Jake, fans stood, jumped, yelled, exchanged high-fives and did what Tribe fans do when playoff series are clinched and the ghosts of Cleveland sports failures past are, at least temporarily, banished.
On an unseasonably balmy night, many of the fans celebrating the ALDS clincher were children, tweens and teens too young to be carrying emotional baggage from the painful World Series losses of 1995 and 1997.
What mattered to Matt Wallin and Ashley Eleo of Twinsburg was that their Indians had taken down the Yankees and they were there, together, to savor the moment.
"I'm almost losing my voice,'' Ashley said.
"We knew they'd win. We knew it,'' Matt added.
The two teenagers, both wearing ear-to-ear-smiles, waded into a sea of joyous people heading to the exits.