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"  I got the Wahoo tattoo on July 21, 1994, three weeks before the season ended due to a strike. It ended with the Cleveland Indians one game out of first with forty-nine left to play. It ended the Tribe&amp;#039;s first season at Jacobs Field. It ended because the owners and the commissioner were greedy, dumb fucks. It ended the greatest baseball season I&amp;#039;d ever known, and already I was forty-two years old by then. They lost the World Series in &amp;#039;95 and -- may Jose Mesa roast in hell -- in &amp;#039;97. And that was the end of that. Manny Ramirez, Albert Belle, Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, and Kenny Lofton: They all moved on. Me too. I&amp;#039;m a front-runner and unashamed to say it. I&amp;#039;m from Cleveland. I&amp;#039;ve paid my dues in tears and blood and ink. They&amp;#039;re back. No whammy, praise the Lord, but they are good again. They&amp;#039;re good, they&amp;#039;re cheap, they&amp;#039;re young -- and they&amp;#039;re steaming down the stretch with two aces, C.C. and Fausto, a slugging first-sacker named Garko, and the major leagues&amp;#039; finest young all-around player, Grady Sizemore. The baseball gods love names like these as much as they hate Cleveland. Now Lofton&amp;#039;s back, too -- eight teams later -- a forty-year-old journeyman, still swift as hope, still searching for a ring. I went back home to see him return to the Jake in July, and when he came to bat in the first, we all stood, cheering and clapping till he backed away from the box, doffed his helmet, and waved it, bowing his head. The game was still scoreless in the third when he beat out a bunt to load the bases and set the table for a six-run inning.  Next year? Next year is now.   This story is part of our second annual register of emerging ideas, trends, discoveries, products, people, and obscene gestures you should know about before everyone else does. &amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt; Read Previous * [Back to Esquire 100] * Read Next &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3359/indians1007/>