PUSKAS: Wake up to baseball in October

The Cleveland Indians are like that show you’ve been meaning to watch on Netflix or some cable channel.

It looks interesting and that one actor from that other show is in it and you like him, but you’re busy. You’ve got other stuff to do, so you’ve been putting it off.

It happens. And then one day you finally get around to watching and you’re suddenly hooked.

With me, it was “Breaking Bad.” I went from zero to binging in a weekend.

A lot of people in northeastern Ohio are binging on the Tribe now after months of being lukewarm on Cleveland’s baseball club.

Maybe they were too giddy about the Cavaliers winning the NBA championship and ending Cleveland’s title drought to pick up on what the Indians were doing in June.

But even then there were clues that the Tribe had potential. They’d been in contention in the AL Central despite the loss of starting outfielder Michael Brantley for all but a few games. They overcame the loss of starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco to a hamstring injury for more than a month.

Maybe fans were distracted by the start of the annual Browns soap opera. For all of the excitement generated by LeBron James in each of his stints in Cleveland and the Indians’ run of success in the 1990s, the city — and the region — is still football-centric.

But think about it. What have the Browns done since their 1999 return to warrant the obsession many of us admittedly still have with them? Coaches, players and front offices come and go and the only constant — aside from 2002 and 2007 — is that the Browns usually find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The other thing you can count on from the Browns is they will somehow top the agonizing method of victory you just witnessed in a week or two.

And they’ll blow draft picks like it’s their job.

There is one big-time football program that knows how to win, so maybe Ohio State has been stealing attention from the Indians.

It is fall in Ohio. The leaves are turning. There is a chill in the air at night. Makes sense.

But some of us have awakened to the realization that it is mid-October and the Indians are two wins away from returning to the World Series for the first time since 1997.

This is a show you need to be watching.

The Indians have overcome so much to get here.

Brantley essentially has missed the season. Carrasco broke his hand and Danny Salazar hurt his forearm late in the regular season after it was clear the Indians were playoff-bound.

That led some to suggest the Indians’ playoff shelf life would be shorter than that of a Browns quarterback.

And yet, the Indians swept the favored Boston Red Sox in the ALDS and have held the Toronto Blue Jays’ wall-banging offense to a single run in taking the first two games of the ALCS.

It is Cleveland, so weird stuff like Trevor Bauer cutting his hand on a drone is always possible.

But there is something special about this team and October baseball.

Enjoy it, Cleveland. Football will be waiting for you when it’s over.

Write Vindicator Sports Editor Ed Puskas at epuskas@vindy,com and follow him on Twitter, @EdPuskas_Vindy.