Cleveland Indians. No championships since 1948.

Chicago Cubs. No championships since 1908.

That makes for a long (and very, very long) history of failure for these ballclubs.

But they are playing each other in the current World Series, and somebody has to win.

Even if the DNA of both clubs suggests ways to lose it will be sampled by both teams.

So, who wins a battle of (such a harsh word) chokers?

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I like statistics as much as the next baseball fan. They were an important part of the stories I wrote whenever I covered the sport as a journalist.

Once upon a time, it was up to individual reporters to come up with special statistics. Then teams got involved … then stat services got involved. And now many sports journalists seem to be reciting the numbers sent up to them by the stat wonks … and we may be reaching a stats saturation point.

It seems as if every game ever played, at least since the 20th century dawned, is now part of gigantic data base that can spit out some really random statistics.

Some of those enhance our knowledge. Some of them take up space in game reports and fall into the category of “that is kinda interesting … but I’m starting to get stat bloat.”

By way of example, let’s examine the statistics dropped into the text of an ESPN.com report on Game 4 of the current World Series.

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What happens when newspapers are no longer printed on paper?

Among other things more dire … good luck trying to pack your ceramics and glasses for the big move.

Newspapers were once widely available, on paper, and used in all sorts of ways beyond conveying news, ads and photos. It was “recycling” before the term had been invented.

For example:

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This always has seemed semi-tacky.

Team A gets to the championship series/game, and politicians who share a city or a state with that team … announce a “bet” with their opposite number from Team B on the outcome of the event.

Always backing the home team, of course, usually boasting about them — but often hedging their bets by risking local products like barbecue sauce or craft beers or bagels or T-shirts from some local attraction.

For the World Series this year, the governors of Illinois (home of the Chicago Cubs) and Ohio (home of the Cleveland Indians) have stayed low key, with each promising to send along beer and pizza if the other guy’s team wins.

But some of the bets are more colorful — or meant to attract more attention.

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I became aware of this tune incrementally. It is played in the background of a television commercial — for a French insurance company — we have seen many times, here in France.

By the time I figured out what was going on in the vaguely uplifting commercial spot (young school teacher finds car wrecked by fallen tree, hitch-hikes cross-country, gets to rural school on time), I realized I liked it for the strange, haunting singing in the background. It sounded like enthusiastic but talented amateurs. South African, maybe?

But how to find out the provenance of that music?

It took a lot of hunting on the web before we finally figured out it comes from a piece arranged for use in the 1998 film: The Thin Red Line.

It is Melanesians singing a Christian hymn (all five verses) in a sort of pidgin Malay.

Have a listen.

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Maybe I have been out of the U.S. too long.

Or maybe this is just some collective American madness that feeds on itself and at the end of it … we all apparently hate Fox’s World Series broadcast voice Joe Buck.

How do we know?

Let’s start with the last-minute push, this week, to get Fox to replace Buck as their play-by-play man with Bob Uecker. A petition calling for that change got at least 45,000 signatures.

(Fox was unmoved. Buck said he would enjoy having Uecker in the broadcast booth, perhaps not aware that the petition wanted Uecker to replace Buck, not join up with him.)

Then there are the random and numerous online complaints about him and his work, including this fairly wide-ranging trashing from a blogger, which ranges from the Buck professional to the personal.

The default opinion seems to be … Joe Buck sucks.

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The 2016 World Series is a mismatch.

The much-beloved Chicago Cubs are just too good for the Cleveland Indians, and the series will be the sort of romp they should be able to celebrate in Wrigley Field, when this thing ends in Game 4 or (at most) 5.

It must be assumed that planning for the celebratory parade is near completion. Thinking Tuesday of next week.

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Had this one in heavy rotation inside my head almost from the day it came out.

“Party Like a Russian” by the British singer Robbie Williams.

Have a look at the “official” video, which already has been seen 7.2 million times.

Have a listen/look.

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The Dodgers’ limp surrender to the Chicago Cubs tonight, allowing the Cubbies to reach the World Series for the first time since 1945, seems to call for a reassessment of the Los Angeles team’s priorities.

What matters most to the people who run this club?

Is it a championship? Or is it selling tickets and generating revenue?

They certainly are better at the latter than they are at the former.

No World Series appearances in 28 seasons … but 18 seasons in the past 20 of selling more than 3 million tickets, a number most of baseball rarely reaches.

The Dodgers keep fielding teams that are competitive. They do not, however, assemble teams with enough talent to win a title.

They never rebuild; they only repair.

And perhaps that is no accident.

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If Clayton Kershaw tomorrow can throw seven scoreless innings and allow two hits, as he did in his first go-round with the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series … I think it would be time to say “all is forgiven”.

All is forgiven for the rocky outings in previous NLCS and postseason appearances. The 3-6 record, the ERA of about 7.00.

If he can keep under control a team that scored 18 runs in its final two games in Los Angeles, the team that won 103 regular-season games and the team that will be backed by a howling crowd of Cubs fans desperate to see their team clinch a place in the World Series for the first time since 1945 …

Well, under those conditions “postseason Kershaw” would begin to rival “regular-season Kershaw” for excellence — if he can dominate them again.

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