The Cleveland Indians on Thursday night won their 22nd — yep, 22 — game in a row when they defeated the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in 10 innings. The win extends Cleveland’s AL record winning streak and puts them four games behind the 1916 Giants.
Perhaps one of the most impressive parts about their latest win is that the Indians overcame superstition to get it.
See, manager Terry Francona has a friend whom he previously described as a “gray cloud”. Francona said he was refusing to talk to that bad-luck friend during the streak. But on Wednesday night, after the Indians had won their 21st game in a row, Tito decided to tempt fate.
“I went out on a limb last night and called him,” Francona admitted Thursday, via Cleveland.com’s Joe Noga. “I actually texted him. I called him and he sent me to voicemail. And then he texted me, and then I called him and he picked up and said, ‘You sure you want to do this? Like, man I haven’t talked to you in three weeks.'”
The friend was revealed to be Bill “Tubby” Kinneberg, who is the current baseball coach at Utah. He was a college teammate of Francona and bench coach Brad Mills at Arizona. And apparently he didn’t bring the Indians bad luck on Thursday. Cleveland looks to continue its streak on Friday against Kansas City.
