There's only one Choketober

The Valley View Bridge stands 212 feet above the ground and is just over three-quarters of a mile long. The Detroit-Superior Bridge is almost as high -- 196 feet above the Cuyahoga River -- but is only 3,112 feet long as it connects downtown to the near West Side of Cleveland. Just a couple hundred feet away stands the Lorain Carnegie Bridge -- also known as the Hope Memorial Bridge -- which starts downtown just across the street from Jacobs Field on Carnegie Avenue and deposits travelers in the heart of Ohio City at West 25th Street; it stands only 93 feet above the river but is more than a mile long. Then you've got the Innerbelt Bridge and the Main Avenue Bridge, which is Ohio's longest bridge at 8,000 feet.

That's at least three miles worth of Cleveland's biggest bridges, and don't be surprised if you can't go more than a few feet on any of them without seeing someone wearing an Indians cap sidling up to the edge and looking down, down, down.

For we were up 3-1 in the ALCS and when we wake up this morning we'll have nothing to show for it. Nothing at all thanks to the Boston Red Sox outscoring the Tribe 30-5 in the final three games of the series to hand the Indians their first three-game losing streak in two months and knocking them out of the playoffs.

Nothing save memories of The Skinner, the newest image to add to the Cleveland Sports Misery Pantheon. That's in honor of third-base coach Joel Skinner, who held Kenny Lofton at third base when Franklin Gutierrez roped a ball down the third base line that banged off the facing of the stands and landed 30 feet in front of Manny Ramirez. As Lofton rounded third and headed for home, Skinner threw a stop sign up in front of the fastest man in Indians history and prevented him from scoring the tying run in the seventh inning.

Next man up, Casey Blake, immediately banged into a double play. Ball game over. Series over.

Nothing save memories of Manny Ramirez, now officially a Red Sock, throwing Lofton out at second on an ill-fated attempt at a double (even though Lofton was safe). Nothing save memories of Jonathan Papelbon striking out Travis Hafner on three pitches with two on and no outs in the eighth.

It's not Tribe time now. It's nice try time now. The time where we hear about what a great season the Indians delivered, what a valiant effort they gave, what an enjoyable run we had.

We hear it too often. Wait til next year. We're still waiting.

Everything worked in the first four games of the season. The series in a microcosm: Tim Wakefield gets in the way of a double-play grounder from Asdrubal Cabrera and turns it into an infield hit in Game 4. In Game 7, Victor Martinez's hard grounder up the middle in the fourth bounces in and out of Daisuke Matsuzaka's glove and lands at his feet -- easy out at first.

Our aces had nothing up their sleeves. C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona took losses, and then uberreliever Rafael Betancourt couldn't keep the Tribe in Game 7, giving up seven runs in the seventh and eighth. He turned Dustin Pedroia into Bucky F*king Dent in the seventh, turning a one-run deficit into a three-run deficit and getting the snowball rolling downhill.

The Indians turned not into a pumpkin but a tomato can in Game 7, as we took a punch in the stomach, a smack to the head, and an uncalled shot to the groin all in order. Down we go, crumpled in a heap, once again waiting for next year.

A next year that never comes. But tears that always do.