The Indians return to the friendly confines of Progressive Field on Tuesday after an extended spring training because of the World Baseball Classic and a weeklong road trip to begin the 2017 season.
The Indians are 3-3 after sweeping three games from the Texas Rangers and then being swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Before the home opener against the Chicago White Sox, the Indians will briefly celebrate their 2016 American League championship. They will receive their championship rings, a flag will be raised in center field and a new banner will be added to the right field terraces.
That postseason run is in part a memory dipped in bitterness for the Indians and their fans. The lasting image is of the Chicago Cubs' Kris Bryant already smiling as he throws the final out to first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who promptly puts the World Series game ball _ which Cubs fans had been waiting to behold for 108 years _ in his back pocket before celebrating in the rain after Game 7.
But it will also be looked at as one of the more impressive feats in franchise history, with a depleted club pulling together a pitching staff with Band-Aids and duct tape to push the Cubs to their limit in extra innings of Game 7. The Indians weren't supposed to take down Boston or Toronto, but they did _ and made some statements on the way.
In large part, that is what the 2016 AL championship banner will represent.
That, and the potential for it to only be the beginning for this core group of players, many of whom are under control through at least the 2020 season and nearly all of whom will return to Cleveland next season.
But, of course, the Indians fell one small step short of their giant leap into baseball lore.
"It's in the past for a reason," shortstop Francisco Lindor said. "We haven't done anything. We won the American League but we won't be remembered because we haven't won the World Series. We have to work as hard as we can to win."
That's been Indians manager Terry Francona's message this spring: Remember, honor and learn from what happened last fall, but move past it.
"We don't want to be that team that come July is still talking about last year, because this year's not so good," Francona said in January, repeated throughout spring training and used as the theme of his season-opening team message in Goodyear, Ariz.
The rings will be received, the flag raised, the banner dropped. It's all as much a reminder about what the Indians want to accomplish in the future as it is about what they did a season ago.
