CLEVELAND — Game 6 of the World Series had a start time of 8:08 p.m. The competition started 2 1/2 hours earlier.
Just beyond the right field wall at Progressive Field is a party deck featuring seven rows of tables that face the field. If you have standing-room tickets, that’s where you want to be, and when the gates to the stadium open, the race is on.
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It’s not a stampede because everyone has to go through security before they can start sprinting for the best vantage point, so for a few minutes there is a trickle of people running as fast as they can, in what turns out to be a very orderly fashion.
That means the race is to the swift, but also to the punctual.
when you've been waiting with standing-room-only tickets and they open the gates and you have to run to get the best seats ... pic.twitter.com/CQ8AFk6dOE
— Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan) November 1, 2016
“We got here around 3,” said Nick Santucci, who ran with his friend Mike Marion to snag front-row spots right next to the foul pole. “We had lunch at the Winking Lizard (a gastropub two blocks from the ballpark), ate real fast, and we’ve been waiting out there all day. We’re just ready for the game to start.”
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They still had a couple of hours to wait for that, but it was a wait that had been going on longer than just Tuesday afternoon anyway.
“I had tickets to Game 1, but I had to work,” Marion said, a sheepish smile creeping onto his face. “So, I was kind of hoping we wouldn’t win, so we could come today.”
Cleveland not winning Game 5 in Chicago on Sunday night meant that Tuesday brought a chance for the city’s first home clinch of a championship since the Browns won the NFL title at Municipal Stadium in 1964.
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“We’re excited,” Santucci said. “We’ve waited a long time for something like this to happen. It’s amazing. The other day, the Cavs received a ring, and then just 500 or so feet away, the Indians are here in the World Series, so we’re pretty excited."