Not long before the first pitch Florida manager Jim Leyland assembled the Marlins in front of their teal lockers in the clubhouse. He had spoken to them before every game of the Series, often invoking the name of Muhammad Ali. So often did Leyland mention the former heavyweight champion that the Marlins were thinking about asking Ali to visit them before one of the games in Cleveland. Leyland decided against it, not wanting to subject Ali to the inevitable swarm of media that would descend upon him.

Instead Leyland, in a throaty voice made scratchy by too many cigarettes and too much coffee over the 3,721 pro games it took him to get to the World Series, made this promise to his team before Game 7: "When you come back here, you will be world champions." The room fell silent. Then the 52-year-old manager, always seeming to push the right buttons at the right time, cracked up his players by saying, "Since I couldn't get Ali, I tried to get Elvis, but he couldn't be here."

Leiter pitched gallantly, allowing only two runs over six innings on a third-inning single by Fernandez. Wright was even better. He took a one-hit shutout into the seventh, and even after allowing a home run to third baseman Bobby Bonilla and leaving the last eight outs to the bullpen, he was in line to become the first rookie in 88 years, since Babe Adams of the Pittsburgh Pirates, to win Game 7.

The Indians wasted a chance to add to their 2-1 lead in the ninth when they put runners at first and third with one out. Centerfielder Marquis Grissom, batting against Nen, bounced to Renteria, who shocked Alomar by throwing him out at home rather than trying for a double play. "I was a dead dog," Alomar said. Nen then retired pinch-hitter Brian Giles on a fly ball.

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"The last few innings seemed to take forever," Cleveland shortstop Omar Vizquel said. "The minutes trying to get to the end went so slowly."

In the ninth inning Hargrove gave the ball to his closer, righthander Jose Mesa. An NBC crew began setting up a wooden platform draped with red-white-and-blue bunting in the Cleveland clubhouse, to interview the apparent world champions. A sheath of clear plastic was draped over the lockers to protect clothing from the spray of champagne. But then Alou, who put the Marlins ahead to stay in Games 1 and 5 with three-run homers off Hershiser, grounded a single into leftfield.

The 67,204 fans at Pro Player Stadium quaked in anticipation. In Cleveland, the insecurity capital of the country, Indians fans quaked with dread. Their Tribe had not won a World Series since 1948. The town has not won a championship in a major sport since its departed Browns won the 1964 NFL title, the longest drought among cities that have fielded teams in three major sports. John Elway, Earnest Byner, Michael Jordan and even current Indians DH-outfielder David Justice, who won the 1995 World Series with a Game 6 home run for the Atlanta Braves, have ruined would-be championship seasons in Cleveland. Die-hard Indians fans buy up more home team merchandise than any baseball fans but the Yankees'—in Game 3 the entire stadium was sold out of merchandise, sending club vice presidents to a warehouse for emergency restocking before Game 4. A city with a terrific orchestra, a beautiful ballpark and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame desperately yearns to be validated by a trophy. Or as one of Cleveland's cabbies put it, "All we want is a winner."

Mesa struck out Bonilla, bringing the Tribe within a double-play grounder of finally becoming champions. But catcher Charles Johnson cracked a single to rightfield, sending Alou to third. Counsell then tied the game with a sacrifice fly. "What's so hard is that we were one pitch, one batter, however you want to put it, from winning," Vizquel said later in the clubhouse, where the plastic wrap had been hastily shoved into a corner behind a refrigerator. "We were so close. It's just so hard to describe."

Mesa departed in the 10th inning, leaving a two-out, two-on mess for Nagy, Cleveland's best starter during the regular season, whom Hargrove had skipped in favor of Wright because "right now Charlie gives you the body language that tells you, 'I don't want to be on this earth.'" As Nagy warmed up with the World Series in the balance, Vizquel said to Renteria, the runner at second base, "Do you drive a convertible? You've got a nice tan." Then he asked, "Where did you go last night? Did you go out after the game?"

Fernandez joined the oddly timed bit of frivolity, asking Renteria, "Aren't your legs tired? Do you think you could score on a base hit?"

The question was left unanswered. Alou flied out.

The 11th began with a base hit by Bonilla, whose nightly facial theatrics and gimpy play caused by a strained left hamstring recalled lengthy death scenes in spaghetti westerns. Nagy got one out when Greg Zaun, who had pinch-run for Johnson in the ninth and then replaced him behind the plate, popped up a bunt. Then, just as the scoreboard clock showed 12:00, came the stroke of midnight for the Indians: Counsell sent a bouncer to the left of Fernandez. In his haste to get Bonilla at second base, Fernandez missed the ball, and Bonilla flopped into third.

After an intentional walk to Jim Eisenreich filled the bases, centerfielder Devon White forced Bonilla at home with a grounder to Fernandez. It was Renteria's turn to cement the legacy of this Series and his team.

The win was Florida's 28th in its last at bat this season, and Renteria had provided eight of those game-winning hits. The Marlins' victory legitimized the wild card, which was their ticket to the postseason. Having knocked off Atlanta, the winningest team in baseball, and by overcoming a deep Cleveland offense that had held the lead in every game of the Series, the Marlins proved to be worthy world champions. A sign at Game 6 said it all: WE BELONG.

As the Marlins rushed to mob Counsell and Renteria, for the second time in three years the last ball of the World Series wound up in the glove of Grissom in centerfield. As a Brave in 1995, he caught the final out, a fly ball by Cleveland's Carlos Baerga, then absently flung it into the air in jubilation. This time he picked up the baseball hit by Renteria and squeezed it in the pocket of his glove as he trudged off the field. Just before he reached the dugout steps, he looked back over his shoulder and saw the celebration raging.

What, he thought, do I want this for? With a quick underhand flip and the disdain of a fisherman throwing back a catch not worth keeping, he tossed the baseball toward the middle of the diamond and the mass of people. It rolled among the spiked feet of world champions too busy to notice—too busy jumping, hugging and sending up a roar that will echo forever with the clear resonance of a Game 7.

Issue date: November 3, 1997