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Can’t You Hear the 1948 Whistle Blowin’

With all aboard, the Lake Shore Limited slips out of the perpetual Penn Station dusk and into the day’s waning light. The train is already late, which seems fitting since it stops in Cleveland and terminates in Chicago, two Midwest cities that have been denied baseball glory by the conspiring fates since forever.

I settle into my sleeper berth for a long, long night.

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Riding the rails. CreditGeorge Etheredge for The New York Times

The Cleveland Indians have not won a World Series since the Truman era; the Chicago Cubs, not since before the world war — the first one.