America will be treated to a rarity tonight: a seventh game in the World Series. This is just the third time that this has happened in 14 years and will represent a historic moment for both franchises. Whatever happens, one team’s generations of heartbreak will be ended, while another’s will continue.

As viewers have been told repeatedly, the Cubs have not won a World Series title since 1908, and the Indians haven’t since 1948. These are currently the longest two droughts in Major League Baseball. Cleveland can claim a more recent World Series, but the city has endured a much longer period of sports futility than Chicago has. This year’s Cavaliers NBA championship brought Cleveland its first major sports championship of any kind since 1964. In that span, Chicago enjoyed a slew of titles, including six when the Bulls had a shooting guard named Michael Jordan.

Do you remember Jordan’s most iconic shot, a buzzer-beating jump-shot from the foul line? That was against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cleveland hopes its own superstar Corey Kluber can get one back against the Windy City and extend the Cubs’ misery yet another year. Kluber could be just the fifth pitcher in the live-ball era to win three starts in a World Series.

The first live-ball pitcher to do it happened to play for Cleveland: Stan Coveleski (1920). One cannot analyze this Series without delving very far back into the history books.

For Indians fans such as my dad, however, it’s not so much ancient history that is on their mind this week as 1997. That year, the Indians had a lead in the ninth inning of game seven, only to see the save blown by José Mesa. Tonight, both teams have the chance to rewrite their histories.