Major League Baseball’s World Series begins tonight, and it could very well be one for the ages. This best-of-seven clash between the American and National League champions has the potential to make fans in the two involved cities ignore, at least temporarily, an exceptionally ugly presidential campaign most of America would prefer to forget entirely.

The Cleveland Indians haven’t been their sport’s champion since 1948, when they conquered Boston’s big two league teams (the Red Sox in a one-game playoff for the American League pennant and the Braves in the World Series) five times in an eight-day span. One sign times have changed radically since then: Cleveland’s quintet of October victories that year took an average of two hours to complete. That’s about as long it takes to televise five commercially polluted, pitching-change-fraught innings these days.

But even though Cleveland’s team hasn’t won the World Series in 68 years (and have only participated in it once since 1954), the general public hasn’t embraced the Tribe as lovable, long-overdue underdogs. That’s because their opponents, the Chicago Cubs, last played in the World Series in 1945, a year that began with Franklin Roosevelt in the White House, and last won it in 1908, when the president was Theodore Roosevelt.

Even the terminally hardhearted have to concede 108 years between championships is a long drought, so it’s no wonder much of America has embraced Wrigley Field’s suddenly formidable team. But giddy Cub fans should be advised to proceed with caution.

Not long ago another large group of avid baseball fans was starved for a championship. The Boston Red Sox hadn’t won the World Series since the last year of World War I. Agonizing postseason defeats in 1946, 1967, 1978, and 1986 only made their suffering worse, but even more galling was the success of their team’s arch-rivals. The perennially snooty New York Yankees had won 26 titles since the Boston’s last World Series triumph. The only emotion even close to the limitless devotion Red Sox fans had for their team was antipathy for the haughty, perennially successful Bronx Bombers and their arrogant and entitled followers. Not only were the contemptible New Yorkers perpetually obnoxious winners, but the contemptible manner in which they obtained their titles, outbidding every other team for the game’s top talent simply because they could, truly stuck in Boston’s collective craw.

But with the possible exception of the North Pond Hermit, everyone in northern New England vividly remembers the magic autumn of 2004. After being humiliated by the hated Yankees in the first three games of the American League Championship Series the Sox became the first team in Major League Baseball history to storm back from such a deficit to win a best-of-seven matchup. And before that joy subsided they swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four straight World Series contests, ending their 86-year title drought.

Demons excised, the team rapidly won two more titles, in 2007 and 2013, and contended for several others.

But not everything was ideal after the “Curse of the Bambino” was broken. Buoyed by new and deep-pocketed ownership, the Red Sox bought (and more than occasionally overpaid) already-wealthy mercenaries every bit as rashly as their rivals from New York ever did. A top Sox pitcher who fancied himself an entrepreneur defaulted on a $75 million loan from the state of Rhode Island, and later got fired from a cushy sportscasting job by continuing to speak and/or tweet inappropriately. And at least two of the best hitters on Boston’s championship teams were fueled by banned performance-enhancing substances.

The 2016 season saw the Sox improve by 15 wins over the previous year, and go from last place in their division to first in the process. But less than 24 hours after their elimination from the American League playoffs in three straight games, bloviating talk-show hosts, pot-stirring columnists, and much of the team’s rabid fan base were demanding the ouster of the manager who had spearheaded their remarkable improvement.

Red Sox Nation has clearly become Evil Empire North. These days the only discernible difference between Red Sox rooters and Yankee fans are the accents.

No one outside of New England currently considers the Red Sox and their followers underdogs, or even remotely lovable. The only group of North American sports aficionados more despised than shrill Boston baseball fans are shrill New England Patriot football fans. But that’s not hard to explain, at least to anyone with a memory spanning more than 12 years. Everyone, it seems, hates a too-frequent winner.

Good luck to the Chicagoans on breaking their 108-year titleless streak. But careful what you wish for, Cub fans.

You just might get it.

— Andy Young grew up as a fan of the lovable New York Mets of the 1960’s. His current favorite team is the Minnesota Twins, who lost 103 games this season and clearly need his support.