Which event in Cleveland Indians history would you witness or change if you could?

It is finally Back to the Future day! After years of people photoshopping the date on the DeLorean’s dashboard to read whatever random date it happens to be at the time, we are finally at October 21, 2015. The real date that Marty McFly arrived in Hill Valley, California in Back to the Future II to stop his family from making several terrible choices that get them all thrown in prison*.

*Which, for some reason, Doc Brown does not have a problem using his time machine to do, despite saying several times it should be used for educational purposes only and not used to change the course of history or the future. But that is for another post entirely.

In the spirit of Back to the Future, if you had access to Doc’s DeLorean and could go back in time, what is something you would change (or just want to witness) in the 104-year history of the Cleveland Indians? Try to keep it in the boundaries of Back to the Future, as well. For example, as much as we would all like to swoop down onto Fulton County Stadium on October 28, 1995, and kidnap Tom Glavine before he one-hits the Cleveland Indians in Game 6 of the World Series, that would cause a bit too much of a panic and Biff would somehow end up as the All-Time home run leader.

There are, however, several bad trades and signings that you could interrupt by cutting a few phone lines at the correct times. You could take a trip to 2006 and stop the Indians from sending Brandon Phillips to the Cincinnati Reds for Jeff Stevens. Or maybe find a way to convince the 1989 front office to not trade Jay Bell for a bag of baseballs.

Getting to even more recent events, you could try and stop the Tribe from committing almost $30 million a year to Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher in 2013.

Every single team that passed on Mike Trout probably wishes they could go back to 2009 and draft him. Especially the Indians who chose Alex White with the 15th overall pick, a whole 10 slots earlier than when Trout went to the Los Angeles Angels. Sure, maybe he does not pan out quite the same way in a different farm system, but you have a flying DeLorean complete with a Mr. Fusion. If he winds up being nothing, go on back and try it again.

Maybe you do not even want to change anything. You are a purist and you like the Indians history just the way it is. In that case, what event would you want to witness?

For me personally, I would have found a way to stop the 1994 strike. Even if that Indians team did not win the World Series because the playoffs are basically a crapshoot, the offense was going to do some historical things and it would have been great to see how far they could have gone. Alternatively, witnessing the 1948 championship team would be phenomenal.