This Cleveland Indians Fan Predicted A 2016 World Series Win In 2012 — The Story Behind It Is Even Better

"In October 2016, The Cleveland Indians will win the World Series."

That prediction doesn't seem so outlandish considering the Tribe's roll: They won the American League Central, swept the mighty Boston Red Sox for the Division title and then beat up the favored Toronto Blue Jays to get to the World Series.

These words, though, weren't written during Cleveland's incredible run.

Adam Gockowski published them on July 19, 2012 — that's 2012 — at 1:34 p.m. Eastern time under the headline, "Cleveland Indians: 2016 World Series Champions."

How do we know? He posted the prediction, along with a lengthy explanation, on Patch.

We thought this "Indians win the World Series" prognostication may be too good to be true. So we asked our team of tech nerds if this article was indeed published in 2012.

It was.

Resist the temptation to roll your eyes and write this off as a lucky guess, a blind dart-thrower finally hitting the bullseye or spaghetti eventually sticking to the wall.

This story is about a Cleveland super fan who got famous for burning his LeBron James jersey in 2010, briefly served as "governor" of Section 117 at Progressive Field, and sat down in 2012 — in the middle of a 68-94 season — to write all the reasons why his 2016 prediction would come true.

A big one: He had asked his grandma, Jeanne Toomey, to have a chat with God when she got to heaven and ask him for a World Series win for Cleveland.

Yes, she said. Of course she would.

He explained the grandma connection in his 2012 post.

There are only a few things I love more than the Indians (all relate to this theory). If you have ever seen Adam Sandler’s Classic, Happy Gilmour, you would know how close he and his grandmother are in that movie. Well, my grandmother and I are just like them. She is the only person that I truly know that (has) seen the Indians win the World Series.

She was 26, soon to be 27, when the Indians last won the World Series in 1948. In 2016, Gockowski will be 26-going-on-27.

That would be 68 years later. The Indians’ other World Series win came in 1920. And 20 + 48 is 68.

Gockowski finds odd sports coincidences like that seemingly everywhere he goes, he told Patch.
Here’s another: In 1989, when he was born, Cleveland's professional sports fans were nearly 25 years into a championship drought; no team had won it all since the '64 Browns.

As it would turn out, he was born nearly smack-dab between championships, about 25 years before the Browns won it and 26 years after the Cavs finally gave Cleveland a winner in June.

Coincidence? Gockowski points out this to support his claim something much bigger is at work here: That day he entered the world in 1989, on Nov. 15, the Cavs had played the Golden State Warriors. The day in June when the Cavs held up the Championship trophy, they had defeated...the Golden State Warriors.

“I was born into the curse the same way I got out of it,” he said.

His grandmother was never a big Indians fan, but the Tribe was a big part of their relationship.

Jeanne lost her husband when Gockowski, now 26, was 7 years old. She had outlived most of her friends and had gotten lonely. Gockowski would talk to her about the Indians to take her mind off of things.

“She loved everything about Cleveland,” he said. “She was a native Clevelander. And she loved [talking about the Indians] because it made me happy.”

After a particularly miserable loss in 2009, he called her and told her to make him a promise.

“I asked her that when she meets the Lord, can she ask him to give her grandson a World Series,” he said. “She said yes.”

On July 8, 2010, Gockowski uploaded a picture of himself burning his Lebron James jersey to Cleveland.com because “everybody was doing it. They were setting their s--- on fire.” The photo got picked up and became one of the lasting images of how James turned his back on the city.

Four years later, he won a contest to become “The Governor” of “Brohio” — the nickname given to a section of Progressive Field on Fridays and Saturdays in honor of bro-ish first baseman Nick Swisher. Gockowski’s “campaign” video included an appearance by former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel.

The duties were simple: fire up the crowd in section 117. Sports Illustrated ran a blurb about the quirky contest in its July 21, 2014. That same issue included the announcement by James that he would return to Cleveland.

It was a crazy summer for Gockowski. And then his grandma died.

His interest in the Indians began to fade, too.

“I grieved very hard. It was pretty rough,” he said. “To be completely honest with you at the time, I turned my back on the team. I lost myself after the death."

He knew, though, this was not what Jeanne would have wanted.

“My grandmother would be very upset that her death did that to me,” he said, “that I started not loving the Tribe.”

So this year, “I told myself — it’s time.”

He wanted his 2012 prediction on the record.

He had a friend working at the Patch in Twinsburg, Ohio. He posted his "vision" there.

The World Series win was his biggest prediction, but he posted others at the same time, and those have already proved wrong.

He had written, for example, that the Tribe would win the Series by sweeping the New York Mets. He also said Jim Thome and Omar Vizquel will be at a pre-game ceremony at next year’s opening day — with Jose Mesa throwing out the first pitch, ending his longstanding feud with Vizquel. (Not even God could have made that come true.)

“I wanted the evidence. I wanted it on record. I wanted it 100 percent on record,” he said. “You know how many people claim they knew something was going to happen but there’s no evidence?”

But technology can be deceiving.

So what if people still don’t believe his 2012 post was actually made in 2012? He says he has plenty of other evidence.

“Facebook can prove it. There’s a lot of evidence. I didn’t leave a single untraced mark. I posted a lot about it,” he told Patch.

“When you share this article, people are going to go, ‘Oh my God, I’ve heard this kid scream about this in bars.’”

And all he’ll say about the World Series is that the games will be hard. He’s terrified of jinxing not only the Tribe but his precious prediction. He admitted he was hesitant to take Patch's call.

And if a championship doesn’t happen?

“I guess God heard my prayer, he just heard it wrong,” he said. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

Click here to read his original prediction post, unedited, in full.

All images courtesy Alex Gockowski