CLEVELAND — Downtown Cleveland is the place to be Saturday, as thousands will flood the bars, restaurants, and streets in support of their Guardians, who take on the Detroit Tigers at Progressive Field for their first game of the playoffs.
The credit for the building electric buzz goes not only to how hot the Guardians are right now, but also the great weather we'll be having, with WKYC forecasting a high temperature of 69 degrees with basically no chance of rain.
"We about to take this World Series. We're going all the way this year," said excited Guardians fan Delonte Simmons. "It starts with the management, you know, the coaching, the players playing hard, everybody playing together. It's a goal. World Series or bust."
Fans hanging around Prospect Avenue and East 4th Street were strutting in their Guardians jerseys and baseball caps Friday.
"I'm really excited for the energy tomorrow," said fan Dan Pillar. "It's going to be great. The Guardians are going to have the whole city behind them. It's going to be loud and an exciting atmosphere."
The organization Downtown Cleveland Inc. said big game days like these are the best for raising the city's profile.
"We will continue to stand behind the team and cheer them on and support them, promote them, rally behind all the other local downtown businesses," said Place Programs & Social Media Manager Ian Meadows. "Encourage people to shop local, if there's any special merchandise or t-shirts or things that are involved with that, going to all the restaurants and bars to watch the games. We want to support the team any way we can and just rally the whole community around this exciting moment."
Tanya Metz, general manager of Geraci's Slice Shop on Prospect Avenue, told 3News she wouldn't be surprised at a 50% boost in sales on Saturday, but says they could very possibly double sales.
She said the vibe in downtown Cleveland is going to be incredible.
"Everyone's coming out," she said. "Cleveland's going to be in Downtown Cleveland and doing what they do, celebrating the team, looking for that win. They love it. We do, too. You see everybody outside dancing and celebrating the win, and even the opponent team you see them out here having a good time and mingling with everyone. So, it's always really nice to see."
Friday afternoon around 4 p.m., 3News checked a couple ticket websites to see what prices were going for to get into the game.
On SeatGeek, the standing room tickets ran $96. Seats along the first baseline went as high as $422 dollars.
The cheapest seats we found on StubHub were in section 519 for $103 dollars, and the most expensive was in The Midfield Club for more than $550.