Fans leave Cubs items at grave of 1908 hero Johnny Evers

TROY, N.Y. (AP) Some Cubs fans are hoping they can break a 108-year-old World Series championship drought by leaving items at the New York grave of the middle man in the team's famed Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double-play combination.

Johnny Evers (EH'-vers) was the second baseman for the Cubs team that won the 1908 World Series. He was immortalized a few years later in a New York newspaper reporter's 50-word poem, along with future fellow Hall of Famers shortstop Joe Tinker and first baseman Frank Chance.

Evers is buried in Troy, which is just north of Albany. Chicago fans have made the pilgrimage to his gravesite, where they've left candles and Cubs-related items, apparently in an effort to awaken enough of a winning spirit to beat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series.