The Cleveland Indians have been not-winning things for a long time.

No World Series championships since 1948. Last appeared in a World Series in 1997 and lost Game 7 in excruciating fashion.

But we must thank them for an important something already this October:

They eliminated the Boston Red Sox. Swept them in the best-of-five division series.

Well done!

Of all Major League Baseball teams, I find the Red Sox most onerous, in large part because of their obnoxious fans — who seem to have reached a place where they feel the whole of the modern game revolves around their team and their freakish ballpark.

To have them gone … is a comfort. Thank you, Cleveland.

Now, the Indians have a 1-0 lead over the Toronto Blue Jays, who also are becoming unlikable, thanks to their fans, including the guy who chucked a nearly full beer bottle at a Baltimore outfielder during the wild-card game. After that, more than one baseball writer suggested that Jays fans have developed a mean streak and don’t seem to represent what typically are considered well-behaved Canadian fans.

We may need the Indians to help us out down the line, by taking out the Chicago Cubs, if the latter get past the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, and they are expected to.

The Cubs and Indians would make for a World Series pitting the two MLB franchises who have gone longest without a championship. Since 1908, for the Cubs, since 1948 for the Indians, whose team included greats like Lou Boudreau, Bob Feller and Bob Lemon.

And I would much rather have the Indians and their fans celebrating at the end of this.

As noted earlier, I do not harbor particular animus against the Cubs (though some people who know their fans better than I suggest the fans there are approaching Red Sox-level arrogance).

I simply like the enormous history of the Cubs failure-to-win streak, and losing a 107-year-old story … it’s not like we can expect another team to do that; even the Indians are 40 years short of that.

Cleveland at least has made a World Series since their 1948 failure; the Cubs have not played in the Fall Classic (as Tommy Lasorda would call it), since 1945.

The Indians lost in four games to the New York Giants in 1954, in six games to the Atlanta Braves in 1995 and in seven games to the undeserving Florida Marlins (in their fifth season of existence) in 1997. With star closer Jose Mesa unable to hold a 2-1 Indians lead in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7.

Until LeBron James came home and gave Cleveland an NBA title last spring, the city’s professional teams had not won a championship since the NFL Browns did, in 1964. Meantime, they endured crushing defeats in baseball, football and basketball, leading to the suggestion that “God hates Cleveland”.

After ousting the Red Sox, if the Indians can also overcome Toronto and (probably) the Cubs … that would suggest God has moved on. Maybe even the Browns might be about to turn things around.

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.