Baseball fans in the Yakima Valley will have a bit of a connection to one of the players participating in tonight's final game of the World Series when Chicago takes on the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field in Ohio tonight in the form of Cubs veteran catcher David Ross.

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Ross, who has already announced his retirement at the end of this season, began his professional baseball career in Yakima as a member of the now defunct Bears of the Northwest League in 1998 after being a seventh-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Ross played in 59 games and batted a robust .309 with six homers in his only season in Yakima before ascending through the L.A. farm system and eventually breaking into the big leagues in 2002.

Doug Kaplicky, a former pro player himself from Yakima and massive Cubs fan, reminded me of this via a Facebook video (see: below). I was in my third year as the public address announcer and had somehow forgotten his tenure - even though I had announced his name hundreds of times in my life.

Paul Romero, son of then Bears G.M. Bob, was a batboy for that team as a youngster and shared this anecdote that speaks to why "Grampa Rossy" has been a beloved teammate to this day:

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