Jason Kipnis still gets chills thinking about that one swing. It was the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, and the score was tied at six. Every kid has dreamed of this moment—playing it out in the backyard or on a Little League diamond. For Kipnis, that dream was just inches away from coming true.

As the Cleveland Indians' second baseman stepped into the batter's box, he faced Chicago Cubs superstar closer Aroldis Chapman. Kipnis made contact, and from the broadcast angle—and from certain seats in the park—it looked like the ball was destined to sail over the right-field wall for a walk-off, game-winning, World Series-clinching home run. Instead, the ball landed just foul along the right-field line.

Fans across Progressive Field and in living rooms all over Cleveland groaned at what could have been. Now, ten years later, Kipnis still admits that ball was inches away—not because of where it landed, but because of how he hit it.

"When people say it was a couple of feet or inches away, I think I was just an inch away," Kipnis explained during Cleveland's 2016 reunion on Friday. "But that inch would have been where the baseball was on my bat. If I caught it a little bit deeper in the zone, that could have kept it fair."

So many Cleveland fans have replayed that video and wished for a different outcome since that disappointing November night a decade ago. Kipnis admits he's one of them. "I've seen it from the center camera view on TV. It looks like a home run. But at most, it wasn't going to go out. It had too much side spin. Chapman threw me like six straight sliders, and I was ready for the fastball."

Even today, when the conversation turns to the biggest "what ifs" in Cleveland sports history, Kipnis's near-World Series-winning home run is almost always one of the first moments that comes to mind. It's hard not to think about what could have been—and how close the Guardians (then Indians) were to bringing home the trophy.