Of Fair Hooker, Elmer Flick and World B. Free

OK, Fukudome ...

2011-07-29T13:08:00.002-04:00

I've been mulling this over all day. Do I like the trade for Kosuke Fukudome? Initially, I didn't like it at all. Here's a 34-year-old outfielder who may only be needed for a couple of weeks, before Grady Sizemore and Shin-Soo Choo come back. Sure, he's a slight upgrade over the likes of Austin Kearns and Jason Buck, and it reduces the likelihood that we'll ever again see the disaster that was Luis Valbuena in left field, but was he worth the two prospects we gave up for him?

But the more I think about it, the more I think this was not such a bad idea. Fukudome is hitting .273 with not much power this year, but he does at least draw a lot of walks. And the first step to scoring runs is getting on base. The Indians are on the hook for less than $1 million of his contract, so it's not like this is going to make it hard to get another deal done. And let's face it, a contending team doesn't come easy in Cleveland these days. We've got one right now. The Indians are only 52-50, but that's good enough for second place. If a guy like Fukudome can help us hang in there until we get some more healthy bodies back, we should probably take that opportunity.

And the prospects we gave up, Carlton Smith and Abner Abreu, are really nothing special. Smith is 25 and has a 4.50 ERA out of the bullpen in Columbus this year. He'll probably reach the majors soon, but he's not going to become a Chris Perez or anything. Abreu is only 21 and has some tools, from what I've heard, but is hitting just .244 in A-ball this year. He might turn into a legitimate player, but I wouldn't put any money on it.

So yeah, I like this trade. It doesn't knock my socks off, but hey, there's still about 50 hours left before the trade deadline. Maybe Chris Antonelli can pull off something bigger yet.

Welcome to the bigs, Jason Kipnis

2011-07-26T12:07:00.002-04:00

If Vinnie Pestano hadn't given up a two-run homer to Bobby Abreu in the eighth inning yesterday, the Indians would have won 1-0, there would have been no bottom of the ninth, and Jason Kipnis would still be looking for his first major-league hit. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't complain about a 1-0 win, but Kipnis winning the game with a single to right was quite a thrilling moment. I wasn't able to cheer because my wife and I were trying to put my 17-month-old daughter to sleep, but I cheered inwardly.

Now that Kipnis and Lonnie Chisenhall are both up in the majors to play every day instead of Orlando Cabrera and Jack Hannahan, respectively, the Indians truly have their best possible team on the field (considering injury). They are a game behind Detroit, and there's certainly no guarantee they can overtake the Tigers regardless of who's out there, but Hannahan and O-Cab haven't been doing feces offensively, and the offense has been struggling like crazy. Chisenhall may not be Hannahan's equal with the glove, but he'll surely more than make up for it with his bat, and the same is likely true for Kipnis.

Asdrubal's all-star appearance

2011-07-12T12:35:00.003-04:00

The Indians' Asdrubal Cabrera will be the second batter in tonight's All-Star Game in Phoenix, and will start the game at shortstop. It's a well-deserved honor for Cabrera, who is hitting .293 with 14 home runs and 51 RBIs, which are pretty gaudy first-half numbers for a shortstop even in today's day and age. And he turns in an eye-popping defensive play about every two or three games.

Cabrera replaces the Yankees' Derek Jeter, who was elected to start despite having a clearly inferior first half to Cabrera's (.270, 3, 24), but has bowed out of the game, citing fatigue. I'm not sure quite what to make of that, but Jeter is 37 and recently came off the disabled list, and the Yankees clearly need him more than the American League does. (The American League basically doesn't need him at all. They've got Asdrubal.)

Without looking it up, can you guess how long it's been since an Indian started the All-Star Game? Oh, it used to happen all the time, back when the Indians were selling out every single home game and all those fans were punching all-star ballots at the park. But it's now been 10 years since Juan Gonzalez was the last Tribesman voted to start the game. And Cabrera's the first Indian to start at shortstop since Lou Boudreau back in 1954.

None of this amounts to much, in the grand scheme of things, but as you're watching tonight's game, just remember that the winner gets home field in the World Series, and for the first time in four years, there's a chance the Indians will be the AL's representative.

Chisenhall gives reason for excitement

2011-06-28T15:36:00.003-04:00

When a team is having a devil of a time scoring runs, as the Indians have lately (they just got swept by the Giants in a series in which their pitchers gave up less than three earned runs per game), and that team is in contention for a playoff spot, as the Indians are, it's time to start looking for other options. One of the chief offenders in the Tribe's lineup has been third baseman Jack Hannahan, who got off to a decent start at the plate but has been ice-cold since then. Hannahan's numbers: .214 batting, .304 on-base, .333 slugging. He's played strong defense all year, but you can't carry a bat like that in your lineup no matter what he's doing with the glove.

Enter Lonnie Chisenhall. There was talk of Chisenhall making the team out of spring training, but the front office decided to give him some more time in Columbus to develop. And his numbers with the Clippers have been decent, but nothing to sing about: .265/.352/.427. But even if you adjust those numbers for major-league-caliber pitching, it's going to be better than Hannahan. And he's been super-hot lately. In his last four games before being called up yesterday, Chisenhall went 7-for-17 with two home runs, a triple, and 13 RBIs. In Hannahan's last four games, he'd gone 1-for-14 with that one hit being a single. So why not give Chisenhall a try?

He's now played in exactly one major-league game, last night's 5-4 victory over Arizona, but the Indians probably would not have won that game without Chisenhall. He had two hits, an RBI single and a double. Maybe he'll provide an instant jolt to the offense. He's only 22 years old, so I think we can logically assume the best is yet to come. Whether he helps much this year or not, the kid's future looks pretty bright.

What's up with Fausto?

2011-06-21T16:55:00.003-04:00

I've decided to try to make at least a quick post every day or two, rather than let the blog accumulate tumbleweeds for a couple of weeks. Today's topic is Fausto Carmona, who once finished in the top five in the Cy Young voting but has been just flat-out terrible this year.

Yesterday, Fausto appeared to have righted himself at least temporarily. He gave up a run on three hits in the first inning, then faced the minimum in the second and third innings, and got the first two hitters of the fourth. What happened to him then, I have no idea. By the time Manny Acta went out to get Fausto, he had allowed seven straight baserunners, and the Rockies had scored six runs, capped by Jason Giambi's three-run homer.

It was the fourth time Fausto has allowed at least seven runs in a start this year. Can you guess how many major league pitchers have done that four times in 2011? If you guessed one, you're right. Fausto is it.

Fausto now stands at 4-9, with his ERA at a positively hideous 6.17. He hasn't allowed fewer than four runs in any of his last eight starts, during which stretch his ERA is 8.87. I suspect there's something wrong with Fausto, and it's not a problem with his arm. I'm guessing he's lost his confidence. He'd better get it back if he wants to stay in the rotation. For all their recent struggles, the Indians are still contenders, and they can't afford to keep sending someone out there who can't do any better than that.

Indians struggling, but don't panic

2011-06-14T14:41:00.002-04:00

The Indians won last night. That's the good news. Carlos Carrasco and three relievers (particularly Chris Perez) handcuffed a strong Yankees lineup, shutting them out. But of course, the Tribe is still just 5-14 since starting the season 30-15. And it was just their second victory in the last 11 games, and both of those were 1-0 games started by Carrasco. Obviously, Carrasco's recent performance is highly encouraging. The fact that the Indians suddenly can't seem to score any runs, on the other hand, is highly discouraging. They've scored just 22 runs in those 11 games, being shut out three times over that stretch.

But does this mean the Indians are a truly terrible team that somehow managed to get off to a hot start? That seems unlikely. They played like the best team in baseball for a month and a half. When a team plays like the best team in baseball for a week or two, it's often a fluke. But a month and a half?

As we all know, the Tigers have managed to virtually tie the Tribe for first place thanks to this cold snap. And that's who we're playing in a three-game series that starts tonight in Detroit. A mid-June series is never crucial, but this is about as important a series as there can be at this point in the season. If the Indians go in and win this series, it could turn their season around, at least temporarily. But if they leave Detroit in second place, they could continue sliding until they fall into third place or worse.

On the other hand, it's only three games. They could go get swept by the Tigers and then win 12 in a row. This is baseball. You just never know.

Still, it sure would be nice to win two or three games up there this week.

Another reason to root against the Heat

2011-06-03T16:27:00.002-04:00

Kudos to the Dallas Mavericks for their stirring comeback last night in the NBA Finals! I didn't watch it, since I really have no desire to see LeBron James play in an NBA Finals, but I understand it was really something to behold.

I received this email today from my friend Jeff Brown, who messages me every couple of days, and whose emails are usually relentlessly negative about the Indians or Cavaliers or Cleveland's population or what have you. This one is a bit unusual in its topic, and I found it interesting enough to paste it in its entirety:

I figured out why (Zydrunas Ilgauskas) hasn't been playing the NBA finals so far -- the Heat didn't even include him on the finals roster!

This isn't a very noble way for the big fella to end his NBA career -- his team, despite starting him for 51 games in the regular season, and 8 out of 9 games to begin the postseason, has eviscerated him from the roster altogether and he doesn't even get to wear his uniform to the game, much less get in and play.

This would have been Z's second trip to the NBA finals, and a chance for him to earn some redemption for losing in four straight to the Spurs a few years ago.

Now, even when he wins his ring, it will be a hollow victory because he's sitting on the sideline wearing a suit and tie, rather than a basketball uniform.

Doesn't Z deserve better, Steve?

Well, I would stop short of saying he "deserves" better. But it does seem a bit odd that the Heat would play Z all year and then leave him off the Finals roster. He also didn't play in the Eastern Conference Finals. Maybe fallen out of favor with Heat coach Erik Spoelstra for some reason. Regardless, Z would be the only reason I'd ever want the Heat to win a title. Now that he's not even on the roster, ... yeah, I hope they get creamed the rest of the way.

Quick thoughts

2011-06-02T15:58:00.002-04:00

* The Indians had a bit of a rough stretch there, but they've won two in a row to regain the best record in the majors. A certain Of Fair Hooker reader who has been constantly beating the drum of negativity about the Indians (who goes by the name of Jeff Brown) emailed me the other day to opine that the Tribe will soon go the way of the Royals, who are now 5-13 since starting the season 20-17. First of all, the Indians' record is a lot better than 20-17, and second of all, they're pretty obviously better than the Royals. The Indians are now on pace to win 101 games. I don't think they'll actually win that many, but it probably won't take 90 to win the Central. I will be surprised if Detroit overtakes us, and shocked if Chicago does. Kansas City and Minnesota are all but eliminated right now.

* Jim Tressel has left the Ohio State football program in disgrace after committing the unpardonable sin of allowing his players to participate in capitalism. ... Don't get me wrong, Tressel should have known better, and signs are starting to point to the fact that this has been going on for years right under his nose, and he has been running a pretty corrupt program (at least in terms of the NCAA rules). But at least he won a national title. That's better than cheating and NOT winning a national title.

* Shaquille O'Neal, who spent the 2009-10 season in Cleveland, has announced his retirement. Shaq was at one time the NBA's most dominant player, and has to go down in history as one of the five best centers ever. And he's one heck of a character. Here's what he said about coming to Cleveland: "I came here with the perfect chemist's perception. The formula they had was perfect and any added ingredient could make it go bad or worse." ... Well, obviously the added ingredient that made it go bad wasn't Shaq, it was LeBron James losing his desire to win in Cleveland. Odd that he seems to have found it again in Miami. But that's a separate issue.

* I really don't want the Heat to win the championship. That's a given. If you're reading this, you probably don't either. But you know what? If Miami sweeps the Mavericks and hoists the trophy the evening of June 7, the sun will still rise on June 8. Not only that, the Cavaliers will still exist, and will still have the first and fourth picks in the upcoming NBA draft. They'll be one of 29 teams trying to knock off the champion. Whether that's the Mavericks or the Heat is not especially material.

Asdrubal turns in a wower

2011-05-20T16:37:00.003-04:00

This is kind of a side story, especially because the Indians lost last night and Fausto Carmona can't seem to get any White Sox out to save his life, but did you see that freaking play Asdrubal Cabrera made last night? If you saw it, you know what play I'm talking about. Our old friend Omar Vizquel hit a line drive up the middle that Indians reliever Joe Smith managed to get a glove on, but only enough to deflect it a little. Cabrera, who was heading toward the middle from his shortstop position to try to make a play on the ball, had to change course and go back toward third. He got it with his bare hand, then looked toward Adam Everett covering second, and flipped it behind his back from about 15 feet away to start one of the most spectacular double plays I've ever seen.

It was the obvious choice for top play of the day on SportsCenter, right? Nope. They chose a Kevin Durant dunk, and put Cabrera's play No. 2. No disrespect to Durant; it was a fine dunk with a hand in his face. But come on.

If you want to watch Cabrera's play, click here. But you'll see it again. It might be the play of the year in the major leagues.

So how good are these Indians really?

2011-05-19T16:32:00.005-04:00

The Indians have reached the season's quarter pole, and if you had them winning nearly two-thirds of their games in the first quarter of the season, you could have won a lot of money in Vegas. At 26-14, the Tribe has a five-game lead on Detroit in the AL Central, a 2 1/2-game lead on Tampa Bay for the American League's best record, and a one-game lead on Philadelphia for the best record in the bigs.

So what do the Internet experts think? There are three lists I check regularly. The most recent edition of ESPN's power rankings has the Tribe second, behind the Phillies. This despite Philadelphia's inferior record in the inferior league; this is presumably because of the Phillies' vaunted four-ace pitching rotation. Objectively, it's hard to think the Tribe can compete with a team that has Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels each starting every five days. But the results are what they are, and our boys have done better so far. ... I would also like to mention that the same poll had the Indians dead last in the first poll of the season. That's how surprising their fast start is.

There are two sites that use computer simulations to predict how the rest of the season will go. There's coolstandings, which predicts the Indians will finish 102-60, and gives them an 85.4% chance to make the playoffs, with a simulation that uses a fairly blunt instrument, team runs scored and team runs allowed so far. (The Indians excel in both categories, outscoring their opponents 207 to 145.) And then there's the Baseball Prospectus odds page, whose simulation is based on predictions about how individual players can be expected to perform the rest of the season. They've got the Indians finishing 83-79, with about a 32.5% chance of reaching the postseason. Amazing how two sophisticated computer simulations can have such wide differences.

Where does the truth lie? I suspect it's somewhere in between. I'd say a 90-win season is pretty realistic. That would only require the Indians to play slightly over .500 the rest of the way. At this point, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see them win about 95 games, which would almost certainly be good enough to keep them playing in October. I'm not going to lie, I'm excited.

A few random thoughts

2011-05-13T14:22:00.003-04:00

* Sure, it was a little disappointing that the Indians lost the series at home against the Rays, after taking the first game. But the Rays are the hottest team in baseball right now, and the Tribe still has the best record in the American League. And Justin Masterson wasn't going to go undefeated all year.

* The Tribesmen were 20-8 after winning in Oakland on May 3. Since then, they're 3-5. Is this a temporary cold stretch, or what we can expect from this team the rest of the way? Only time will tell, but I'm optimistic they can turn it around.

* The just-as-surprising-as-the-Indians Kansas City Royals are in second place, at 20-17, after having just taken two of three from the Yankees in the Bronx. Partially fueling that series win was brand-new uber-prospect call-up Eric Hosmer, who homered in each of the two games the Royals won. By calling up Hosmer when they did, the Royals were signalling that they think they can contend this year, because they started the clock on his free agency. The Tigers are only half a game behind the Royals, and if the White Sox and Twins ever right themselves, this could be a very interesting race.

* In less interesting news, either Carlos Boozer or LeBron James will be playing in the NBA Finals this year. Had they both so chosen, they could have been leading the Cavaliers to a title right now. Instead, Boozer's Bulls and James' Heat will play for the Eastern Conference championship. Sigh.

* Jim Tressel just hired a lawyer to represent him before the NCAA Infractions Committee, and it's one heck of a lawyer for this situation: Gene Marsh is the former chairman of that very same committee. Before Tressel had hired him, Marsh said Tressel had a chance to get off relatively lightly because of his positive track record and the fact that the infraction wasn't as serious as some. I hope he's right, because that Tressel is one heck of a coach, and I'd hate to lose him.

Isn't baseball a funny game?

2011-05-11T13:00:00.000-04:00

When Rays manager Joe Maddon summoned Kyle Farnsworth from the bullpen in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game last night with nobody out and the bases loaded, he probably figured it wasn't likely that Farnsworth would get out of the jam, but at least he would make the Indians earn it by getting the bat on the ball. After all, Farnsworth had yet to walk a batter all year. Surely he could put it in the strike zone with the game on the line.

Farnsworth got Orlando Cabrera to ground into a fielder's choice, putting him within a double play of sending the game to extras. And then he got ahead of Michael Brantley 0-2. Rays fans must have felt like things were going their way. But then he missed the zone four times, Brantley went to first, and Carlos Santana pranced down the third base line to end the game.

The old walk-off walk. You see it about 10 or 15 times a season around the majors. You'd think any major league pitcher worth his salt would be able to avoid walking a guy with the bases loaded to end the game, but apparently even a guy like Farnsworth who almost never walks anybody can lose the strike zone sometimes. On the same evening, in Miami, the Phillies' Roy Halladay -- arguably the best pitcher in the game -- lost in part because he walked Marlins pitcher Josh Johnson. It was the first time in Halladay's career that he'd walked a pitcher. Johnson would come around to score the first run of a 2-1 Florida victory. I guess no matter how good a pitcher's control usually is, he's bound to lose it once in a while. Throwing a baseball in that small area, while making it hard to hit, is not an easy task.

The win was the Indians' 14th in a row at Progressive Field, giving them their best home start in the team's 111-year history. At 23-11, the Tribe has baseball's best record. And I'm starting to think they really are this good.

Falling in love with these 2011 Cleveland Indians

2011-04-30T22:12:00.003-04:00

In the afterglow of the Indians' second straight walk-off win and 12th straight win at Progressive Field, I find myself starting to wonder if this team is really this good. And you know what? I think that maybe, just maybe, they really are.

How can this be? A team that started the season expected to finish fourth in a fairly weak American League Central Division has set a team record for wins in the month of April, with 18 against just eight losses. Many of us thought when they lost three straight last week that they had started their downward slide into mediocrity, but they've followed that up with five straight wins.

How have they done it? In a word: Defense. These Indians played a phenomenal defensive game tonight. Jack Hannahan, Austin Kearns, Michael Brantley and Orlando Cabrera are among the Indians who made particularly fine plays tonight. Lou Marson threw out a runner at second base. Carlos Santana started a fine double play from first base. Even Shin-Soo Choo almost threw somebody out at second, from right field. (I know, horseshoes and hand grenades, but still.) I think this is the best defensive team I can remember the Indians ever having.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fine performance turned in by Alex White, who went six innings in his major league debut, giving up just the two runs, both on solo homers. And let's not forget the Tribe bullpen, which shut the Tigers out for seven innings to give the offense a chance to win it.

For the second straight series, the Indians have turned back the team that started the series in second place in the division. The Royals have bounced back with two straight wins against the Twins, and have returned to second place, 4 1/2 games behind our Tribe. That's a pretty good-sized lead heading into May, though of course there's still a long way to go. But if we keep seeing this kind of defense, anything can happen.

I'm starting to love these 2011 Cleveland Indians. I don't know yet if they really are this good. But they're sure fun to watch right now.

Is this actually happening?

2011-04-19T13:10:00.003-04:00

OK, the season is only a tenth of the way through. Still, the Indians have played as many games as the Browns play in a full season, and you'd be thrilled like crazy if the Browns finished 12-4 this year.

I don't get much time to watch Tribe games these days, but I did watch the last few innings of last night's game. What I saw was a team that plays smart and provides strong defense.

Michael Brantley made a great catch out in left field that saved a one-out double or better off the bat of Alcides Escobar in the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied at 3. On a potential double-play ball to first, Matt LaPorta made a bad throw that Asdrubal Cabrera fielded on a hop and failed to keep his foot on the base before throwing to first, but the runner, Billy Butler, assumed he was out, and Cabrera alertly and quietly called for the ball back in time to tag Butler out. I can't say I've ever seen that before.

And when the Royals' defense gave the Indians a break in the top of the tenth, our boys took full advantage of it. The Indians' first run came unaided by the defense (Shelley Duncan smoked a double to left to knock in Carlos Santana, who had drawn a leadoff walk), but after that, it was thanks to a gift by Escobar on a bad throw that would have ended the inning with a double play that opened the door for more scoring. Adam Everett scored on that play, and then Jack Hannahan and Grady Sizemore followed that up with back-to-back RBI hits. And what would have been a razor-thin one-run lead going into the bottom of the tenth became a nice four-run cushion.

And by the way, how awesome is it to have Grady back? He homered in his first game back on Sunday, and went three-for-five in last night's win. When healthy, he's been one of baseball's best center fielders, and he appears to have immediately returned to that form.

Have I suddenly reached the conclusion that these Indians are contenders? No, don't be silly. They're probably just on a hot streak. There are still 146 games to play.

But I'll tell you what, they've sure been fun to watch so far.

Go civil engineers

2011-04-16T19:49:00.003-04:00

This post started as an assignment for my Tools for Civil Engineering class at the University of Akron, and you might not think civil engineering has much to do with sports, but in this case, it definitely does. Since I had already written some stuff for class, I thought I'd expand it a little for the blog. I hope my professor doesn't mind.

Akron is hosting the local region's American Society of Civil Engineers competition this weekend, and as my Tools professor is Akron's chapter adviser, he canceled class this week and told us to attend one of the competitions and write a paragraph or so about it. I chose the concrete canoe race, basically for no other reason than that it was held on Friday afternoon and I was already in Akron for Friday morning classes, so I wouldn't have to make an extra trip.

It was fascinating, though. Akron was one of eight schools involved, and three of them -- Ohio State, Kentucky and Pittsburgh -- are national powers in the traditional sports. Those schools cowered before the engineering might of the Zips, along with Western Kentucky and Youngstown State.

Akron’s teams did very well, running a canoe named the Bootlegger, finishing first in the men’s sprint and the ladies’ endurance competitions, and second or third in all others. It seems that the engineering aspect was a much larger component than the athletic aspect, as schools like Akron, Western Kentucky and Youngstown did well no matter who was rowing the canoes, and schools like Ohio State and Ohio U. were always bringing up the rear – especially OSU’s Matta Armada, which must make the Buckeyes’ basketball coach ashamed to have it named for him. I noted that one of the canoes actually snapped in half at one point, though it did not appear to be one of the competition canoes.

Maneuverability was a huge component. In the sprint races, the boats had to go down past some buoys and back to the original starting point. Akron's boat won the first men's heat because its canoe turned around much faster than Western Kentucky's, which was faster on the straightaway.

I'll tell you one thing -- the engineering students who attended were every bit as much into it as if they were at a football or basketball game. Four Akron students went shirtless with "ZIPS" painted on their chests, and they were chanting "Z-I-P-S, Zips, Zips, Zips!" There was much rejoicing whenever the Bootlegger came in first.

I also caught some of the root beer stein race, which was also pretty interesting. I’m not sure I see the tie-in to civil engineering, but it was fun anyway. It seemed that most of the competitors were much more interested in getting to the finish line in a hurry than keeping their root beer from spilling. I saw one guy from Kentucky wipe out just before the finish, leaving less than an inch of pop in his cup. I didn’t see how the scoring is done, but I’m sure than cost him, both because it took him more time to get there and because he lost most of his beverage.

What to make of Tribe's hot start?

2011-04-14T08:15:00.003-04:00

OK, so the Indians aren't going to go 160-2 or 159-3. Dan Haren blanked them on one hit Tuesday night, and the Angels managed a victory in the rubber match of the series last night on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 12th that would not have scored the run if it had been hit about 10 feet shallower.

Still, the Indians are off to a pretty darn good start. The obvious question is, is this really how good this team is? Or are they just on a hot streak? I received this email from Jeff Brown three days ago, when the Tribe was 7-2:

As I have reported previously, the Tribe has had many fast starts over the past 25 seasons which have been a "flash in the pan" -- they ended up being a big loser by the end of the season.

That's what's happening again this season -- an impressive 7-2 start will, before, long, fade into the woodwork and they will become big losers once again.

Mark my words, Steve -- the 2011 Tribe will finish 15-20 games under .500!

Well, I don't know about all that. Do I think these Indians are a playoff team? Probably not. But if you think they were fundamentally a 15-under-.500 team at the start of the season, then you must revise your expectations based solely on the fact that they're four games over .500 right now.

This morning, I had this from Jeff:

Once again, as in the past, the Tribe zoomed out to a fast start at 8-2, however their precipitous decline has already begun.

They've lost two in a row to fall to 8-4, and just watch, Steve -- they are on a race to the bottom, and it's only a matter of time until they are in last place again.

They stink Steve, and no smoke and mirrors are going to cover up that fact over 162 games.

I anticipate they'll be in last place in their division no later than May 29, and as I have stated, they'll finish the year 15-20 games under .500.

Are you with me on this one?

Well, no. Jeez, talk about reading too much into two games. We're talking about two losses by a total of three runs. And to predict they'll finish last is to predict not only that they'll finish behind the Twins and White Sox (which is pretty likely), and the Tigers (which is about 50-50), but the Royals. Come on, Jeff! You think the Kansas City Royals are going to finish ahead of us this year? Have you looked at their "talent"?

In any case, to fully examine whether the Indians are for real, you have to take a look at the reasons for their hot start. The starting rotation has been really, really good. Fausto Carmona laid an egg on Opening Day, but he's gotten his ERA down from over 10 to 6.11 since then, with two strong outings. He's the only starter without a win now. Carlos Carrasco has been serviceable, and the other three starters -- Justin Masterson, Mitch Talbot and Josh Tomlin -- all have ERAs under 3, after two starts each. Can they keep this up? ... Well, probably not. These are all young pitchers who have not tasted this type of success in the bigs before, and they will get banged around from time to time. But I don't think it's unrealistic to expect any or all of them to finish with ERAs around 4, and 12-15 wins. Fausto has been a 19-game winner before, and could do it again. I would expect that Carrasco will finish with an ERA around 5 (it's currently 5.03). If all that happens, this will be one of the AL's better rotations.

They're helped by a solid defense behind them, strengthened by the off-season additions of Orlando Cabrera and Jack Hannahan. Asdrubal Cabrera -- who unexpectedly leads the team with four home runs and 10 RBIs -- is a solid glove man at short too. And this team is going to have to win with pitching and defense, because they're not going to keep up the offensive numbers they've posted. Asdrubal is no power hitter. I've heard talk about how he's changed his approach at the plate, and bravo for him, but he's currently on pace to hit 54 home runs. You're not going to convince me that the guy who hit three dingers all last season is suddenly a primo power guy unless he proves it to me. And I don't see that happening.

Anyway, the Tribe's fast start is encouraging. When the season started, I felt I'd have been happy with about a 76-86 record. I felt that was a realistic goal. Now? I think .500 is a possibility. It's going to require people to stay healthy and play well all year, but it could happen. Sorry, Jeff. I think you're wrong.

Take that, "King"

2011-03-30T08:32:00.003-04:00

I don't want to get too carried away about the Cavaliers' 12-point victory over Miami yesterday, but darn it, it feels good to have our guys beat LeBron James and the Heat. (Incidentally, someone held up a sign at the game that said "Welcome to North Beach." Love it.)

Anyway, this game doesn't change anything much for either team. Miami is going to the playoffs, and if the season ended today, they'd be the Eastern Conference's third seed. And the Cavaliers are going to the lottery. At 15-58, they still have the NBA's worst record, a game and a half worse than the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Still, this was sweet. Remember LeBron's first return to Cleveland? When the Cavs came in at 7-9, seeming to have legitimate hopes to contend for a playoff spot, and the Heat ripped them apart and sent them spiraling? Maybe this one will turn them around in the other direction. ... OK, probably not. But let me enjoy this anyway.

Welcome back, Taiter

2011-03-28T15:26:00.002-04:00

I didn't realize until this morning that the Cavaliers even had a game last night, much less that Joe Tait, the longtime voice of the Cavs, had returned for it. That, of course, is a function of the relentless patheticity of the Cavaliers this year, combined with the fact that I'm now an engineering student with a wife and kids, and not much time for such things. I haven't even watched much March Madness this year. (No, patheticity is not a word. So I guess I made it up. But I'm not going to compare myself to Shakespeare.)

Anyway, I'm glad to see Tait's back behind the mic. He is in many ways the greatest Cavalier of them all, even though he's never contributed to the Cavs winning (or losing) a single game -- because he HAS contributed to our enjoyment of those games, which is worth an awful lot. And he's been in the broadcast booth for all but a couple of years of the team's four-decade history. He's called the Miracle of Richfield, the 2007 Finals, The Shot, and a whole lot of terrible, terrible basketball. And more important than the fact that we get to hear him call four more games (he will not travel with the team) is the fact that he's able to work again, five months after heart surgery.

It's somehow fitting that the Cavs got awful again just before Tait retired, considering all the lousy teams he's had a front-row seat for. There is no question that he will deliver the same professional, high-quality play-by-play he has always given us, regardless of how crappy the product on the floor is.

Mixed day in Buckeye-land

2011-03-18T12:48:00.006-04:00

As the Ohio State hoopsters prepare to start their expected deep NCAA Tournament run this afternoon, the football team suffers another setback as the five-game suspensions of the five players involved in Tattoogate are upheld by the NCAA, and Jim Tressel volunteers to sit out the same five games as punishment for knowing about their transgressions and not reporting them.

I've already expressed in this space what I think about the rule that ensnared the players, which is basically that they didn't hurt anybody, so what's the big deal. But the rules are in place, and Jim Tressel, who is supposed to be this great integrity guy, knows what they are, or at the very least SHOULD know what they are. On the one hand, I find it hard to fault him for not wanting his players to be punished for not hurting anyone; on the other hand, he knows darn well he and they are all subject to NCAA rules.

Of course, his volunteering to sit out five games doesn't mean he'll serve a five-game suspension and then show up for the Nebraska game in week six. The NCAA is still investigating, and could make his punishment more severe. All this over a few tattoos and trinkets. Crazy.

In other doings:

* The basketball Buckeyes haven't broken any NCAA rules lately, so long as anyone's aware, and are about three hours from starting play as the top overall seed in the Big Dance, against 16-seed Texas-San Antonio. They will of course cruise through this first-round matchup; the next 16 seed that beats a 1 will be the first ever, and these Buckeyes aren't going to lose to some pipsqueak upstart in their home state. That said, there are some potholes waiting for them in the later rounds. Likely opponents within the East Regional include Kentucky, Syracuse and North Carolina, all of which have won national titles in the last 15 years (albeit with different players than they currently have).

* Akron, the college I'm currently attending, is almost certainly about to be eliminated by Notre Dame, but it's nice to see a Northeast Ohio school in the tourney. It looked earlier in the season like Cleveland State might be the real deal, but they foundered right around the time I transferred from Cleveland State to Akron. Hmmm ... (By the way, don't ask me to name any players on either team. I don't want to embarrass you.)

* The Cavaliers won Wednesday night in Sacramento. That's the good news. Hey, there's been precious little of that for this team this year, so we might as well savor it. ... But the bad news is, they followed that up with a never-competitive, absolutely shameful 41-point loss in Portland. They were losing at various points by scores of 24-2, 35-6, 56-18, 74-33 ... you get the idea. It was only because the last three-eighths of the game were considered garbage time that the Blazers didn't double our score for the game. Had they kept their proverbial foot on our throat, it would have been even uglier. This is one of the worst teams in Cavaliers history, and that's not a small feat.

* The Indians' regular season starts in exactly two weeks, and while there's little reason to think they will contend this season, there are reasons to watch. I'm particularly excited about young catcher Carlos Santana, who was just mentioned on ESPN's SweetSpot blog as a potential breakout player for 2011. Some things I didn't know before I read that: Santana walked more than he struck out last year, between Columbus and Cleveland; and his combined AAA-MLB on-base percentage was .529. That's right, .529! Do you have any idea how good that is? Well, I'll tell you. The only players ever to post better OBPs over a full major-league season are named Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Barry Bonds. Obviously Santana's feat is not in the same league as theirs (both literally and figuratively), but still, this is a special player. And he's not a corner outfielder, as all three of those men were. He's a catcher! A catcher who can get on base with great regularity is a rare find indeed. Joe Mauer's about the only one I can think of, among current major leaguers, and even Mauer doesn't walk that much.

Jeff Brown thinks the Cavaliers stink

2011-03-15T16:39:00.004-04:00

Of Fair Hooker correspondent Jeff Brown weighed in with this today:

The Cavaliers had a nice little stretch there between Feb. 11 - Mar. 4, when they went 4-4, including two beatdowns of the Knicks.

Alas, they have reverted back to their old ways, losing four in a row by an average of more than 16 points.

And of course, prior to their 4-4 stretch, they had lost 26 in a row, meaning they are a mere 4-30 over their past 34 games! (a winning percentage of .117 !)

Steve, don't allow yourself to get seduced by a short 8-game streak in which the Cadavers managed to eek out a .500 record!

I'm wanting to protect you from too much disappointment and overblown expectations -- you see, Steve, the Cavaliers still really stink.

What do you think?

Well, yes. Of course they do.

Oh, sure, we've got some useful players -- J.J. Hickson, in particular, has shown real flashes of brilliance from time to time, and Baron Davis has done well in his limited Cavalier action. But in terms of building a successful team down the road, there aren't many useful pieces here. Anderson Varejao has been hurt most of the year, but he's a fine player. Outside of that -- well, let's see, Christian Eyenga might develop, and fellow rookies like Samardo Samuels and Manny Harris could become nice players too. But not one of the guys listed here is a cornerstone-type player. We're going to have to hope we get one of those in the 2011 draft.

The good news? We'll probably have more lottery balls than anybody else.

If only the Cavs could play the Knicks 82 times

2011-03-05T23:07:00.007-05:00

I don't have time to blog much these days(1), obviously(2), but I'm home alone on a Saturday night(3), and my fingers still work(4), so here goes:

* The Cavaliers have now broken two 26-game losing streaks in the past month: A 26-game overall losing streak, and now a 26-game road losing streak. And somehow, the over-.500 New York Knicks cannot beat the NBA's worst team, even in their own building. How is this possible? As a Cleveland sports blogger, I should probably try to come up with an answer, but I don't have one. The Knicks have no obvious weaknesses that the Cavs seem particularly suited to exploiting. I'm inclined to think it's just a coincidence that the Fighting Byrons have played three of their best games of the year against the Knicks. But if our boys beat them again on April 3 ... well, it'll probably be another coincidence.

* In a somewhat related note, the Cavs are now 1-0 with Baron Davis on the floor. My friend Jeff Brown(5) had his doubts about the Baron's dedication when we acquired him, as evidenced by this e-mail from March 2:

So here are a series of questions relative to our beloved Cleveland Cavaliers, in reverse order of relevance:

Q: Will Baron Davis thrive with the Cavs, sign an extension, show leadership, play hard, and be a model citizen and role model for the other players?

Q: Will Baron Davis play out his remaining 2 1/2 years of contract with the Cavs?

Q: Will Baron Davis play at all the rest of this season?

Q: Will Baron Davis ever wear a Cavaliers uniform?

Q: Does Baron Davis really have an injury that's preventing him from playing right now?

Q: Has Baron Davis even arrived in Cleveland yet?

Q: Does Baron Davis have any intention whatsoever of playing for the Cavs?

Q: Has Baron Davis earned enough money in his career to simply tell the Cavs to shove it?

Q: Did Baron Davis get the shaft by being traded from glitzy Los Angeles, where he was having fun throwing alley oops to phenom Blake Griffin, and sent to the basketball purgatory of Cleveland, Ohio, the "mistake on the lake?"

Q: Was Baron Davis the most unhappy person in the universe on the day he found out he was traded to the team that set an all-time NBA record for most consecutive losses? (and recently found out their best player, Jamison, is out for the remainder of the season)

Do you have answers to any of my questions, Steve?

Then, today, he sent me this:

OK, Steve, maybe Baron Davis is going to a positive influence on the Cadavers after all.

(he hit a big 3 pointer to put the Cavs up)

The Cavs own the Knicks, Steve!

I have nothing to add to that.

* The Buckeyes clinched the Big Ten regular-season title today, despite not having played. Iowa somehow beat Purdue today. What does this mean in the grand scheme of things? Very little. The Buckeyes are the top seed in the Big Ten tournament. Big whoop. We all know OSU is going to get a #1 seed in the Big(6) Dance, unless they lose two or three more games, and does anyone really care what happens until then?

* Jason Donald got hit by a pitch today. That was the lead on the Associated Press' story about their 8-3 spring training win over the White Sox(7). That should give you some idea how much spring training games matter. Still, I'm pretty excited about the season starting. Yeah, the Indians are probably going to be lucky to finish about 75-87, but still, it's baseball. And no matter how badly the real-life Indians suck, I can always watch Major League(8) again.

Footnotes(n):

1. I've mentioned several times in this space how busy I am, but for any strangers who may have wandered onto this site, I am currently enrolled in a civil engineering curriculum at the University of Akron, in addition to working part-time at my dad's construction company and being married with four kids at home. I am quite pleased with this situation, regardless of the resulting posting frequency.

2. I haven't posted since February 24. That's a total of nine days. Please see footnote 1 if you think I should post more often.

3. My wife has taken our three 12-and-under kids to her cousin's in Pennsylvania for the weekend. I had to stay home to practice evaluating integrals so I can pass a calculus exam on Tuesday. The oldest "child" (at 17) has gone to a friend's house for the night. So out of six residents of our house, I'm the only one here. I should throw myself a one-person party.

4. I guess this one doesn't really need a footnote. I haven't broken my fingers or gotten terrible arthritis or anything, but that probably is taken as a given unless I say otherwise. Kind of silly to have even mentioned it in the first place.

5. Jeff has become fascinated with the Cavaliers' overwhelming crappiness this year, and has emailed me after almost every Cavs game since the Great Losing Steak of '10-11 was in its middle stages. I haven't had time to respond to him(1), but I do appreciate them all.

6. That's my fourth capitalized use of the word "big" in one paragraph, but I think they're all appropriate, and I'm not changing any of them.

7. They didn't put it in those words. It was somewhat prosaic, actually. I should probably provide a link to it. ... Nah. You can find it if you want.

8. I'll bet you want me to say something about Charlie Sheen, since I mentioned one of his movies and he's been in the news. I'm going to leave you wanting on that. Sorry.

n(o). Apparently blogger.com doesn't provide a way to make superscript. It does, however, provide small text, so I improvised. These footnote references have to be done in small type on the same line as the regular text. So I've put them in parentheses to help set them off. It looks crappy, I know. Take it up with blogger.com.

o(p). I have labeled this footnote "n" for the time being, because I don't know yet, as I'm writing this particular footnote, how many footnotes there will actually be, and "n" is the first letter in the word "number." And I probably won't feel like going back to change it, so I'm explaining it now instead.

p. I have labeled this footnote "o" since it's the next letter after "n." I probably don't have to explain why the footnote explaining the previous footnote is "p," based on the established pattern established by footnote "o."

Cleveland Barons return ... well, one of them

2011-02-24T13:47:00.003-05:00

OK, that was a bad pun, and probably nobody reading this even remembers the Cleveland Barons. For those who do not, they were an NHL team that played here from 1976 to 1978. Still ...

The Cavaliers have traded Mo Williams and Jamario Moon to the Clippers for Baron Davis and a first-round draft pick. My initial impression was, gee, I hate to lose Mo, and Baron Davis is definitely on the far side of the hill.

But then I thought about it a little more. The Clippers currently have the eighth-worst record in the NBA, which means the Cavs will have two lottery picks. If they use them wisely, this could be the way to build another contender down the road. Remember how Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Hot Rod Williams and Ron Harper were all rookies at the same time for the Cavs? They don't necessarily have to have four super rookies to build a good team, but stockpiling draft picks sure can't hurt.

So yeah, I like the move. Good job, Cavs.

Yes, that really happened

2011-02-17T07:58:00.003-05:00

The Cavaliers did actually beat the Los Angeles Lakers last night. I didn't actually watch it -- I rarely watch the Cavs anymore, partly because I'm so much busier than I used to be, and partly because watching the Cavs rarely brings me any pleasure -- but I saw the highlights on ESPN this morning, and there are enough witness accounts to corroborate the story that I feel comfortable going with it. (In case you're wondering, the last Cavs game I actually watched was the one in which they beat the Clippers to break their losing streak. I didn't watch the whole thing, but saw about the last three-eighths of it.)

Our boys went into the game with an NBA-worst 9-46 record. Not only that, they had lost 39 of their last 41 games, a stretch during which they set an NBA record by losing 26 straight. One of those was an embarrassingly terrible 55-point loss to the Lakers in L.A. The Lakers came in on a two-game losing streak, but please compare that number to the one affixed to Cleveland's earlier skid. They were 38-18 coming in. They're the two-time defending champions. They have Kobe Bryant, not to mention Pau Gasol and a bunch of other players that would beat any Cavalier in a game of one-on-one. No way they lose to this bunch.

It's been said many times, but it bears repeating: That, my friends, is why they play the games.

I will note, for those who care about such things, that the Cavaliers have gone 2-0 at home against Los Angeles-based teams this year. Hey, you've got to look for positives where you can find them.

Don't look now ...

2011-02-11T08:30:00.002-05:00

... but the Indians' pitchers and catchers report to spring training in just five days. With the Browns going through the process of rebuilding their coaching staff, the Cavaliers not having won a game since the Browns were actually still playing, and the weather outside making me wish I was part penguin, baseball season is extremely welcome.

Obviously, the 2011 Indians are not going to be contenders. But there are plenty of reasons to watch them this season. First of all, Carlos Santana, one of the hottest catching prospects in baseball, is back with a clean bill of health. Grady Sizemore is healthy too. Shin-Soo Choo is one of the best in the business, and while we may not be able to keep him very much longer, we've got him now. Guys like Matt LaPorta, Jason Donald, Luis Valbuena and Asdrubal Cabrera could do big things this year.

There are pitchers to be excited about too. Fausto Carmona has obviously done huge things before, and the rest of the projected rotation (Justin Masterson, Carlos Carrasco, Mitch Talbot and Josh Tomlin) has plenty of upside. And Chris Perez is at least a second-tier closer, and could turn out to be one of the best.

Baseball season is almost here. I can hardly wait.

And about the Cavaliers ...

2011-02-08T12:04:00.003-05:00

Who would have thought the Cavaliers, losers of 24 straight going into last night's game in Dallas, would actually keep it close and have a chance to tie it with a three-pointer in the closing seconds? Anthony Parker even managed to get off a pretty good-looking trey that clanged off the rim, and the Cavs got the rebound in time to try another one. But Boobie Gibson chose to pass the ball to Antawn Jamison, who had just enough time to get a shot off. He'd have had a hand in his face, but you can't make a shot you don't take. He passed, and the buzzer sounded. This is a pretty strong indication of why the 2010-11 Cavaliers have the longest losing streak in NBA history. Not only do they lack talent, they lack game smarts.

It was a pretty impressive performance. Too bad it ended the same way the previous 24 did.

Thank you, Green Bay Packers

2011-02-08T11:44:00.003-05:00

I hope all you people out there in Of Fair Hooker-land can forgive me for the scarcity of my postings lately. I'm a very busy man these days, what with working a job, tackling an engineering curriculum at the University of Akron, and the fact that my wife and I have four kids at home. I trust you will understand that those are all much, much higher priorities than a silly old sports blog.

So it took me two days to write anything about Super Bowl XVI. I'm sure you still remember the game. It was a good one, probably one of the 10 best ever. And I don't have much to say about the game itself; anyone who's interested in reading thoughtful analysis about that has surely already done so, and there's not much I can say that can add much to any of that. Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers, and to Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers, who has obviously stepped out of Brett Favre's shadow.

It was nice watching the Steelers lose, too. And not just because I'm a Browns fan and the Steelers are our most-hated rival -- though that played a role. I watched the game at a friend's house, along with maybe 20 or so of my closest friends. And it just annoys the crap out of me how many people in Northeast Ohio are Steelers fans. There were about five of them at the gathering in question. If someone is from Pittsburgh and roots for the Steelers, I consider them a friendly rival. If I were from Pittsburgh, I'd probably be a Steelers fan too.

But if you're from Browns territory and root for the Steelers, you're rooting against your own city. That makes no sense to me. Sure, Steeler fans have had a better team to watch than Browns fans over the last ... well, 40 years or so. In fact, the Steelers are without much doubt the single most successful team in the Super Bowl era. They've won six Super Bowls, played in eight, and reached the AFC championship game 15 times. It's painful to admit it, but that's just a very well-run football organization, and the Browns could learn a few things from them. But that's a terrible reason to root against your own city.

A chance to run over a Steelers fan

2011-02-04T15:21:00.002-05:00

Before I start telling you this story, I want to make it abundantly clear that I would never truly consider hitting someone with my car just because he roots for my team's arch-rival. So when you read the below, don't go thinking I'm really some bloodthirsty Pittsburgh-hater. I'm not bloodthirsty at all.

That said ...

I was running late this morning. My first class at the University of Akron was at 8:55, and after I dropped off my stepdaughter at kindergarten -- getting a late start because of my 17-year-old stepdaughter's absent-mindedness -- I punched my usual parking deck into my GPS. It said I would arrive at 8:48. Given that it usually takes about 10 minutes to walk to class from that parking deck -- and it's the closest one to my class -- I shifted into "everybody get the %@*$ out of my way" mode. I had pretty good luck with traffic most of the way there, until I actually got off the exit in downtown Akron. Akron may not be as big a city as Cleveland, but hey, city traffic is city traffic. I inched along with the traffic until I turned off Exchange Street onto the little side road that leads to the parking decks on the southwest end of campus, then waited and waited and waited for the car ahead of me to turn left into the deck I use, as cars continued to come toward us from Carroll Street. A pedestrian blocked the path of a car that would otherwise have blocked the path of the car in front of me, and she finally turned in. I followed hot on her heels.

But no, I was unable to hurry up the ramp because just as I was pulling in, some yahoo wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jacket chose that moment to walk into the garage from the sidewalk, ignoring the pedestrian entrances that are all over the place and going up the vehicle entrance, thwarting my attempt to get in. I did make the left turn, but had to go at walking speed until that moron got out of my way. He finally did, and I hit the gas and made my way up to the fourth level, where there's a walkway onto campus. I did get to class in time, but barely.

Now, I don't know what was on this guy's mind. Perhaps he was so preoccupied with Sunday's Super Bowl that he forgot to look where he was going. Maybe he deliberately got in my way so I'd notice his Steelers jacket and get agitated. Or maybe -- just maybe -- the dude has a death wish, and was hoping that his behavior coupled with his attire would goad some unsuspecting Northeast Ohioan into committing an unspeakable act.

All I know is, I've never been more tempted to run somebody over in my life. I'm not saying I truly considered it, of course, but I can honestly say I've never been more tempted.

The prolific Jeff Brown

2011-01-17T12:35:00.003-05:00

Today's post is courtesy of my good friend Jeff Brown, who has been bombarding me with e-mails the last few days about how bad the Cavaliers are. I've meant to respond to each, but before I get a chance, he hits me with another one. So I am forced to post each message, one after another.

From January 9, under the subject line "Didn't quite work out like Cavaliers fans hoped, Steve":

You might recall that on December 2, 2010, LeBron James and his Miami Heat visited Cleveland for his first game in an opposing uniform.

The matchup was highly anticipated, and was an opportunity for the Cavaliers to send a message that they were still a good team even without LeBron.

Well, Steve... it didn't exactly work out that way, did it?

The punchless Cavaliers got shellacked by LeBron and the Heat, who have now won 20 of their last 21 games (20-1).

On the other side of the coin, the Cavs are now the joke of the NBA, supplanting last year's New Jersey Nets as the worst team in the Association.

The Cavaliers have lost 19 of their last 20 games (1-19), and at the rate they're going, they might not even reach 20 wins on the season!

That, my dear Steve, proves one point in flawless fashion: Namely, that the Cavs success was entirely to do with LeBron after all.

Not that everyone didn't know that already on some level.

However, the degree to which that statement is true is exponentially more than even I could have imagined.

With LeBron, they win 61 games and a first seed in the playoffs.

Without LeBron, they slip to a laughingstock team that loses 19 of 20.

Steve, the Cavaliers of 2005-10 were the classic definition of a "one man band" or a "one trick pony."

If it wasn't for David Stern rigging the draft lottery that enabled the Cavs to draft LeBron, Cleveland might not even have an NBA team any more.

Do you agree?

Well, no. First, I don't believe David Stern rigged the draft lottery. Remember that no one had more balls in that lottery than the Cavaliers that year, courtesy of a 17-65 season in 2002-03. Second, I don't think it's likely that the Cavaliers would have moved. Possible? Sure. You never know. Likely? Doubtful. And with a later pick, the Cavs might have gotten Carmelo Anthony, or possibly LeBron's new teammate Dwyane Wade, who might have shown Cleveland more loyalty than LeBron did if he'd happened to land here.

From January 12, under the subject line "Steve's known Jeff a long time":

You've known me a long time (longer than most people I still know), and I imagine you've noticed an occasional tendency toward exaggeration.

So perhaps you thought I was exaggerating a few months ago when I wrote and told you that the Cavaliers were going to be an absolutely atrocious team.

And perhaps you felt I was being a little bit too hard on them lately.

Well now, they've hit rock bottom, and they're trying hard to drill down even further: a 112-57 loss where if the Lakers would have made one more basket, they would have literally doubled the Cavs scoring!

* The Cavs have lost 21 of their last 22 games
* Franchise record-low scoring of 57 points
* starters combined for a measly 23 points against the Lakers
* leading scorer was Alonzo Gee (who the (heck) is that?)
* worst record in the NBA (has any team ever gone from "First to Worst" like this?

They won 61 games last year Steve, and they're on pace to LOSE 65 games this year! (and the way they're going, they'll lose 70!!)

Steve, this team makes the Ted Stepien-owned teams of the early 80s look like champions.

I'm starting to remember Keith Lee, Ben Poquette, John Bagley and the crew with fondness compared to these guys.

How many wins do you predict the Cavs will have this season?

Well, they've already got eight, so I'd say maybe 14 or 15. They'll manage to squeak out a few that we don't expect them to win. Every team does, even a team as bad as this one. Regardless, it's likely that these Cavaliers will threaten the team record for futility. The expansion 1970-71 Cavaliers went 15-67, and the 1981-82 team matched that record.

From January 15, under the subject line "Oops! Antawn Jamison sticks both feet in mouth":

Remember way back on October 27, 2010 when the Cleveland Cavaliers opened the season by defeating the defending Eastern Conference Champion Boston Celtics?

Well the Cavs were proud and confident. Here's what team leader Antawn Jamison said that night:

"This was for the city. It was for the fans to let them know the Cavs will survive and this is a place where you can still watch good basketball. And most of all, you can watch a team that wins."

"Guys in this locker room believe. We've been listening to what people are predicting for us. We're going to let our game do the talking. It's probably going to take a month or so for people to realize, 'Hey, this is a team that can win and compete for the playoffs."

Even owner Dan Gilbert was still under the illusion that the Cavs could do well post-King:

"Not a lot of teams have the quality of Antawn Jamison and Daniel Gibson coming off the bench," he said. "When you think of it in that sense, and having the kind of quality coach we have, anything can happen."

--

Uh, well... Steve, you know what's happened since.

I wonder if Jamison still feels the way he did after their first game, Steve.

The Cavs showed their true colors, which is simply that the were the Cleveland LeBrons and not the Cleveland Cavaliers all those years.

Without LeBron, they would have sucked all those years.

Before LeBron, they sucked (17-65 the season before he arrived, which the King promptly turned into 35, 42, and 50 wins the next three seasons)

After LeBron, they suck (8-31 and losers of 22 of their last 23 games.

That's a lot of sucking, Steve, so Cavs fans ought to be grateful the King spent seven seasons turning a truly (crappy) team into a contender.

Let's face it, Steve -- the reason Cavs fans are so bitter toward James is because they know, deep down inside, that he alone is what gave them hope and enjoyment about pro basketball in Cleveland for seven years.

Him and him alone.

It wasn't the coach. It wasn't the complementary pieces. It wasn't the new arena. It wasn't the free agent acquisitions (remember Larry Hughes?)

It was one thing and one thing only -- LeBron James singlehandedly made basketball relevant in Northeast Ohio.

Now, what's left is the ruins of a departed superstar, the likes of which the Cavaliers will never, ever see again.

I ask Cavs fans to be grateful for what they had.

Do you agree, my good man?

Grateful for what we had? Perhaps that's the healthiest way to look at it, but it's hard to get past the bitterness. And regardless, LeBron didn't deliver what he promised. He literally promised us a championship. And we had reason to expect multiple titles. None of that happened, in part because LeBron turned out to be no Jordan when push came to shove. And of course because he left without finishing the job.

The next one is not Cavaliers-specific, but about the city in general. From Saturday, under the heading "It's official, Steve -- Cleveland 1/2 the city it used to be":

It's official, Steve -- Cleveland, Ohio is now less than half the city it used to be.

The fine city peaked in 1950 with a population of more than 914,000.

Today's estimate is 431,000, a mere 47% of what once was, my good man.

That ranks as the 43rd largest city in these fine United States, whereas at one time it was the sixth-largest.

No wonder the sporting teams in Cleveland haven't won a championship since 1964 -- that's 47 years and counting.

It's difficult to win a championship when you're not only dealing with the oppressive weight of the "Curse of Rocky Colavito," but also the generally grim and dim situation in the city in which you play for.

Adding insult to injury the recent foreclosure crisis hit Cleveland much harder than the typical city, resulting in thousands more vacant homes littering the city and an increase in the homeless population.

What is next for Cleveland, Steve?

Well, I don't know what's next, but this is the obvious result of a dying local economy, fueled by moron politicians who continue to be elected by moron voters. That's the way I see it, and I can't see any change in that trend on the horizon.

Also from Saturday, under the line "First to worst -- one comparison for Cavs":

OK, so I did some research Steve and found out this (which I kind of remember now that I see it again):

The 1995-96 San Antonio Spurs were 59-23

The 1996-96 San Antonio Spurs were 20-62

That's a reduction of 39 wins, Steve. (David Robinson only played 6 games that season)

Here's the problem, Steve -- the Spurs lucked out and got Tim Duncan the next year and were back up to 56 wins in 1997-98 and won the NBA title the year after that in 1998-99.

That ain't gonna happen with the Cavaliers. Even if they get a high draft choice in the lottery, whoever it is won't be enough to drag the Cavs out of the doldrums.

I remember that Spurs team too. Losing Robinson for most of the season was the best thing that ever happened to that franchise, because it allowed them to draft Duncan. The next few years, they had Robinson and Duncan together as twin towers, and since Robinson's retirement, Duncan has carried that team to continued success. Since drafting Duncan, the Spurs have won four titles, two of which were without Robinson. Duncan has to be considered one of the 20 or 30 greatest players of all time. I disagree with Jeff to this extent: If the Cavaliers get somebody who turns out to be as good as Tim Duncan, he will drag them out of the doldrums. He might not carry them to a title, but a player like that can turn a bad team into a playoff team in a hurry.

Finally, from late last night (technically early this morning), under "Actually, Steve's Cavaliers are improving":

Well, since the NBA situation in our hometown is so dim lately, I'm choosing to celebrate some recent improvements with the Cavaliers, Steve:

In the past two games, they have only lost by 22 and 28 points, respectively...

...whereas three games ago, they lost by 55 points!

So they've only lost by 50 points the past two games, which shows rapid and impressive improvements in their game.

Do you agree this is cause for celebration, my good man?

Why the heck not. Break out the champagne.

We're number five! We're number five!

2011-01-11T12:33:00.003-05:00

After last night's wildly entertaining national championship (I was rooting for Oregon, but not as much as I was rooting for a good game, so I went to bed happy), the pollsters rated the Ohio State Buckeyes No. 5 in the country, which is exactly where the Fighting Tressels finished last year. Obviously, a national championship is the ultimate goal every year, but finishing fifth out of the 140 FBS teams (73 in the so-called AQ conferences) is nothing to sneeze at.

With 10 seasons under his belt in Columbus, Tressel is now 106-22 at the FBS level, after going 135-57-2 in 15 seasons at Youngstown State. Under his leadership, the Buckeyes have won a national title and reached two other title games, gone 9-1 against Michigan, and gone 6-4 in bowl games -- 5-3 in BCS bowls, in which they've played more times than any other school. After ending the 2001 season 7-5 and unranked with John Cooper's players, Tressel's Buckeyes have ranked the following in the year-end AP poll: First, fourth, 20th, fourth, second, fifth, ninth, fifth, and fifth.

Tressel's OSU program has had its problems. We all remember Maurice Clarett's fall from grace after he led the Buckeyes to the national championship over Miami as a freshman, and of course five of our best players are suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season. But those could only be blamed on Tressel to the extent that he bears ultimate responsibility as head coach. His program has been cleaner than many, if not most.

Judging him purely on his on-field results, a case could be made that Tressel is the most successful head coach in Ohio State history. Woody Hayes was there for 28 years and won more national titles (one outright, two shared), but at 205-61-10, he had a lower career winning percentage at Ohio State (.764, to the sweater vest's .828). If you put a gun to my head and made me pick, I'd still give that honor to Hayes, but Tressel is off to a much better start than Woody was at this point in his Buckeye career. And I frankly wouldn't trade him for any coach in the country.

Thank you, Arkansas Razorbacks

2011-01-05T13:20:00.003-05:00

The Buckeyes won an enormously thrilling Sugar Bowl last night. But they didn't win because they outplayed the Arkansas Razorbacks, per se -- they won because the Razorbacks out-mistaked them. (You're right, that's not a word. Sue me.)

It's not that Ohio State didn't make any mistakes, of course. Arkansas just didn't make the Buckeyes pay, or at least not enough. The obvious example is Terrelle Pryor's fumble that wound up leading to OSU's first touchdown. Two Razorbacks had their hands on the ball, but neither could corral it. When Dane Sanzenbacher came up with it in the end zone, five Arkansas players were in the shot. Ironically, had Pryor not fumbled that ball, it wouldn't have been a touchdown.

Of course, there's Boom Herron's fumble on fourth-and-1 from the OSU 38, with the score 31-26 and the Buckeyes quickly losing their grip on the game. The result was just the same as if he'd been tackled behind the line of scrimmage, but regardless, the Razorbacks were not able to turn that into points. And there was Herron getting tackled in the end zone for a safety. The initial hit came in the field of play, but Herron disengaged from that tackler in time to get swallowed up by several others. If he'd just gone down on the first hit, it would not have been a safety. That was a mental error by Herron.

But those mistakes were nothing next to the errors made by Arkansas players. Razorback "receivers" dropped five passes, including one that would have gone for a touchdown and one that looked like it would have set up at least a fourth-and-short on Arkansas's next-to-last possession of the game. And of course, Ryan Mallett made the biggest mistake of the game by throwing the ball right to Buckeye defensive lineman Solomon Thomas on what could be the last pass of his college career. Not to mention the numerous penalties the Razorbacks accumulated throughout the game. Those miscues added up to a loss for Arkansas.

The difference between the two halves was amazing. Ohio State was unstoppable in the first half. Pryor and the offense were simply toying with Arkansas. Everything they did worked. In the second half, nothing worked except Pryor's legs. He busted off a few good runs -- some on designed runs, some on scrambles -- that kept the ball in the Buckeyes' possession long enough to hold off the Razorbacks. But the offense just wasn't moving. That's in contrast to Mallett and the Arkansas offense, who didn't make many long plays, but used solid, time-consuming drives to get back in the game.

As we all know, Pryor, Thomas, Herron, Buster Posey and Mike Adams will all miss the first five games next year. I don't think anyone can deny the Buckeyes would have lost last night without those guys. Their absence will hurt. But at least they can enjoy this win. It probably put them in the top 5 in the season-ending poll. That's not too shabby.

So who's it gonna be?

2011-01-04T12:27:00.004-05:00

Eric Mangini is out, as we all knew he would be. I don't know whether he truly got a fair chance here, as he really had limited on-field talent to work with. I heard a caller to Mike Trivisonno's show last night express the opinion that team president Mike Holmgren set Mangini up to fail this year because he wants to get his own guy in there so he can take all the credit for whatever success the team has later. That's ridiculous to me. If he were going to do that, he'd have changed coaches last year.

Regardless, it's done, and it's time to look ahead and see who's out there. There's speculation that Holmgren himself might want to be the coach, and of course he's had a fair amount of success in the NFL in that role. He won a Super Bowl with the Packers and lost two others, one with Green Bay and one with Seattle. But Holmgren says he's not interested in that job at this time, and I don't see any reason to doubt him.

So if it's not Mangini and it's not Holmgren, who is it? The first name that comes to mind is Bill Cowher, who's apparently interested in returning to the sidelines, but not with the Browns, even though he spent seven years here as a player or assistant coach. Fine. He's not the only intelligent coaching candidate out there. There's guys like Jon Gruden, who's had success in the NFL; and Jim Harbaugh, who's had success in college. Other names that have already been mentioned include Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell, who went 3-4 as interim head coach of the Bills last year; and Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, who's done very well as an offensive coordinator but is 5-27 as an NFL head coach.

Of those four guys, I think I'd like Gruden the most, followed in order by Fewell, Mornhinweg and Harbaugh. But Holmgren says he's going to cast a wide net, so we'll see what other names come up. All I know is, I'm getting tired of the coaching carousel around here. Whoever gets hired, I hope he stays a good, long time.

Happy 2011

2010-12-31T12:36:00.003-05:00

As it's been more than a week since my last post, I'll try to put together everything I've been thinking about that's sports-related. ... Nah, that's impossible. OK, here are a few thoughts:

* Eric Mangini is done in this town, win or lose against Pittsburgh on Sunday. He will have compiled a 10-22 or 11-21 record in two seasons, and that's just not going to do it. Mike Holmgren expected improvement this year. This team has improved some, but not where it counts -- wins and losses. Mangini is scheduled to meet with Holmgren on Monday, and Holmgren will fire him then. I don't know this for sure, of course, but I can't see it going any other way.

* As I said, the Browns did improve this year. They had chances to win almost every game. And I believe they would have won a few of those games that they lost if they'd just been able to punch the ball into the end zone, rather than settle for field goals. That was a key failure of the Browns' offense this year, and much of that ultimately goes back to Mangini. I haven't counted, but I know there were multiple times when the Browns had a fourth-and-goal inside the 5 and settled for three instead of going for six. Three is more than zero, but six is more than three.

* Peyton Hillis has missed practice all week and is questionable for the Steelers game. There's no reason to rush him back if he isn't ready, but he is currently 10th in the NFL in rushing yards. It would be nice to see him stay in the top 10.

* Moving on to the Buckeyes, Jim Tressel says the players who got suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season have been told they must commit to playing next year before the school will allow them to play in Tuesday's Sugar Bowl. It wouldn't be fair to the NCAA to allow them to get away without some sort of penalty, he said. But how Ohio State University can stop a Terrelle Pryor from leaving at the end of this school year, I have no idea.

* The Cavaliers are just plain awful. I can hardly believe how bad they are. On Saturday, Nov. 27, they beat Memphis to raise their record to 7-9. Since then, they've lost 15 out of 16, and at 8-24, have the NBA's second-worst record. A few of those losses have been tight, but most have been blowouts. They've become a very difficult team to watch. The best we can hope for right now is that the Cavs get a very high pick in the 2011 draft, so someone like Perry Jones, Terrence Jones or Jared Sullinger can give them a spark. Sullinger's from Ohio, so he'd definitely want to stay in Cleveland when free agency comes up. (cough)

* The Baseball Hall of Fame vote is coming up, and there are a few former Indians who have a good shot at getting elected this year. Roberto Alomar came up eight votes short last year, in his first year of eligibility, possibly because he spat on an umpire during his Baltimore years. The umpire forgave him; not sure why Hall of Fame voters can't. Anyway, I'll be shocked if he doesn't get in this time. Bert Blyleven, who pitched for the Tribe from 1981-85, missed it by five votes last year, in his 13th year of eligibility. If he doesn't get in this year, he'll have one more shot before his candidacy is turned over to the fickle Veterans Committee. I'll also be shocked if this isn't Blyleven's year. The third former Indian with a decent shot is Jack Morris, who only pitched one season in Cleveland (1994). I would not vote for Morris, if I had a vote. He was a fine pitcher for a long time, but just not up to Hall standards. And I'll never forget how he asked Mike Hargrove to change the order of the starting rotation so he could go to his farm in Montana a little earlier, with the Indians in the middle of a pennant race.

* Have a save and happy New Year, and see you in 2011!

OK, this is ridiculous

2010-12-23T12:46:00.005-05:00

Starting with excerpts from the AP report:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor and four other Buckeyes were suspended by the NCAA for the first five games of next season for selling championship rings, jerseys and awards, and receiving improper benefits from a tattoo parlor. All can still play in the Sugar Bowl against Arkansas.

Along with Pryor, running back Daniel Herron, wide receiver DeVier Posey, offensive lineman Mike Adams and defensive end Solomon Thomas must sit out and repay between $1,000 to $2,500 to charity.

---

Lennon said a game was added on to the usual four-game penalty "because these student-athletes did not immediately disclose the violations when presented with the appropriate rules education."

---

Pryor must repay $2,500 for selling his Big Ten ring, Fiesta Bowl sportsmanship award and his 2008 gold pants, a trinket given to players who are a part of a team which beats rival Michigan.

Adams must repay $1,000 for selling his 2008 Big Ten championship ring.

Herron must repay $1,150 for selling his football jersey, pants and shoes for $1,000 and receiving discount services worth $150.

Posey sold his 2008 Big Ten ring for $1,200 and also received discount services.

OK, I understand that college football has rules for a reason. The NCAA feels the need to preserve the amateur status of its athletes, and when an athlete is caught trying to profit from his or her athletic prowess while playing a sport at an NCAA institution, the NCAA perceives this as a threat to other member institutions whose athletes do not profit thus.

But seriously, who did this really hurt? Show me the victim of the sale of Terrelle Pryor's Fiesta Bowl sportsmanship award. Is it a player at Boise State? How exactly is he hurt? And does the NCAA believe that the only memorabilia sold by its athletes this year was sold by these particular football players at Ohio State? And how can players be expected to report their own violations when they know the probability is great that they will be punished so severely for them?

Here's the thing that bothers me the most about this. If these players had waited a couple of years to sell these items, they'd be out of college, and the NCAA would be unable to touch them. By then, a Terrelle Pryor or a Daniel Herron won't need the money from such a sale, because they'll be drawing NFL paychecks. Now they're expected to pay this money to charity, with very little means of raising it without drawing further penalties from the NCAA.

These suspensions will cripple the Buckeyes' chance at a national championship next year, and even seriously impact their chance at a Big Ten title. The first two games these players will miss are against Akron and Toledo, and Ohio State could win both those games with their fourth-stringers. But then they've got Colorado, Miami (Fla.) and Michigan State. Those would be tough games even at full strength. Without their quarterback and those other key players, they'll be that much tougher.

It will also cost Pryor a shot at a Heisman trophy. And for what? Other than the fact that dictators are irrational, I don't see any real lessons being taught here. I would imagine that rather than play half a season at Ohio State next year, Pryor will enter the draft and play a full season in the NFL.

Yes, rules are rules, and people are responsible for knowing and following them. But this is ridiculous.

Have the Cavaliers shamed Cleveland?

2010-12-22T07:56:00.006-05:00

Today's post originates in the old mailbag, courtesy of our friend Jeff Brown:

Barely seven months ago, your hometown heroes otherwise known as the Cleveland Cavaliers were the toast of the town.

They had the megastar, LeBron James.

They had just won a team-record 61 games and were cruising through the playoffs by crushing the Chicago Bulls (a pretty good team themselves) 4-1 in their first-round series.

They were up 2-1 against the Boston Celtics, and then the bottom fell out and basketball in Cleveland will never, ever be the same:

* They proceeded to lose three consecutive games by an average of 17 points to lose their playoff series.

* The best player in Cleveland basketball history signed as a free agent in Miami (and punked the City of Cleveland with his infamous one-hour TV special).

* Future first-ballot Hall of Famer, Shaquille O'Neill, also packed his bags and went to another title contender.

* The most popular player in recent franchise history also signed with Miami (Z), still bitter the Cavs used him as trade fodder in mid-season to acquire Antawn Jamison. ('Z' gave his heart and soul to the franchise, and the best they could do is use him as fodder).

* The starting guard, Delonte West, got messed up with the law and also departed.

* Their owner angrily fired back at LeBron and proclaimed that the Cavaliers would win a championship before LeBron would.

Steve, what's left is a disastrous display of basketball, with the team recently experiencing a 10-game losing streak and shaming the fine fans of the Cleveland Metropolitan Area.

Do you agree with Dan Gilbert that the Cavs' are going to win a championship before LeBron does?

Do you think the Cavs will EVER win a championship?

Do you think that ANY Cleveland sports team will EVER AGAIN win a championship?

Help me, Steve...

Jeff makes some good points, though I think he overstates things a bit. It doesn't take a psychologist to figure out that's due to a lifetime of rooting for teams that have never EVER climbed the summit, at least not in his memory (or mine).

First, we'll address Jeff's direct questions. No, the Cavaliers will not win a title before LeBron James does. He's part of a great collection of talent in Miami, including one player who's been the top star on a team that's won a championship, in Dwyane Wade. The Cavaliers don't have one player to build around right now; Miami has three. Gilbert's assertion was ridiculous on its face, borne purely of anger and frustration.

As for whether the Cavaliers will ever win a title, that I cannot say. There's no reason to suspect they've got the makings of a championship team right now, but I would remind you that many of these players were here last year and formed much of the nucleus of a title-caliber team. The only major difference is LeBron, and while LeBron is a great talent, there are other comparable players out there. We don't have one now, but that doesn't mean we'll never get one again.

And yes, a Cleveland team will win a championship someday. Of our three teams, the one that appears closest to a champagne celebration is the Browns, which is of course a depressing thought given that they're currently 5-9 and likely to finish 5-11 for a second straight year. But they've got a promising group of players, and things can turn around in a hurry in the NFL. Nevertheless, unless Cleveland continues to die off and our teams start moving, we'll see a title someday. The laws of probability almost guarantee it.

One thing I must take issue with is Jeff's assertion that the Cavs' recent 10-game losing streak "shamed" their fans. This is something that I see from a lot of fans, the idea that their team's performance is a reflection on them somehow. This past Sunday, we had a birthday party at our house for my eldest stepdaughter, who just turned 17. It started at 4, so most people arrived after the Browns game but during the Steelers-Jets game that followed it. My brother-in-law's fiancee's oldest son is a big Steelers fan, and was flapping his gums the entire game about how great the Steelers are. People called him a front-runner (correctly, in my view), and he thanked them for saying the Steelers were great. I don't quite understand how people take compliments or criticism directed toward their team so personally. The Steelers have never won a game because of him, any more than the Cavaliers lost any of those 10 games because of me.

One man's tribute to the greatest Cleveland Indian of them all

2010-12-16T15:58:00.006-05:00

There probably isn't a whole lot I can say about Bob Feller that you haven't read or heard. He was with little question the greatest Cleveland Indian of them all -- and unlike Cleveland's greatest football and basketball players, Jim Brown and LeBron James, he was worthy of unqualified respect.

I know I'm not the first person to point to Feller's military career, but reportedly, when he was asked what his greatest victory was, he didn't name his Opening Day no-hitter in 1940, or the 1948 World Series -- he said World War II, and clearly meant it. And when you consider what he gave up to help stop Hitler and Mussolini, it means that much more. Feller was 23 years old when he enlisted, and had already won 107 major league games. (Incidentally, that's still the all-time record for major league wins through age 22.)

He served for three full years, and most of a fourth, then came back and was again the best pitcher in the majors. He won 25 games in 1941, served in World War II, won five games in 1945 at age 26, then won 26 in 1946. Feller finished his career with 266 wins; if you interpolate what he might have done in the years he was serving our country, it might have been somewhere around 380, which would put him third on the all-time list. We'll never know. Of course, he might have hurt his arm if he'd pitched all those years, but I doubt it. Feller averaged more than 300 innings a season from 1938 to 1941, at ages 19 to 22. If his arm was going to give out, it would have done so by then.

When I was a young lad in love with baseball myself, playing as well as watching the grand old game, I had immersed myself in baseball history. I had already read probably a couple of dozen books on the subject. So even though Bob Feller was out of baseball for nearly 20 years by the time I was born, I knew exactly who he was what he meant to Indians baseball by the time I was about 8 or 10. My dad, an ex-Amishman with a strong work ethic, had installed a wood-burning stove in our house as a means to save on heating bills. Of course, a wood stove requires wood, which has to be chopped and stacked. My dad, my two brothers and I did that work -- my dad, voluntarily; the three of us, compulsorily. We boys would whine and belly-ache about how hard it was. But my dad got me motivated, at least temporarily, by telling me that he heard Bob Feller talk about working on his dad's farm as a boy, and how the ceaseless labor made his arm strong and made him the pitcher he was. When I heard that, I wanted to work harder. Until I realized I was never going to be Bob Feller anyway. There was only one of those.

I could go on and on about Feller, about his encyclopedic memory of his playing career; his high school graduation being nationally broadcast on the radio; his blunt opinions about things ranging from steroids to politics; his tireless autograph signings (which of course were rarely for free). But there are no doubt literally hundreds of writers pounding out tales like that today, many of whom are getting paid for their words, and I will leave that to them.

Rest in peace, Robert William Andrew Feller. You were the greatest Cleveland Indian there ever was, and likely ever will be. Cleveland will never be quite the same without you.

Browns lose to bad team; other things

2010-12-13T12:25:00.002-05:00

As I stick my head above the snow and ice long enough to blog ... and get my face frozen off ...

* I don't have a whole lot to say about the Browns' loss to Buffalo. As the offense moved the ball steadily down the field in its first drive, it seemed like there was no stopping us in this one. But then they stopped hanging onto the ball, and couldn't move it down the field even if they did hang on to it. Did you realize the Browns never got past midfield the entire second half? Pathetic.

* Jake Delhomme has had success in the National Football League, but at this point in his career, he has no business running an NFL offense. If Colt McCoy can't come back next week against the Bengals, I want to see Seneca Wallace. I know he hasn't had a great career, but he can't be much worse than Delhomme.

* On the plus side, Peyton Hills topped 1,000 yards rushing for the season, and he's also the team's leading receiver in terms of number of receptions. On the minus side, Hillis fumbled three times, one of which was recovered by the Bills. Hillis is a beast, and I'm glad we have him, but we've got to be able to trust him to hold on to the cockadoody ball. The fumble he lost came at a critical time, right after the Browns had gotten a turnover and had a chance to score a touchdown, or at least a field goal. Not that there's ever a good time to lose a fumble.

* The Cavaliers ... yeah. They're bad. A couple of weeks ago, I had what seemed like legitimate hopes they could be a playoff contender. They've now lost eight straight, and at 7-17, have the fourth-worst record in the Eastern Conference. All this while the cotton-pickin' Miami Heat have won eight straight. It makes my soul hurt.

* But hey, how about that Akron Zips soccer team? They beat Louisville 1-0 yesterday to win the national championship -- the first national title ever for a team from the U of A, a year after losing in the title game.

* Another Ohio school is making noise in another non-marquee sport. The Miami Redhawks hockey team is ranked #6 in the nation. Like the Akron soccer team, Miami's icemen went deep into the post-season last year, after losing in the title game in 2008-09. And come January, I will have attended both those schools. Not that I have anything to do with their success, of course, but hey, that's what makes a fan a fan.

Rounding 'em up

2010-12-08T11:33:00.002-05:00

* OK, so it looks like the Cavaliers aren't very good after all. After last night's 20-point loss to Philadelphia, they've lost five straight, each by double-digits, and now stand at 7-14. That puts them on a pace to finish 27-55, which would be their worst record since they went 17-65 in 2002-03. That record, for those who may not remember, enabled them to get a bunch of lottery balls, one of which gave them the first pick in the 2003 draft, which they used to select some yahoo who now plays in Miami.

* These Cavs are doing fine on the offensive end of the floor, but they are just terrible on defense. Just terrible. Byron Scott made some remarks after yesterday's debacle about how the players are showing no pride in playing defense, and he's right. Nobody seems to care if he gets beaten for a layup, or if somebody makes a wide-open 3-pointer when he had a chance to get a hand in his face. Scott's got to find a way to get through to these guys that defense is important, or they'll never get better.

* The football Buckeyes are set for a Sugar Bowl matchup against Arkansas, which constitutes Ohio State's sixth straight appearance in a BCS game. You know who else has done that? Nobody, that's who. If Jim Tressel wanted to run for governor, he'd win, and you know it. But he doesn't need a demotion. Anyway, any season that ends in something other than a national championship is at least a slight disappointment, but Tressel is surely very proud of the program he's built in Columbus, and he should be.

* The basketball Buckeyes are 6-0, ranked #2 in the nation, behind Duke. I don't usually follow college basketball until March, but this is an exciting team. They've only played one game against a ranked opponent, but trounced #10 Florida in that one, 93-75. Their schedule is all cupcakes until the Big Ten schedule opens against Indiana on Dec. 31, so it'll be awhile before we see what this team is really made of, but I'm looking forward to then.

* I don't know how many people have noticed this, but Cleveland State, the university from which I am posting this blog at this very moment, is 11-0 after last night's win over West Virginia Tech (which I will admit I'd never heard of). They do have wins over Akron and Kent State, so there's reason to believe this CSU team has real potential this year. Should be interesting.

* In a non-sports-but-Cleveland-related topic, the members-elect of the Cuyahoga County Council who met in secret last week are arrogant jerks who don't deserve their positions. Because their meeting apparently didn't break any sunshine laws, they probably shouldn't be forced to resign, but they should certainly apologize. Sorry to get off sports, but I feel strongly about this.

Winning is fun

2010-12-06T11:03:00.002-05:00

The Browns' 13-10 win over the Dolphins yesterday was their second in a row, and this one was far more satisfying than the previous week's win over the terrible Carolina Panthers. The offense was not very impressive, but at least they didn't turn the ball over, and they did manage to take at least some advantage of the turnovers the defense got them. Jake Delhomme threw a pass that should have been returned for a pick six (that's an interception taken back for a touchdown, for the uninitiated), but he caught a break there. And he did engineer one nice drive, ending with a touchdown pass to Benjamin Watson. Watson was the brightest light on the Browns' offense, catching 10 passes for 100 yards. That was great to see.

The non-interception notwithstanding, it would be incorrect to say Delhomme played mistake-free football. He made a pretty big mistake toward the end of the second quarter when he failed to get rid of the ball on a third-and-four and took a sack for a nine-yard loss. If he'd thrown it away, Phil Dawson would have had a relatively easy 38-yard field goal attempt. Instead, Dawson had to try a 47-yarder, which of course bounced off the upright. That could easily have been the difference in the game.

In any case, the defense obviously won this one. The Browns picked off Miami quarterback Chad Henne three times, the last of which Mike Adams returned to the 2 to set up Dawson's game-winning field goal. They held the Dolphins to 281 yards, which is more than the Browns' offense got, but when you throw in the three turnovers, it's a very solid effort. And Shaun Rogers' field goal block was obviously huge.

I have to quibble with coach Eric Mangini's strategy after Adams' interception. He had Delhomme kneel on the ball three times before letting Dawson attempt the game-winning field goal. It obviously worked out -- as it would at least nine times out of ten -- but why not try for the end zone? Mangini wanted the field goal attempt to be the last play on the clock, which it was. But what if the snap had been fumbled? What if Dawson, reliable though he usually is, slipped or something? No field goal is guaranteed. If the Browns had put the ball in the end zone with, say, 40 to 50 seconds left, that would have meant the Dolphins had less than a minute to take the ball all the way in for a touchdown. Given how their offense was performing, that seems a nearly impossible task. I say the Browns would have been better off letting Peyton Hillis pound the ball at the line three times and seeing what would happen.

Regardless, the Browns did it. They have matched last year's win total, with four games to go. They even have an outside shot at a winning season. But if they win half their remaining games and go 7-9, I'll be happy with this season. They will be favored next week in Buffalo and the following week in Cincinnati, then will be underdogs for their last two, at home against Baltimore and Pittsburgh. So 7-9 is probably the most likely outcome for this season. But don't be surprised if they knock off the Ravens or Steelers. This team is capable of that sort of thing. Especially if Colt McCoy is healthy by then.

Not much to say ...

2010-12-03T13:33:00.004-05:00

The Cavaliers got trounced by ex-hero LeBron James and his Miami Heat last night. Full disclosure: I watched the first half, decided I wasn't enjoying it, and changed the channel. So I missed James' 24-point outburst in the third quarter.

But from what I did see, it seemed to me that not only did the Heat players care more about who won or lost than the Cavaliers players did; the fans at the game cared more. I felt like if you pulled five guys out of the stands, they'd have played the Heat tougher than the players whose job it is. And what was up with LeBron's former teammates being so friendly to him? I understand their outlook on this is different from us fans, but it was a little bit disrespectful to you and me for players like Antawn Jamison and Mo Williams giving LeBron handshake-hugs when we fans all felt like punching him in the junk. Word is Anthony Parker was the only Cavs starter who didn't acknowledge LeBron before the game. Good for Anthony Parker. He's apparently the only one who understood that his job was to make LeBron feel uncomfortable, not comfortable; to afflict him, not encourage him; to defeat him, not befriend him.

Williams said something after the game about wanting to win very badly. I don't doubt that he meant it. But this game meant more to LeBron James than it did to any Cavalier, and it showed on the floor. LeBron's the one who came in wanting to prove his decision to leave Cleveland was the right one. As such, his new teammates rallied around him. The Cavs just seemed overwhelmed by the whole thing, and were the ones who couldn't overcome their nerves.

Oh, well. In the grand scheme of things, this is just one game. But it sure would have been sweet to have the outcome reversed.

A win is a win ... but ...

2010-11-29T11:35:00.003-05:00

So the Browns managed to hold on for a 24-23 win over Carolina yesterday. Hooray and what not. Wins in the NFL are not always easy to come by, especially for the Browns the last few years. But let's not get too giddy. The Panthers are possibly the league's very worst team; certainly one of the worst. They have the league's worst record, at 1-10, and finished dead last in the ESPN power rankings. And the Browns should have demolished them, but instead had to rely on a missed 42-yard field goal on the game's last play.

Oh, there were some things in this game for Browns fans to be thankful for. Peyton Hillis, for example. Hillis was the clear MVP of this game, rumbling for 131 yards on 26 carries to bring his season total to 905, with five games to go. Looks like he'll comfortably top 1,000 yards, and has a chance to beat Jamal Lewis' expansion-era team record of 1,304, set in 2007. And of course, Hillis scored all three of the Browns' touchdowns in this game, on the ground, and even added six catches for 63 yards.

Jake Delhomme, returning as the starter, was serviceable, but he really gave the Panthers life with the interceptions he threw on his first two passes of the second half. The latter of those was returned for a touchdown that brought the Panthers within one at 21-20. But he did complete 24 of 35 passes for 245 yards, which is a perfectly acceptable performance.

But the Browns' defense was a weak point in this game. How many missed tackles were there? Where was the coverage? Brandon LaFell made a good catch on the play that set up the last field goal attempt, but why was he that open? (Incidentally, I believe the officials made an error on that play. It was clearly a catch, but he came down in bounds with five seconds left, and the Panthers were out of time outs. The clock should have kept ticking, and they'd have never been able to get lined up in time to spike the ball before it hit triple-zeroes. It was reviewed for whether he actually caught the ball, but they didn't look at the issue of whether he came down in bounds or out of bounds. I suppose there wouldn't have been much they could have done about it.)

Anyway, this game goes in the books as a win, because that's what the scoreboard said at the end. But if not for a miss on a fairly easy field goal by an experienced kicker, it would have been a loss to the NFL's worst team. So take it with a grain of salt.

I'll leave you with a thought about the pressure of being a kicker in the NFL, or really at any level of football. I was just telling my wife the other day about how that would be the last position I'd want to play on a football team, because you so often come in on situations just like that. If you make the kick, you just did what was expected of you; but if you miss it, you go home feeling that the loss was your fault. (Which, to be honest, it was, at least to some degree.) And John Kasay, the kicker who is wearing goat horns in Carolina today, made postgame comments that reinforce that idea. From the Associated Press story:

"I was the one who failed," Kasay said, accepting blame for Carolina's fourth straight loss. "This is one of those days where they did everything they needed to do to win. I was the one who let them down. There's no other way to cut it."

To the extent that I can feel sorry for a professional athlete for something that happened on the field, I feel a little sorry for him.

Quarterback carousel gets back to Delhomme

2010-11-25T11:37:00.003-05:00

With Colt McCoy the third Browns quarterback to sustain a high ankle sprain this season, coach Eric Mangini has no choice but to give the starting job back to the guy who had it coming out of training camp. Jake Delhomme was pretty unimpressive in what little action he's seen so far this year, and I don't have high hopes for him now. I'd rather see Seneca Wallace, frankly. But Mangini knows his players better than I do, so I've just got to hope he knows what he's doing. The game is against Delhomme's former team, the Panthers, so maybe his inside knowledge of their system will be of some benefit.

Mangini says he doesn't think McCoy will miss as much time as Delhomme and Wallace did. My above statement about how he knows his players better than I do doesn't apply to this situation. I'm not saying I know much about high ankle sprains, but my point is that Mangini is a football coach, not a doctor. With just six games left in the season, I wouldn't be surprised if the next time we see McCoy in uniform is in 2011. That would be a bit of a shame, because I'd like to see him get some more experience under his belt this year; but it certainly wouldn't be the end of the world. It's a whole lot more important that McCoy is healthy in '11, '12 and beyond than it is that he's healthy the rest of this year. The Browns aren't going anywhere in 2010 anyway.

Cavs lose again; more thoughts

2010-11-24T11:43:00.002-05:00

* OK, so maybe the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers aren't the second coming of the Showtime Lakers. The Cavs have been very up-and-down in the early season, which I suppose can be expected of a team that is trying to find its identity after losing its all-world superstar in the offseason. After last night's not-nearly-as-close-as-the-final-score 100-89 loss to the Pacers, the Cavs are now 5-8 and in a three-way tie for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Obviously, there's still a long, long way to go, and there's still plenty of reason for hope that the Cavs will get this figured out.

* Ohio State goes into Saturday's game against Michigan with a very slim chance of taking the Big Ten's spot in the Rose Bowl, despite the fact that they've only got one loss. That loss is to Wisconsin, which also has just one loss; and Wisconsin has Northwestern this week. Michigan State, also with one loss, has a tougher game than the others, against Penn State, and also the weakest tiebreaker. The bottom line for the Buckeyes is, they need to beat Michigan and for Wisconsin to lose to Northwestern. I just don't see that happening. They might get an at-large spot in another BCS bowl, but we almost certainly won't see Terrelle Pryor clutching a rose between his teeth this year.

* Speaking of Ohio State, university President Gordon Gee has weighed in on the whole TCU-Boise State quest for a national title. As we all know, those schools come from lesser conferences, and while their undefeated (so far) seasons are impressive, they have compiled those records against decidedly inferior opponents compared to the schedule a school from the Big Ten or ACC or one of the other major conferences has to play. Gee's opinion: TCU and Boise State don't deserve a shot at the title, even if they win out. My opinion: Gee is right, at least under the current structure. Were there a 16- or even eight-team playoff, you could make the argument, but I'm sorry, going undefeated in the WAC doesn't prove you're one of the two best teams in the country.

* Happy Thanksgiving to all my wonderful Of Fair Hooker readers. Speaking of Thanksgiving, I was listening to Wills and Snyder this morning on WTAM, and they were talking about how the show's producer, Scott "Scooter" Reese would be giving his tips on deep-frying a turkey, for those who might be trying it for the first time. Bill Wills mentioned in passing the importance of keeping a fire extinguisher on hand for the job. Then they went to commercial, so I switched it over to Mike & Mike in the Morning on WKNR. Mike Golic at that very moment was talking about how if you're going to deep-fry a turkey, be sure to look at some online videos of people doing it, because you don't want to start a house fire. So let me reinforce that message: Don't start a fire deep-frying your turkey tomorrow.

Browns should have won

2010-11-22T11:16:00.003-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, the Browns team we saw in the early part of the season is back. Remember how it seemed like every week, they'd hold tough the whole game before blowing it in the end? They did that last week against the Jets, and they did it yesterday against the Jaguars -- who were trying their hardest to lose that game.

The Jags turned the ball over on five consecutive possessions in the second half, and the Browns only managed to turn that into 10 points -- seven of which came on Abram Elam's touchdown on a fumble recovery. The Browns' offense only converted one of those turnovers into points, and even then, all they got was a field goal.

Apart from the turnovers, Jacksonville really outplayed us in this one, especially in that second half. Had the Browns defense been a little better, they'd have forced a few three-and-outs instead of having to get the ball via turnover. The Jaguars were moving the ball pretty much at will, and you had to just know that if they could hold onto the ball, they were going to put some more points on the board. That's what wound up happening, of course, when Maurice Jones-Drew scored two plays after his 75-yard catch and run down to the 1/2-yard line. Joe Haden's touchdown-delaying tackle on that play just gave the Jags a chance to run nearly another minute off the clock, giving Colt McCoy just over a minute to work with on the Browns' last drive.

And McCoy and the Browns' offense weren't doing dookie. They finally started moving the ball after the Jaguars tied it at 17, but McCoy pulled up lame on his 18-yard run that set up the field goal that gave the Browns a short-lived 20-17 lead. And they got some nice gains on the ill-fated final drive too, but it was too little, too late.

Incidentally, I haven't heard anyone else mention this, but even if Ben Watson had caught McCoy's pass around the 5 on the Browns' last offensive play, the Browns would still have lost. He was falling down as he tried to make the catch, there were less than 10 seconds left, the Browns were out of timeouts, and there was no way they could get up to the line of scrimmage in time to spike the ball and stop the clock.

Well, as I said a week ago after the loss to the Jets, the goal for this season was improvement, and we've definitely seen that. So I can't complain too much. But it would be nice to pull out a game or two like these.

Cavs are hanging tough

2010-11-17T11:31:00.002-05:00

I don't know if any of you have noticed this, but after last night's 101-93 win over the 76ers, the Cavaliers are back to .500 at 5-5, and if the season ended today, they'd be the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. This despite the fact that many of their better players have missed some time with injuries: Mo Williams has missed five games, Antawn Jamison three games, Anderson Varejao two. This is really not a bad team at all, ladies and gentlemen, despite all the predictions that they'd be one of the NBA's worst.

By the way, can you think of anyone who predicted they'd be about this good before the season started? I can. Me. Not to toot my own horn, of course ...

How have they done it, despite the lack of a superstar? Balance. J.J. Hickson is currently the club's leading scorer, at 15.2 a game, but Williams has averaged 14.6 in his five games, and Boobie Gibson is putting in 14.2 off the bench. Jamison and Ramon Sessions are also in double figures. Varejao is leading the team in rebounds, at 8.9; and we're also getting solid contributions from guys like Anthony Parker, Ryan Hollins and Jamario Moon.

Can you guess without looking who leads the Cavs in player efficiency rating, the complex calculation developed by ESPN's John Hollinger to take into account everything a player contributes to his team? I would have guessed Williams or Jamison, or possibly Varejao. Hickson and Gibson would be next, if those were wrong. Probably about the eighth guy I'd have guessed would be Ryan Hollins. But that's who it is.

I'm starting to get kind of excited about this team. I don't think they'll contend for a championship or anything like that, but this is a pretty good team. If they stay healthy, they've got a chance to do some special things.

Can't be too disappointed

2010-11-15T11:50:00.003-05:00

The Browns lost a game yesterday that they could (arguably should) have won, against one of the NFL's best teams. It would have been their third straight win, all against teams that are considered top contenders. From that standpoint, it's disappointing that they lost to the Jets.

But just look how far this team has come. Remember when the Browns were 1-11 last year, and there seemed no reason for hope? Then they started this season 1-5, and though they had chances to win almost all of those games, they couldn't pull any of them out.

Suddenly, the Cleveland Browns seem to be able to go toe-to-toe with anybody in the National Football League. Given a fortuitous bounce here or there -- if Chansi Stuckey hadn't fumbled, Phil Dawson might have had a shot at a game-winning field goal; if Joe Haden hadn't intercepted that pass, the punt return team might have given the Browns better field position on their last drive; if either of those replay calls had gone the Browns' way; if, if, if ...

That didn't happen. And now the Browns are 3-6 and have basically zero chance to go to the playoffs. But seriously, did you think at the beginning of the season that they might get there this year? What did you realistically want to see out of the Browns this season? Personally, I thought I'd be happy with steady improvement. And we've seen plenty of that. With Colt McCoy calling the signals, the Browns' offense is clicking pretty well, and the defense is holding its own too.

We won't see playoffs here in 2010. But the way this team is playing right now, I have hope that we'll see it in 2011. And that's enough for me right now.

Where have the Browns been hiding it?

2010-11-08T11:33:00.002-05:00

As we all know, the Browns went into their game two weeks ago against New Orleans with a 1-5 record. They were competitive in those games, even leading in the fourth quarter of all but one, but there was little reason to believe they could hang with the likes of the world champion Saints. And if you peeked ahead on their schedule, you'd see New England on Nov. 7 and the Jets on Nov. 14. You'd have been forgiven for assuming the Browns would go into their Nov. 21 game against Jacksonville with a 1-8 record.

But a funny thing happened on the way there. The Browns have now, in their last two games, upset two of the NFL's elite teams. And in convincing fashion, too -- yesterday's game against the Patriots was never in doubt. The Patriots came in with the league's best record, having lost just once. And the Browns beat them by 20.

How did they do it? Creativity and mistake-free football on both sides of the ball. And when I say creativity, I'm not just talking about the trick play that led to the Browns' second touchdown -- genius though it was. I've always loved gadget plays, and this one was a classic. I don't think I've ever seen one quite like it. Quarterback Colt McCoy walked away from the line of scrimmage while the linemen stood straight up, acting like the play was not going to start any time soon. Josh Cribbs sneaked up to the line of scrimmage and took the snap, then stuck the ball in Chansi Stuckey's ribs nonchalantly as he appeared to wander as aimlessly as McCoy. Stuckey went off-tackle to the left as the linemen suddenly snapped to life and started blocking, and ran it in for an 11-yard touchdown. It was a thing of beauty.

But the Browns did a lot of good things on offense, starting with Peyton Hillis, who rushed for a career-high 184 yards and two touchdowns. Hillis was an animal out there. My dad told me he reminds him of Ron Dayne when he was at Wisconsin -- not an overly fast runner, but a guy who has good moves and can run over a defender every now and then. I think that's a pretty apt comparison.

McCoy didn't produce any eye-popping numbers in his third NFL start, but he didn't have to. Considering he only had to throw the ball 19 times, thanks to Hillis and the running game, he acquitted himself quite well. He completed 14 of those passes for 174 yards, and most importantly, he didn't throw any interceptions. He didn't pass for any touchdowns, but he did run for one, after dropping back to pass and not finding anyone open. Young quarterbacks are sometimes too quick to scramble, but that was certainly not the case here. McCoy saw an opening and took it. And perhaps the strongest compliment to McCoy is to simply look at the Browns' record with each quarterback starting: Delhomme, 0-1; Wallace, 1-4; McCoy, 2-1.

On the defensive side, the Browns kept Tom Brady and the Patriots offense off-balance all game long. To hold a Tom Brady-led offense to 14 points is a real accomplishment. He threw for 224 yards, but because they were behind all day, had to throw the ball 39 times to get there. The Pats only gained 283 total yards on the day, compared to the Browns' 404. This wasn't the usual type of game in which a 2-5 team upsets a 6-1 squad, in which the winning team gets a few breaks but really didn't outplay the losing team. The Browns genuinely outplayed these Patriots.

Are the Browns suddenly one of the league's best teams? Do we have a real shot at the playoffs this season? I don't know the answer to either question, but I can hardly wait to see how we do next week against the Jets.

How about that, Cavaliers faithful!

2010-10-27T21:45:00.003-04:00

The post-LeBron Cavaliers are undefeated, ladies and gentlemen! They just beat the defending Eastern Conference champion Celtics, the team that beat LeBron, both last night and in the playoffs last year.

Sure, it's just one game, and you don't want to read too much into a 1-0 start. The Celtics were likely a little bit worn out, it being the second night of a back-to-back for them, and that likely contributed to the Cavaliers' 27-14 edge in the fourth quarter. But the Cavs were playing without Mo Williams, arguably their best player (I would say second-best). So this was still pretty big.

J.J. Hickson, who has shown flashes of brilliance before but was usually overshadowed by the bigger stars on this team, put on an impressive 21-point performance on 8-of-11 shooting. Daniel Gibson, who also fits the description I gave Hickson above, contributed 16 off the bench. But this was a total team effort. The Cavs had six players in double-figures, and that doesn't include their leading rebounder, Anderson Varejao, who got 10 boards to go with his eight points, along with his usual sterling defense.

This Cavaliers team has a lot of the same players they had last year, but they're a totally different team. Tonight's game proves they're not necessarily very much worse.

Some optimism for Cavaliers' season

2010-10-27T10:54:00.003-04:00

The Cavaliers open their first post-LeBron season tonight at the Q against the defending Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics, and since I haven't really weighed in yet on their outlook, this seems like the right time to do so.

The obvious thing to point out is that the Cavs had not one, but two future Hall of Famers (LeBron and Shaq) on their roster last year, and none this year. At this point in his career, Shaq isn't such a great loss, but he does leave a pretty big hole at the center spot. As I've mentioned in this space, Ryan Hollins is the only true center we have this year; Anderson Varejao is more a power forward type, but will have to step up to the center spot, where he'll be routinely out-heighted by three or four inches.

Still, this Cavaliers team has some talent. Antawn Jamison is no superstar, but he's certainly no slouch. Mo Williams has been an All-Star in the recent past. Varejao will finally get a chance to show what he can do with regular starter minutes. Anthony Parker is 35, but seems to still have something left in the tank. Jamario Moon is a nice player to have. Guys like J.J. Hickson and Daniel Gibson will have more opportunities to prove themselves. I'm looking forward to seeing how guys like Ramon Sessions and rookie Christian Eyenga fit in. With Byron Scott at the helm, and no more "pass to LeBron and let him do something while the other four guys stand around" offense, I think this team can win about 42 to 45 games and reach the playoffs.

The national media seems to think otherwise. ESPN.com has the Cavs as the 24th-best team (up from 27th in their initial power rankings), SI.com has us finishing dead last in the Central Division, and so on and so forth. Have they actually looked at our roster and compared it to anyone else's? OK, so we won't be as good without LeBron. That doesn't mean we're going to be terrible. We're not better than Detroit, who finished 27-55 last year and whose top addition is a seemingly 90-year-old Tracy McGrady? Really?

Opening against the Celtics is a tall order; I don't expect them to win tonight. But this is not a bad team. Lord knows we've seen some awful Cavaliers teams. This team does not look like one of those.

It's a miracle! ... Or is it?

2010-10-25T10:55:00.006-04:00

On Saturday night, my wife, Lisa, and I were sitting on the back porch, enjoying the lovely evening after having dined at Lola Bistro downtown to celebrate our one-year anniversary. (Incidentally, that restaurant is pricey, but very, very tasty. Michael Symon isn't an Iron Chef for no reason.) I mentioned that I couldn't remember who the Browns were scheduled to play on Sunday, and my wife told me it was the Saints.

"Ah, yes," I said. "They'll lose."

"That's what everyone's saying, but I don't know," she said. "I think they'll win. They seem to do that; lose to the crappy teams and beat the best."

My wife had a point. Each of the last two years, though the Browns have been one of the worst teams in the NFL, they've managed to defeat the defending Super Bowl champions. Last year, it was the Steelers, as part of the Browns' season-ending four-game winning streak that followed their 1-11 start; in 2008, it was the Giants, in an early-October Monday nighter that gave us false hope that the Browns could turn their season around. The Browns are likely to finish under .500 this year as well, and I wonder how many times a team has finished under .500 while beating the defending champions each of three years in a row. It's a highly unlikely feat, to be sure.

Anyway, like those wins, this was very sweet. The Browns beat the Saints despite being out-gained, 394 yards to 210; despite giving up 356 passing yards to Drew Brees, compared to just 74 puny yards by Colt McCoy in his second NFL start; despite the fact that the Browns' leading rusher was their punter until Peyton Hillis' last run got him up to 69 for the game. And they did it by getting four turnovers and surrendering zero -- and by using trick plays and executing them perfectly.

David Bowens was the obvious MVP of this game, in one of the most unlikely performances you'll ever see. You don't very often see a guy with a number in the 90s intercepting a pass, much less two in one game, much less returning both for long touchdowns. Yes, Bowens is actually a linebacker, not a defensive lineman -- still, he came into the game with a grand total of two interceptions in his 12-year career, and both of his interceptions yesterday came right around the line of scrimmage, not in coverage. As a side note, I generally don't care for showboating on the field, but I have to admit, his hot-dogging performance on the second pick-six was pretty entertaining. With no Saints around him, he had the luxury of slowing down gradually as he got closer to the end zone, then stopping at the goal line before falling in. I wouldn't have liked it if I played for the Saints, but it's their fault for not being close enough to stop him. In any case, Bowens is the first Brown to return two interceptions for touchdowns in a game since 1960.

And the trick plays were enormous. The Browns' first score, a field goal that gave them an early 3-0 lead, was set up by a trick return play in which Josh Cribbs caught the punt, started to run it back, then threw it across the field for a lateral to Eric Wright, who ran it all the way back to the New Orleans 19.

Then, in the second quarter, the Browns pulled off one of the most beautifully executed fakes I've ever seen in my life. On fourth-and-8 from their own 23, the Browns lined up in punt formation, snapped the ball to Reggie Hodges, and opened up a hole that Olivia, my five-year-old stepdaughter, could have run through for a first down. Hodges, who runs a little bit better than Olivia, took it 68 yards to set up a field goal that made it 13-3. He actually made some nice moves down the field, too.

Incidentally, that was the longest run by a punter in any NFL game since 1945, and that 76-yard run in 1945 came on first down. In those days, teams rarely carried a full-time punter or kicker, and Johnny Martin, the punter who made that run for the Boston Yanks in 1945, also played halfback and quarterback in his career. It's not known for sure, but it's entirely possible that Hodges' 68-yard run was the longest in NFL history by a punter on a fake punt.

The third trick play the Browns ran was less spectacular than either of those, but still impressive. Protecting a 20-10 lead early in the fourth quarter and facing a third-and-6, the Browns lined up in shotgun formation, but Hillis took the snap as McCoy ran a pattern out on the left flat and wound up catching the ball for a 13-yard gain that eventually led to another field goal.

This feels good. Yes, it only makes the Browns 2-5, but it gives us hope. The Browns won this with defensive execution and creative play-calling. Sure, I'd like to have seen more from the offense, but considering the situation, I can't complain too much about that.

And yes, my wife was right, and I was wrong. I'm sure it won't be the last time.

Sorry to hear James Harrison won't retire

2010-10-23T14:40:00.002-04:00

I'm sure anyone reading this blog is aware of what's been going on the past week in the NFL, involving savage helmet-to-helmet hits like the ones the Steelers' James Harrison put on the Browns' Josh Cribbs and Muhammad Massaquoi on Sunday, knocking both out of the game. Several similar hits occurred in other NFL games. The NFL fined several players $50,000 each, and Harrison $75,000. Harrison sat out of practice one day this week, saying he was contemplating retirement because now he can't play the way he wants to:

"You literally have to think about changing the way you play football. Honestly, I’m truly considering if I can play football in the NFL by the rules that they’re trying to make. I’m honestly going to sit down with my coach and see if I can play football within the NFL rules and still be effective. If not, I may have to give up playing football."

This came a couple of days after Harrison said he figures he's done his job if he hurts somebody. He was careful to say he wasn't trying to injure anybody, just hurt them. There's some distinction in those words, I guess.

There's been a lot of negative backlash about the NFL's actions on this matter. People are arguing that football is an inherently violent game. No doubt, that is true. I played football myself in high school and junior high, and I know that to a large extent, football players think of their opponents not as friendly adversaries, but as sworn enemies. That's simply the nature of the game. And when you have 200- to 300-pound men trying to block and tackle each other for three hours a week, injuries are inevitable.

But there are a growing number of rules in football aimed at keeping players from getting needlessly hurt. For decades, we've had rules against certain blocks in the back or below the waist, roughing the passer and kicker, and unnecessary roughness. More recently, we've seen rules that increase quarterbacks' latitude for throwing the ball away, in an attempt to keep them from taking too many hits. And just a couple of years ago, the NFL made horse-collar tackles illegal because so many players were getting hurt that way.

This is no different. A number of players suffered concussions on helmet-to-helmet hits on one single afternoon. A concussion is a more dangerous injury that anything else that can happen on a football field, short of something involving the spine. The NFL has to protect its players.

Football fans tend to have a certain degree of blood lust, which I think explains a lot of the negative reaction among spectators. Defensive players like Harrison are saying the NFL is taking away their ability to play. I say, tough $&!*. If this new stance makes it less likely for players to suffer concussions or worse brain injuries, I'm more than happy to see a few less violent hits on the football field.

James Harrison has decided not to retire. That's probably the worst news that came out of this.

Browns' loss not all that disappointing

2010-10-18T13:34:00.002-04:00

* OK, losing to Pittsburgh is never fun. And a 28-10 loss to anybody is also never fun. So that's a bad combination. But still, who among us can say they thought we had a realistic chance to beat the Steelers this week, with Colt McCoy making his first NFL start behind center against the great Ben Roethlisberger? Big Ben, returning from his four-game suspension for bad off-field behavior, took a while to heat up, but once he did, there was no stopping him. McCoy did pretty darn well in his rookie debut, completing 23 of 33 passes for 281 yards and a touchdown. He did throw two interceptions, but in his defense, both were on tipped balls. I'm not hoping for continued ill health for Jake Delhomme and/or Seneca Wallace, but I do hope this isn't the last we've seen of McCoy this year.

* The Buckeyes fell all the way to #10 from #1 after their disappointing loss to Wisconsin on Saturday. The Ohio State offense faltered because the line couldn't protect Terrelle Pryor, who understandably had his worst game of the season. In addition to several big-time schools that could run the table, the Buckeyes have three mid-majors ahead of them who are highly likely to go undefeated, in Boise State, TCU and Utah. At this point, Michigan State (who is not on OSU's schedule) is the Big Ten's best hope for a national title. The Buckeyes are all but out of the equation. One loss just kills you in college football, because there's no playoff.

* They were talking on WTAM's Wills & Snyder this morning about a guy named Eric Barr, who recently moved to Cleveland from East Hartford, Connecticut, because he's a Browns fan. I guess the Plain Dealer did a story about him a couple of days ago. I don't read the PD anymore -- in fact, I don't even get a newspaper, which I probably should feel guilty about because I spent 14 years actually working for newspapers, but I don't. Feel guilty, that is. Anyway, this guy has no particular ties to the Cleveland area, and he quit his job to move here, where he has no job lined up. But he'll save the drive to Cleveland eight times a year, which he's been doing for every home game. This dude and I have one thing in common, in that we both love the Browns. Where we part company is that I would never in a million years move to an economically struggling town in a bad economy with no job lined up just to follow a football team. Especially not one that's 1-5 and hasn't made the playoffs since 2002. He's apparently single with no kids, so at least he's not hanging a family out to dry. Still, as much as I love sports, I think it's incredibly stupid of him. But I wish him good luck.

McCoy opens this roundup-type post

2010-10-14T21:29:00.003-04:00

* The Browns appear ready to start Colt McCoy at quarterback Sunday against the Steelers, and I applaud that decision. The original plan was for McCoy to spend all of 2010 understudying Jake Delhomme and/or Seneca Wallace, but now that they're both out of commission, the only other options are McCoy and Brett Ratliff. Ratliff, who spent all of last season riding the pine for the Browns, is never going to be a regular starter in the NFL. So it's time to throw McCoy in there and see what he can do. His first assignment against a tough Steelers defense is going to be really, really tough, but the kid was great at Texas, and he'll be a fine NFL quarterback in time. Might as well start now.

* What the *#&@ happened to Jerome Harrison? The dude ran for 286 yards in one game last year and was a key to the Browns' season-ending four-game winning streak, but had just 91 on 31 carries this year before he was traded to Philadelphia this week. Of those 91 yards, 39 came on one carry in the opener against Tampa Bay. If you subtract that one run, he went for 52 yards on 30 carries. That's less than two yards per. That's pathetic. No wonder Peyton Hillis has been getting the ball all the time. In return, the Browns got Mike Bell, who has 28 yards on 16 carries. Um ... OK, I'm not sure why we made this trade. Especially with Hillis hurting, I'd have liked to see if Harrison could repeat his 2009 performance if given a real shot. Maybe I just contradicted myself. I can live with that.

* The Buckeyes, who just moved up to No. 1 in the poll, are facing their second real test of the season Saturday when they travel to meet No. 16 Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium. Wisconsin's only loss was to undefeated Michigan State, and they're always tough at home. Ohio State will have to slow down the Badgers' dual-threat running backs, John Clay and James White. And Terrelle Pryor will have to play mistake-free. Both of those things can happen, but they're not sure things. Should be interesting.

* As my good friend Jeff Brown recently pointed out in an e-mail, the Cavaliers are going into their first post-LeBron season with a serious size issue. Anderson Varejao is the only guy on the roster who's played much center in the NBA, and he's only 6'10" and is really more of a power forward type. They've got 7'0" Ryan Hollins, who will never make anybody forget Shaquille O'Neal -- not even the aging Shaq we saw here last year. These Cavs definitely have some talent around the perimeter -- Mo Williams, Antawn Jamison, etc. -- but they face a real risk of getting beaten up badly inside.

* As an Indians fan, it's tough to see guys like CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee carry their teams through the playoffs. Both those guys were key to their teams' success in last year's playoffs, and even though Lee has switched teams again (and again) since then, he's the number-one reason why the Rangers are into the ALCS against CC and the Yankees. It's a terrible shame the Indians couldn't afford to keep those guys. But baseball's economic structure is what it is. The Indians will have to find a way to be competitive with the money they've got. And it can be done -- look at Tampa Bay and Minnesota. They got eliminated in the first round by Sabathia, Lee and company, but they both made the playoffs with very slender payrolls. And Shapiro's Indians have done it too, back in '07. But it's hard to look at these current Indians and see the seeds of a playoff team anytime in the near future.

Will we see Colt McCoy?

2010-10-11T12:39:00.003-04:00

After yesterday's disappointing 20-10 loss to Atlanta, the Browns are down to one healthy quarterback -- Colt McCoy, who of course has yet to take a snap in a regular-season NFL game. Seneca Wallace was having a pretty nice first half yesterday when he sprained his ankle, going 11-for-15 for 139 yards and a touchdown. Jake Delhomme came in, clearly still hobbled by an ankle injury of his own, and was just plain awful -- 97 yards on 13-for-23 passing, no TDs, two interceptions. Both of those pickoffs were pretty fluky, but they both resulted from Delhomme not getting the ball over the hands and heads of the linemen.

I frankly don't know why we didn't see McCoy in that game. What did we have to lose? If Wallace couldn't play and Delhomme clearly wasn't able to do much, why not just toss the kid in there and see what he's got? It's not like it's going to cost us a playoff spot. We were 1-3 coming in, and there was obviously no chance we were going to get to 2-3 with Delhomme in there.

The Browns are talking about trying to pick up a veteran quarterback for next week's game against the Steelers. If the health of Wallace and Delhomme is in question, obviously we'll have to get somebody, but I want the person they pick up to be McCoy's backup for the Pittsburgh game. I really don't see the point of renting a veteran QB to hold down the spot for a 1-4 team. If Wallace or Delhomme can play, that's fine; otherwise, just toss McCoy in there and let him go to work.

Browns fail to blow it!

2010-10-04T11:45:00.003-04:00

How about those Cleveland Browns! They've now played four games and had a fourth-quarter lead in every one of them -- and after yesterday's 23-20 triumph over Cincinnati, they've actually won one!

Boy howdy, it sure looked as if the Browns were going to blow this one too. The Bengals stormed back from a 23-10 deficit to cut it to three on Carson Palmer's three-yard touchdown pass to Brian Leonard with 10:44 left in the game, and a distinct "here we go again" feeling hung in the air. That feeling thickened after the Browns went three-and-out, with two incompletions by Seneca Wallace bookending a two-yard run by Peyton Hillis. The Bengals took over at their own 14 with 9:44 to go, and it seemed highly likely they'd take it down for another score. And they did move the ball: A nine-play drive gained 46 yards, but Chad "Ochocinco" Ochocinco's pass interference penalty pushed them out of field goal range on second down, and Matt Roth sacked Palmer for a four-yard loss on third down, forcing a punt. Those plays were humongous.

The Browns got it back at their own 11 with 4:41 left, so all they had to do was run out the clock. But Wallace threw incomplete again on first down, and Hillis gained just a yard on second. But the Bengals bailed us out again. Defensive lineman Pat Sims got called for defensive holding, giving the Browns an automatic first down. It was a tough call, but hey, when you're 0-3, you'll take it. From that point on, the offense consisted of giving the ball to Hillis, which is what you're supposed to do when you're trying to salt away the clock and protect a lead.

Hillis, suddenly a breakout star, went for 102 yards on the day, including a 24-yard run on second and seven that took the game to the two-minute warning. It was his second straight 100-yard performance. All it took to get him was Brady Quinn. Can you believe that?

And that's how the Browns won a game in which they were outgained 413 yards to 295, in which they gave up 371 passing yards by Palmer, including 222 receiving yards by Terrell Owens. It's not easy to win a game like that, but they did it.

The Browns have Atlanta next week. They seem likely to have a fourth-quarter lead at some point. Let's hope they can hold it.

Very quickly ...

2010-09-27T13:45:00.002-04:00

The Browns have led in the second half of all three games this year. They have lost them all. Is this a failure of the offense? The defense? The kicking game? The coaching staff? I don't know, but if this keeps up, Eric Mangini's going to be looking for a job soon. Whether others will join him, I don't know. But Mike Holmgren isn't going to put up with this for long.

Never mind the impressive offensive performance in yesterday's 24-17 loss to the Ravens. (Impressive it was, against that Baltimore defense.) It doesn't matter if you don't win.

Seventy-three points! But ...

2010-09-26T08:41:00.003-04:00

OK, the Buckeyes beat the Eastern Michigan Eagles by 53 points yesterday. I predicted they'd win by 50, and Vegas predicted they'd win by 44 1/2, so hooray and what not. It was certainly an impressive showing by the Ohio State offense, but let's not forget this happened against a team that hasn't won a game since 2008. When you're the #2 team in the nation playing a team that can't even win in the MAC, you should dominate, which they did.

Terrelle Pryor was nearly flawless, completing 20 of 26 passes for 224 yards and four touchdowns, rushing for 104 yards on just seven carries, and even catching a touchdown pass of his own from Joe Hall on a throwback trick play. Pryor's four touchdown passes all went to Dane Sanzenbacher, who tied an Ohio State record with the four catches for scores. Kudos to those guys, and the entire offense. They did what they should have done, which is tear that EMU defense to shreds. I'm sure everybody who cares enough to read this blog already knows this, but OSU hasn't scored this many points in a game since 1950, when I was -21.

The thing that concerns me about this game is the 20 points allowed. The Eagles even tied the Buckeyes in the second quarter, 14-14. The Eastern Michigan offense is not nearly as pathetic as its defense -- they scored 27, 21 and 14 in their first three games -- but still, they shouldn't be able to put up 20 against the #2 team in the country, whose defense had only allowed two touchdowns in three games coming in. But the Eagles put together three long scoring drives out of four possessions in the second and third quarters -- nine plays, 75 yards; seven plays, 73 yards; and six plays, 80 yards. They were three-and-out on all but one of their other possessions (the other one went five plays and ended in a fumble), so at least those were the only times they got something going, but still, that's reason for some concern.

But never mind all that. The Buckeyes are 4-0 heading into the Big Ten portion of their schedule, and that's all that really matters. They have one truly impressive victory under their belts (the 36-24 win over Miami on Sept. 11), and there's not much reason to believe they can't run the table. They've got Illinois next week, then Indiana before their next real test on Oct. 16 against Wisconsin. That's going to be a toughie.

Of goofy hats, line drives and promising pitching

2010-09-25T10:26:00.004-04:00

The Indians suck. Everybody knows that. There are a few teams that suck harder (Seattle, Pittsburgh, and possibly Kansas City), but this is a bad Indians team. Nonetheless, they managed last night to beat the aforementioned Royals 7-3 for their 63rd win of the year -- meaning, with eight games left in the season, that they have clinched a two-digit loss total for 2010. For anyone who's curious, the Indians haven't lost 100 games in a season since 1991. And if they go at least 3-5 the rest of the way, they'll beat last year's record of 65-97. And they're a half-game behind the Royals for fourth place in the AL Central. It's not much to cling to, but it's at least something.

Josh Tomlin pitched a complete-game four-hitter for the win, his first career complete game in his 11th career start. Tomlin was a 14th-round draft pick who started the season in the bullpen at AAA Columbus, and has been a very pleasant surprise since getting added to the rotation in Cleveland in late July. He's now 5-4 with a 4.50 ERA, and has gone at least five innings every time he's taken the mound at the big-league level.

During last night's game, there was an elderly man sitting in the front row near home plate on the first-base side who was in the shot whenever the camera focused on a left-handed hitter. In the first inning, he was wearing a bright yellow ballcap that ensured that the viewer's eyes landed on him whenever he was in the shot. By the third inning, he had switched to a hot pink cap with Chief Wahoo on it, and later in the game, he was wearing a blaze orange cap. He may have changed his hat more often, but I didn't watch every inning. I can only guess what he might have been up to. Maybe he was just trying to confound people. Who knows. But I thought it notable.

Another incident in last night's game underscored the very real necessity to pay close attention when you're at the game. A line drive off the bat of Drew Sutton screamed into the seats along the third-base line, and went into the last four or five rows in the lower seating area. Several fans tried to catch it, but it was too hot, and wound up hitting a woman in the face. The fans around her alerted an usher, who immediately started waving for help, and then the screen went back to Sutton. Announcers Matt Underwood and Rick Manning were completely oblivious, as they continued their discussion about Royals pitcher Gil Meche, and I have not found any references to the woman in the media reports, but she could have been seriously hurt. You've got to pay attention at the game. A baseball can seriously injure you. That's today's lesson.

Unintentional hiatus

2010-09-04T13:45:00.003-04:00

This post is simply meant to explain the lack of posts over the past little while, and over the next little while. I have recently made a career change, which includes going back to college and taking Calculus II at Cleveland State. I took Calculus I in 1989 at Miami University, so my skills are a bit rusty. OK, a lot rusty. Many of my classmates were not born yet the last time I took a math class. So I've been spending all my free time trying to catch up. This trend is unlikely to change any time soon, so you might have to go without my keen insights for a while.

This blog will not die, it will merely hibernate for a time. Thank you in advance for your understanding. You are beautiful people.

News flash: Indians suck

2010-08-26T09:05:00.004-04:00

The Indians' 6-1 loss to Oakland last night was their fifth straight, and they have not been competitive at all. I have hardly been watching the games (my tolerance for pain is not what it used to be) beyond just checking in every now and then to see what the score is. Since Thursday's 7-3 win over the Royals, the Tribe has lost to the Tigers 6-0, 5-2 and 8-1, then 5-0 and 6-1 to the Athletics. When you lose five straight and opposing pitchers have exactly one save in that period, that's pathetic. Yes, this team is playing out the string.

At 50-76, the Indians have the third-worst record in the American League. The Orioles are still the worst, despite the strong burst after their managerial change, at 45-82. They've lost seven of their last 11, which is bad, but better than the Indians have done in that period. The disappointing Mariners are 50-77, so it's pretty much even money whether the Tribe will finish ahead of the M's. In the National League, the Pirates and Diamondbacks are worse than our guys. So I guess it could be worse.

There's plenty of blame to go around for this five-game skid. The offense has been non-existent, scoring a total of four runs in five games, on a total of 27 hits. That's about five hits a game. That's terrible. But the starting pitching has been bad too. Five games is, as we all know, a complete round through a starting rotation, and each and every one of our current starters -- Justin Masterson, Josh Tomlin, Jeanmar Gomez, Fausto Carmona and Mitch Talbot -- pitched badly in his outing. They gave up a total of 27 earned runs in a combined 27 2/3 innings of work, which works out to an ERA of 8.78.

The only bright spot has been the bullpen, which during the streak has unfailingly calmed things down to give the offense a chance to recover. (The offense made the least of those opportunities, but that's not the fault of any Tribe relievers.) In the five games, Indians relief pitchers have gone a total of 14 1/3 innings and given up just two runs, which makes for a sterling 1.25 ERA. Would that the bullpen were not the least important part of a ballclub.

We all knew right out of the gate that the Indians wouldn't contend this year; they'd gotten rid of their most expensive veterans last year, with the exception of Travis Hafner, whose contract and recent performance make him untradable. And they've gotten rid of even more players this year and dealt with some key injuries, so the club they're putting on the field on any given day looks more like an above-average AAA team than a major-league team. But even an above-average AAA team shouldn't be THIS bad.

Of course, it's just five games. And of course, winning or losing hardly matters right now, in the grand scheme of things. But we need to see some growth. And what we're seeing right now is not growth. It's just gross.

Round 'em up, ride 'em in (or however that song goes)

2010-08-23T12:16:00.004-04:00

• On this morning's SportsCenter, Cleveland athletes were at the center of the top two plays of the week. The number-two play was by Browns tight end Benjamin Watson, wearing Ozzie Newsome's #82, and making a Newsomesque play in Saturday's 19-17 loss to St. Louis. (Don't Google to find out whether I invented the word "Newsomesque," just assume I did.) On a pass from Jake Delhomme to the back of the end zone, Watson went up and caught it with one hand, then came down and managed to get both feet down even as his momentum was carrying him out of the end zone. The officials originally called it incomplete, but on replay, it was overturned and called a touchdown.

• The number-one top play of the week was from the Indians' 8-1 loss to the Tigers yesterday, courtesy of Jayson Nix, a second baseman by trade who was playing third base. He made two great plays off the bat of Detroit's Don Kelly, but the second was far more spectacular than the first. Kelly hit a pop foul that was headed for the camera bay down the third-base line. Nix got there in plenty of time to make the play, but it appeared to be out of his reach. But he gave it his all, and managed to make the catch even as he toppled head-first into the camera pit, risking concussion or worse. It says something very good about a player who's willing to put forth that kind of effort while playing on a team that's on the bad end of an 8-1 score and is about to fall to 50-74.

• Despite being from two different sports, those plays have quite a lot in common: They were both spectacular catches that seemed impossible until they actually happened; neither would have cost the team very much of they hadn't been made (the Browns not only were playing a preseason game, but would still have had the ball third-and-goal from the 6; Kelly would have still been batting), and both were made in a losing effort. I'm not trying to make some grand point about this, I just found it interesting.

• Remember former Ohio State star Maurice Clarett? How he led the Buckeyes to the 2002 National Championship, then was declared ineligible the following season, ran into legal trouble and then sucked in his tryout with the Broncos? Remember? Well, he wants to try out for the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League; the league will be playing its second season in 2010, the Nighthawks in their first. He has to get permission from a judge to leave Ohio, and it would seem difficult to try out for a team in Nebraska without leaving Ohio. He has a hearing a week from today, and I hope he gets permission. He's 26 years old, which is pretty old for a running back, and he obviously will never become the superstar we all had him figured for; still, it would be nice to see him suit up again, even if it is in a joke league.

• Jim Brown's wife says he tried to move some things around so he could attend the Browns' first-ever "Ring of Honor" ceremony at the home opener on Sept. 19. Word is, she was lying. Brown doesn't want to have anything to do with the Browns anymore, since they stripped him of his role as an "executive advisor" (whatever the hell that means) and stopped funding his Amer-I-Can program. I don't know the details of either decision, but I don't think the team owes him either of those things. They were both undoubtedly goodwill gestures. On the other hand, stopping them would appear to signal an end to the goodwill, so I can understand why Brown would be miffed. Still, it would be nice to see him rise above that for the sake of the Browns' legion of fans who would love to see their greatest player honored in this manner.

• The Cavaliers. I don't have anything much to say about them, it just seems like I should mention them.

If instant replay is good enough for Little League ...

2010-08-21T13:16:00.003-04:00

So I was watching the Little League World Series today, a game between a team from Hamilton, Ohio, and a team from Toms River, New Jersey. (The Ohioans just completed a 16-6 victory, after scoring eight runs in the top of the first. Go Ohio!)

There was a close play at first base, and the New Jersey runner was called safe. Replays clearly showed that the throw beat him, and while the Ohio first baseman stretched almost to the point of taking his foot off the base, he clearly kept contact with it. The call was incorrect. If this happened in a major league game, that would be the end of it; the incorrect call would stand, and the runner would stay on first base, with no out recorded. This would happen in spite of the fact that every observer but the umpire would know it was wrong, because they can watch the replay that he is forbidden to see.

But in the Little League World Series, starting this year, coaches can challenge close calls, and if it is shown to be clearly incorrect, the call can be overturned -- as was the case here. The call was overturned, and the error was corrected. What a concept! Why didn't anybody ever think of this before? I'm sure that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig was watching, and saw how successful instant replay was. And I'm assuming he will push for an expansion to instant replay in the majors, beyond its current use, limited to possible home run calls. ... OK, that was sarcasm. Bud idiotically clings to the belief that allowing an umpire's incorrect call to stand is better than pausing the game for a minute or two to get it correct.

We all remember how, earlier this year, the Indians were the victim of a perfect game that wasn't, pitched by the Tigers' Armando Galarraga, when first base umpire Jim Joyce made almost the exact same incorrect call that was made in this Little League World Series game. With no recourse, the game umpires had no alternative but to let the incorrect call stand, costing Galarraga getting his name in the baseball history books. In part because of the travesty that occurred in that game, ESPN recently did a study of close calls over a two-week period, and determined that in fully one such play out of five, the umpire clearly missed the call. I haven't done the math, but that's got to add up to hundreds of missed calls over the course of the season. How Bud Selig and the rest of Major League Baseball can live with this, I cannot understand.

In the Little League World Series, steps have been taken to ensure that all calls are correct. Somehow, they can't do the same in the regular World Series. It boggles the mind.

Favre is a butt-hat too

2010-08-19T12:44:00.005-04:00

My wife commented on a recent post about LeBron James, calling him a "butt-hat," which I quite liked, and not just because it was my wife who said it. It inspired me to enter that term into a Google image search, and the image above requires no further explanation, at least to the extent of how I got it. I think he's holding his nose to be melodramatic, and not because the butt-hat he's wearing actually smells like a butt.

In any case, this whole Brett Favre business reminds me a lot of LeBron's self-congratulatory one-hour special, in that the guy is so full of himself (and other things) that he sees nothing wrong with stringing a team and a city along while he decides what he's going to do with the rest of his life. I can't be objective about a comparison between them, but I will say that Favre has now done this four straight off-seasons, to three different teams.

I wonder if anybody's totaled up the number of hours spent on ESPN over the years on whether or not Brett Favre is going to retire. This morning's one-hour "SportsCenter" had three non-consecutive segments on Favre's decision to play "one more season" (cough) with the Vikings, including the first 10 minutes or so. Needless to say, that left no time for highlights from last night's Indians-Royals game.

Listen, I don't begrudge the guy's right to keep playing. And I understand that he left Green Bay because they chose to make Aaron Rodgers the starter (though that was in large part because of Favre's pussyfooting around the issue of retirement). But enough is enough already. Either retire or don't. If you're waiting until training camp has already started before you tell a team you're going to join them, you have no business being there.

I never wish injury upon athletes, but there would definitely be an upside to a career-ending knee ligament tear in this case.

Of Fair Hooker

2010-08-17T13:44:00.005-04:00

This post on our good Fair Hooker has been up for over a year, but I never noticed it until now; it contains a reference to this blog. I found it just now looking at my Google Analytics account, which can show me such things as where I'm getting traffic from, both geographically and via linkage.

I don't think I've ever actually written anything about Fair Hooker on this blog, I just used his name because he played for the Browns and had a funny name. Same reason I used Elmer Flick and World B. Free's names, representing the Indians and Cavaliers, respectively. So until I actually do that, allow the above link to serve as an introduction to the actual man whose name is the first name of this blog. I love the following story, which I'd never heard before, from a Browns-Jets Monday Night Football game:

Apparently after Hooker caught a pass, commentator Don Meredith was heard to exclaim "Isn't Fair Hooker a great name?" Keith Jackson said "I'll pass" and Howard Cosell remained silent, so Meredith continued on: "Fair Hooker...I haven't met one yet."

LeBron shows he still has no character

2010-08-17T12:23:00.007-04:00

I've written here several times that I'm tired of talking about LeBron James ... but I just can't seem to help myself. He's on the cover of the next issue of GQ, which sent a writer to hang around him for several weeks, leading up to his infamous auto-fellating announcement special on ESPN. Here's a direct quote from LeBron himself:

"If there was an opportunity for me to return (to the Cavaliers), and those fans welcome me back, that would be a great story."

Some people might be tempted to look at that quote and dream about LeBron coming back here in a few years. I am not one of those people. First of all, if he plays out his contract in Miami and comes back to Cleveland, he'll be 31. Not an old man, by any means, but probably past his career peak. Second of all, it would have been a great story if he'd stayed in Cleveland in the first place — a much better story than him leaving — and he certainly should have known that.

Third of all, and most importantly, LeBron shows more than he realizes about his character, or lack thereof, in that quote. He just became a member of the Miami Heat, and he's already talking about what team he's going to play for next. I obviously don't give a rat's petoot about the Miami Heat — in fact, I want them to go down in flames, no pun intended — but if I owned the Heat, I'd want the players I've got under contract to be committed to winning in Miami for as long as they can imagine. I sure as shootin' wouldn't want my star max-contract signee talking about going somewhere else.

Whatever regrets LeBron might have about turning his back on Northeast Ohio, he's under contract to the Heat now. His job is to try to win basketball games for them, not to worry about going anywhere else afterward — whether it's the same place he came from or not. That's the same character he showed in mailing it in against Boston in the playoffs last year, knowing he wanted to get out of Cleveland, not caring that he was still, at that time, getting paid an obscene amount of money to help the Cavaliers win basketball games.

Here's an excerpt from an interview with the author of the GQ piece, J.R. Moehringer:

Q: Now that we've all had a chance to digest the decision, what's the biggest story going into the season?

A: I think it's LeBron being booed wherever he goes. This is not just a Cleveland problem. This is a guy who had a Tiger Woods-esque fall from grace, even though he didn't really commit any sins—cardinal or venal or otherwise. His sin was that he made a marketing gaffe. He presented himself in an unflattering light. That's not much of a sin on the scale of public sins. And yet he's become a villain. I don't think we've had anything like this in sports history. We haven't had a beloved sports icon become a villain for something so aesthetic. He's despised, absolutely despised, because of a TV special. He didn't cheat on his wife, he didn't drive drunk, he didn't take drugs, he didn't test positive for PEDs, and almost overnight he went from being a loved guy to being hated. That day-in-day-out condemnation is the story.

All of that is true. And I don't know about anybody else, but I will probably never forgive him.

Of jerseys and men

2010-08-16T12:16:00.003-04:00

This past weekend, I attended Roverfest in downtown Cleveland along with my wife and several members of our extended family on her side. This post is not about Roverfest, but about something I noticed there. We all know this is Browns Town, and I saw numerous people wearing Browns paraphernalia at the show. The ones that I noticed in particular were the Browns jerseys with the numbers and names of individual players on them: 38, Langham; 10, Quinn; 16, Cribbs; and 32, Brown.

This got me to thinking about the mentality of buying a team jersey with a player's name on it. It's the closest thing you can get to wearing the same thing an actual player wears, short of putting on the entire uniform, with helmet, pads and all. But what of the player you're honoring?

• Antonio Langham was a decent player for the Browns, a first-round draft pick in 1994 as a cornerback out of Alabama. He went with the team to Baltimore, then wandered about the NFL a bit, even coming back to Cleveland in 1999. This makes him one of only two players who played both for the original Browns and the expansion Browns (the other is Orlando Brown). He finished his career in New England in 2000. So he's been out of the league for a full decade, and only spent three years in Cleveland.

• Brady Quinn, we all remember, was supposed to be our savior as quarterback of the future. He grew up in Ohio as a Browns fan, and that endeared him to us that much more. Only problem is, when he got a shot as the starter, he wasn't very good. We can argue about whether he got a true opportunity, as many quarterbacks struggle in their early careers before finding their way later; it won't change the fact that he got traded to Denver last off-season. So that guy was wearing the Browns jersey of a guy who currently plays for the Broncos.

• Joshua Cribbs is another guy with a Northeast Ohio background, having played his college ball at Kent State; and he's one of the favorite players of every Browns fan I've ever talked to. He has been with the Browns since they signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2005, and has done absolutely everything that's been asked of him on the field. His primary job is returning kicks—and he is sensational at that, holding the NFL record for touchdowns on kick returns—but he also covers kicks and has shown absolutely no hesitation to make a tackle; and plays wide receiver and occasionally wildcat quarterback on the offense. I remember when he was a rookie, and said words to the effect that he would play on the line if he was asked. If I were to wear any jersey worn by a member of the current Browns roster, it would be this guy's. ... But who's to say that in 2014, you won't be wearing the jersey of someone who plays for the Jets or the Titans or the Ravens or Steelers or anybody else? Remember that Cribbs and the Browns had a contract dispute just this past offseason, before the Browns got him to sign a three-year deal worth $20 million. There's no guarantee he'll finish his career here.

• And that brings us to Jim Brown, the greatest Brown of them all, and in fact the greatest athlete ever to play for a Cleveland team. (LeBron's departure ensures that Brown will keep that title for the foreseeable future.) He was the NFL's all-time leading rusher for 19 years after he retired, until Walter Payton broke his record in 1984. He has now been passed by several other running backs in terms of total yards, but none have topped his career average of 5.2 yards per rush. And he'd have certainly held that record longer if he'd played longer — the dude retired at age 29 to become an actor. In 2002, the Sporting News named him the greatest football player of all time, at any position. And best of all, he played his entire career, 1957 to 1965, with the Cleveland Browns. The team paraphernalia I wear is usually limited to a team T-shirt or sweatshirt, with the occasional team hat thrown in, because I root for the name on the front of the uniform, not the back. But if you're going to wear a jersey for an individual player from Cleveland, this is the guy whose jersey you want to wear. He will never, ever be anything else but a Cleveland Brown, and he will probably always be the greatest ever to wear that jersey. I have not always liked him as a person, but at least he never killed anybody, and I did enjoy his performance in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.

In case anyone's wondering, I didn't see any Cavaliers jerseys at all. Probably a number of attendees used to have #23 jerseys with James on the back, but got rid of them a few weeks ago. And that only proves my point. Cheer for the uniform, not the player. And if you're going to try to identify with a player, make sure it's one who can't break your heart.

That's better; more thoughts on other topics

2010-08-13T12:40:00.003-04:00

• So the Indians pulled one out yesterday against the allegedly woeful Orioles, thanks to a strong performance from 22-year-old rookie Jeanmar Gomez. Gomez, making his fourth career start, went six innings, giving up just one run, striking out three, walking none, and keeping the ball in the park. He is now 3-0 with a sterling 1.54 ERA, and has yet to yield more than two runs in a game.

• Michael Brantley, in the leadoff spot, got four hits, to raise his batting average from .174 to .198. He's hitting .375 over his last six games, with three walks. Brantley, who's 23, has a long way to go to show he's a legitimate major league regular, but it's nice to see him starting to hit.

• You will note that both the above players are still trying to establish themselves as major leaguers, as is true of a very large portion of the Indians' roster these days. As a matter of fact, in a quick review of the current Tribe roster, I count exactly five players who have spent the entire year on the major league roster. Everybody else has spent time either in Columbus or on the disabled list. And every one of those five players (Fausto Carmona, Justin Masterson, Chris Perez, Rafael Perez, and Tony Sipp) are pitchers. That's right — not one position player has spent the entire season in a Cleveland Indians uniform. Yes, we're rebuilding.

• Don't forget, the Browns open their preseason tomorrow against the Packers. As seems to be the case perpetually with this team, the biggest question I have will be how the quarterback (currently Jake Delhomme) looks. I'm sure we'll see Seneca Wallace and Colt McCoy at some point as well. McCoy's the one I'm really looking forward to seeing. And I will also be interested to see how the starting defense looks — as well as running back Jerome Harrison, who broke out at the end of last season.

• I have always been a fan of Charles Barkley, at least from a personality standpoint, and he has solidified his position in my good graces with his recent comments about our former hero, LeBron James. Taken from the Fox Sports story:

"I heard about LeBron's little tweet today that he's remembering everybody who said anything bad about him," Barkley said Thursday on ESPN Radio 103.3 Dallas/Fort Worth. "And he said 'everybody.' Well, I want him to make sure that he puts my name on that [list]."
Barkley took particular issue with the one-hour "The Decision" special on ESPN, where James announced he was going to sign with the Heat to play with friends and fellow superstars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
"I thought that his little one-hour special was a punk move," said Barkley, who earlier in the summer said James would never be Michael Jordan.
"I thought them dancing around on the stage was a punk move, and I thought he should've stayed in Cleveland. Him joining Dwyane Wade's team was very disappointing to me."

None of this changes the fact that LeBron is gone, obviously, but it's still nice to hear.

• As I approached I-77 this morning on the Ohio Turnpike on my way to work, I was driving in the center lane, and this dude came up behind me, tailgated me for about a mile, and then came right up on my bumper as he passed me on the left — even though there was no traffic in that lane at all at any point during the whole event. As he went past me, I noticed that he had Ohio plates but a Michigan Wolverines bumper sticker. That shows you what kind of person lives in Ohio and roots for Michigan.

What the *&#%, Baltimore Orioles?

2010-08-12T12:28:00.002-04:00

The erstwhile worst team in the major leagues, the Baltimore Orioles, have suddenly won five in a row and eight out of nine, the last two against the Indians. Despite this hot streak, the O's still have the American League's worst record, and still had the worst record in the majors until last night, when they passed Pittsburgh by half a game.

The obvious thing to point to is the managerial change—Buck Showalter is 8-1 with a team that was a putrid 32-73 when he arrived—but no manager can make that big a difference, at least not permanently. He's probably provided some sort of spark, but a manager can't turn the worst team in baseball into the best. It's simply not possible. The Birds simply have a bunch of players who are playing much, much better at the same time than they were all season. They can't keep this up.

Last night's result was a perfect example. Brad Bergesen took the mound for Baltimore with a 3-9 record and a horrendous 6.26 ERA, having not won a game since May. (It's now August, in case you've lost your calendar.) You may think he probably got sent down or hit the disabled list in the meantime, but I just looked at his game log — while he appears to have missed a start here and there, he'd made 14 starts since his last victory, entering Wednesday night's game.

So what does he do? He pitches a complete game two-hitter, and beats the Tribe 3-1. Last night was the highlight of Brad Bergesen's career to date. The Indians came into the series against the Orioles having gone 13-11 against the likes of the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Tigers and Twins, contenders all. So it's not like this is a team that was ripe for the picking.

How do you explain it? Seriously, I'd like an answer, because I'm just baffled.

Please excuse my recent absence

2010-08-10T12:05:00.005-04:00

My wife and I took the kids on a long weekend trip to Pittsburgh, where we visited Kennywood and the Carnegie Science Center, and did some shopping on Penn Avenue after eating breakfast at an excellent restaurant called DeLuca's, which we saw featured on the Travel Channel's Man v. Food.

Kennywood is quite an underrated amusement park. It's got five or six roller coasters, all of which were pretty good, a couple of which were very good, and the lines were at most half as long as the lines are at Cedar Point. You could ride all of Kennywood's coasters at least three or four times in a day; at Cedar Point, you probably couldn't get through them once. I know Cedar Point has more roller coasters than Kennywood, but you see my point.

The Carnegie Science Center was really good too. There's a World War II-era submarine parked there that you can walk through (I got a bit claustrophobic in there, but still found it fascinating), and there's a side building that houses sports-related activities. You can find out how fast you can throw a baseball, try to figure out which of two bats was corked, see what your vertical leap is, and many more such activities. We'd have had more time to do them if we hadn't gotten to that part of it less than an hour before closing.

Oh, and don't worry, we didn't all turn into Steelers fans—although our 11-year-old decided it would be fun to count how many people she saw wearing Steeler paraphernalia on Penn Avenue. I think she lost count around 40.

Anyway, that's the main reason I haven't posted for a week. I hope both my regular readers will forgive me.

• The Browns have posted their first depth chart of the season, ahead of Saturday's preseason opener against the Packers. There's not much of note here. Top draft pick Joe Haden, who just got into camp last week, is listed behind veterans Eric Wright and Sheldon Brown at cornerback, but Wright just hurt his leg during practice today, so Haden might get the start. We don't yet know how serious the injury is, but this is football, and these things will happen. Anyway, the depth chart isn't the part that interests me. The part that interests me is that the Browns will take the field on Saturday, and this town is set to shift into football mode. I'm pretty excited to see how they look, even if I'm considering an 8-8 season to be a best-case scenario.

• Ohio State is ranked #2 in the opening AP poll, and quarterback Terrelle Pryor is on every list of Heisman hopefuls. Obviously, none of that is important until Sept. 2, when the Buckeyes open the season against a pretty weak Marshall squad; on the other hand, it can't be bad. Maybe this team will give Jim Tressel his second top-level national championship. Their first true test comes Sept. 11 against the #13 Miami Hurricanes at the Horseshoe. That should be very interesting indeed. The only team ranked higher on Ohio State's schedule right now is #12 Wisconsin.

• The Indians are playing decent baseball these days. They lost two of three to the Twins after splitting a four-game series with the Red Sox, but those are both contending teams. They open a three-game set tonight against the suddenly red-hot Orioles, who are 6-1 since Buck Showalter took over as manager. Showalter was the guy I wanted the Indians to hire instead of Manny Acta, but what's done is done. In any case, this Orioles team at its core is a terrible, terrible ballclub, and they will surely come back to earth sometime soon. Maybe starting tonight, when Justin Masterson faces off against Jake Arrieta.

• LeBron James appeared in Akron last weekend and went to Cedar Point on Monday, and nobody beat him up. Is it wrong that I'm disappointed?

2010-08-03T08:13:00.002-04:00

I just read an interesting post on Rob Neyer's SweetSpot Blog by guest blogger Steve Buffum of the B-List Indians Blog. Buffum opines that the trades the Indians have made this year are less about getting players back, and more about getting some playing time for the young prospects who have been relegated to the bench or the minors because some expensive veteran is blocking their way. He starts with the example of Matt LaPorta, who's played very well since Russell Branyan was traded a few weeks ago. And he's got a point.

The vast majority of trades a non-contender makes serves [sic] one of two objectives: saving money or acquiring younger, cheaper talent. But it’s worth keeping in mind that sometimes, a less-obvious benefit is providing the opportunity for a player already in the organization to get the regular playing time he needs to develop. And every now and then, it’s almost like getting another prospect in the deal: one who was very close indeed to reaching the majors as an everyday player.

Meanwhile, the youngsters the Tribe is putting out there these days are actually winning. Yesterday's 6-5 win over the Red Sox was marred somewhat by the injury to phenom catcher Carlos Santana, who hurt his left knee in a collision with Ryan Kalish at home plate in the seventh inning. The trainers don't think he's badly hurt, but we'll have to wait for his MRI results to find out for sure. ... And if you ask me, this is evidence that baseball has to do something about collisions at home plate. There's something wrong when a runner has carte blanche to run over another player at full speed while that other player is almost totally defenseless because he's trying to field a throw. I don't blame Kalish, who was doing his job, but MLB should make it illegal for the catcher to block the runner's path if he doesn't have the ball yet. That's actually in the rules, but I've never seen it enforced.

Anyway, back to the winning Indians. After having lost six of seven, mostly against the powerhouse Rays and Yankees, they've won three one-run games in a row against the Blue Jays and Red Sox. Yesterday's winner was the comeback kid, Fausto Carmona, who's now 11-8. The previous two Tribe starters were each making their second major league start — Josh Tomlin in Saturday's 2-1 win in Toronto, on three days' rest, no less; and Jeanmar Gomez, who got the win in Sunday's 5-4 triumph over the Blue Jays. And Chris Perez, who is now the full-time closer after the Kerry Wood trade, saved all three of them.

Obviously, this Indians team won't contend for anything this year; almost as obviously, they won't contend for anything next year either. But maybe, just maybe, these kids can all come together in a couple of years. As fans, all we can do is hope.

And a young team gets younger

2010-08-02T12:03:00.002-04:00

As I'm sure everyone reading this blog already knows, the Indians pulled off a few salary dumps, er, trades over the weekend. It's kind of hard to keep straight everything that happened, so let me try to summarize, editorialize, and perhaps philosophize.

• Jake Westbrook, the Tribe's opening-day starting pitcher, went to the Cardinals in a three-team trade that sent us Corey Luber from the Padres. Luber, 24, a 6-foot-4 righthander, has spent the season in AA, where he was 6-6 with a 3.45 ERA. His stats indicate blazing stuff; he's struck out 136 hitters in just 122 1/3 innings, against 40 walks. That's promising, but it's hard to bet on a AA pitcher ever getting to the level of a Jake Westbrook. But he's obviously much cheaper, and that's the bottom line.

• Austin Kearns, who's been very solid in left field all year, went to the Yankees for a player to be named later and cash. The player the Indians eventually get for Kearns probably won't be of much significance. This was a pure salary dump. I understand why Mark Shapiro made this move, since the Indians aren't going anywhere this year, and since Kearns was on a one-year contract and not particularly likely to stay here beyond this season, but I sure hate it when the Yankees get a good player just because they're rich.

• Kerry Wood, who's had a rocky two years in Cleveland but is certainly a serviceable bullpen arm if he's healthy, went to the Yankees for a player to be named later OR cash. If the Indians get a player, the player probably won't be of much significance. This was a pure salary dump. I understand why Mark Shapiro made this move, since the Indians aren't going anywhere this year, and since Wood was not particularly likely to stay here beyond this season, but I sure hate it when the Yankees get a good player just because they're rich. ... I feel like I've written something very similar before, but I can't remember when or about whom.

These veterans join Russell Branyan and Jhonny Peralta as ex-2010 Indians, and the Tribe didn't get a whole lot for any of them. These Indians are drawing fewer fans than any other team in baseball, and this obviously isn't going to help the gate, even if it does help the bottom line. My dad told me yesterday he thinks Larry Dolan should just sell the Indians already, and I'm starting to think he's right. This team does have a lot of promising young talent, but if they can't afford to keep anybody after they get good, the prospects for the future are grim. They basically have to hope everybody gets it together at exactly the same time, before any of them get enough major league experience to command a large contract.

Being a fan of Cleveland sports has always been somewhat depressing, but as I look at the state my three teams are in right now, it almost makes me want to stop caring. ... Unfortunately for me, I'm not capable of that. So I continue to suffer along with the rest of you, as our teams continue to suck, with no end to the suckiness in sight.

Bye, Jhonny; roundup

2010-07-29T12:03:00.002-04:00

• In case you missed it, the Indians traded Jhonny Peralta to the Tigers just before last night's game against the Yankees. Peralta came up through the Indians system and debuted in the majors in 2003, then replaced the great Omar Vizquel as the Indians' shortstop beginning in 2005. He never really lived up to the expectations the Tribe front office had for him. In '05, at just 23 years old, Peralta hit .292 with 24 home runs (the latter number a team record for a shortstop) and appeared to be a budding superstar. But he's never had another year that good. He's been a good enough hitter for a shortstop, except that he was never a very good defensive shortstop, which is why they moved him to third this year to make way for the slick-fielding Asdrubal Cabrera at short. He is just 28 (barring any forged documentation; he is Dominican, after all) and may have more good years in him, but I wouldn't put money on it. And since he is in the walk year of his contract and the Indians aren't going anywhere, there was really no reason not to move him.

• Coming back from Detroit is Giovanni Soto, who is not to be confused with Cubs catcher Geovany Soto. This Soto is a 19-year-old minor league pitcher who hails from Puerto Rico, and is 6-6 with a 2.61 ERA in A-ball. He's a long way from the majors, but his early results are promising. He's struck out more than three times as many hitters as he's walked, and he's given up just two home runs in 82 innings. Still, though, a lot can happen to a young arm, and the proverbial streets are proverbially littered with the proverbial bodies of many promising young pitchers who never made it because their young elbows and shoulders couldn't handle the strain they were putting on them. I'd have thought the Indians could have gotten more than that for an established major league infielder who can play short or third and has some pop in his bat.

• I love this a lot more than I feel I should: Some douchebag showed up at the Indians-Yankees game last night wearing a Miami Heat LeBron James jersey, and got screamed at and taunted so much, he had to leave. The police escorted him out. I don't know if he left voluntarily or what, but he probably should have known better than to pull that crap. Nobody seems to know who he is, but he looks young, which, as anyone who's lived through adolescence and is old enough to reflect on it knows, equals stupid. He probably intentionally showed up in that to get attention, but he's lucky he didn't receive that attention in the form of fists to the face.

• Oh, yeah, the Indians lost 8-0 to the Yankees. Fausto Carmona had his worst outing of the season. The Tribe offense couldn't get anything going. Alex Rodriguez didn't homer, so he's still stuck on 599. The end.

• But how about Tuesday night's game! Josh Tomlin beats the freaking New York Yankees in his major league debut! That's fantastic. Tomlin outpitched former Indian (and Cy Young winner) CC Sabathia, taking a shutout into the eighth inning, then came out after giving a leadoff double to Robinson Cano. He held the Yankees to three hits and zero walks in his seven innings of work. Bully for you, Josh! Keep up the good work! (Oh, and he struck out just two. Now, don't be negative.)

• Rest in peace, Jack Tatum, 1948-2010. The Ohio State great is best known for paralyzing a guy on a hit in an NFL game, but it was a perfectly clean, legal hit. That's just the nature of football. He wasn't a dirty player, he was just a hard hitter.

Today's roundup involves Jeopardy!

2010-07-27T08:19:00.003-04:00

• The Indians dropped their third in a row yesterday, as the New York Stinking Yankees came from behind to beat them 3-2, behind a two-run homer by Curtis Granderson off probable soon-to-be-former Indian Jake Westbrook in the eighth. Westbrook pitched pretty well, giving up three runs in eight innings on four hits and two walks against five strikeouts, while pitching to a very powerful Yankee lineup. But he gave up two home runs, and that was his undoing.

• Shin-Soo Choo again showed why he's the best player on the Tribe. Not only did he hit an RBI double that temporarily put the Indians ahead 2-1, he threw out Granderson trying to stretch a single into a double. Replays showed Granderson should have been called safe, but still, it was a heck of a play by Choo, who fielded it off the wall and gunned it to second in one motion.

• The game drew 27,224 fans, which is the Indians' third-highest home attendance of the season. (The top two were the home opener and Nationals rookie Stephen Strasburg's second major league start.) That's due to two factors: One, the Yankees always draw well in Cleveland; and two, Alex Rodriguez is one home run away from his 600th. With Mr. Rod failing to go deep last night, we can expect another large crowd tonight. Too bad for the Indians' bottom line the Yankees are only in town for four games; the Tribe remains 30th out of 30 teams in home attendance.

• Westbrook's contract is up at the end of the season, and while he probably won't be all that expensive next year, given his injury history, it makes sense for the Tribe to flip him for prospects because they're not playing for anything this year. The trade deadline is this Saturday, so this might well have been his last start as an Indian. On the other hand, Westbrook seems like the kind of guy who might help a contender for the rest of the year and then come back to Cleveland. Who knows.

• Jhonny Peralta is also in the last year of his contract, and I don't see any reason not to get prospects for him too. No doubt Mark Shapiro will see what he can get for a lot of players, but off the top of my head, those two guys are the ones who seem most likely to go. Peralta's been kind of a disappointment the last couple of years, both with the bat and the glove, but he could help a contender who's got a hole in the infield, such as Colorado.

• The Cavaliers made a trade yesterday, sending Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair to the Timberwolves for guard Ramon Sessions, center Ryan Hollins and a second-round draft pick. West has been a starter before, and has done some nice things on the court, but he was highly inconsistent this past year — possibly due to his legal troubles — and I'm not very sorry to see him go. Telfair is just a throw-in; he never contributed to the Cavs in any meaningful way. The 24-year-old Sessions only averaged 8.2 points and 2.1 assists last year for the Wolves, but that's in just 21.1 minutes a game, and he had 20 points and 24 assists in one game. He's got an upside. Hollins, 25, will probably never be more than a backup center, which is fine. We'll need one. Anderson Varejao will probably be the starter, with Z and Shaq both gone.

• OK, a game show is not a sport, but this too cool not to mention: The "Jeopardy!" Clue Crew spent some time at the Cleveland Clinic at November, filming an entire category's worth of clues for the show. The Cleveland Clinic category will come up Friday. I DVR "Jeopardy!" and look forward to getting all the questions correct.

Good times at the Tribe Social Deck ... er, Suite

2010-07-25T11:01:00.004-04:00

My lovely wife, Lisa, and I were invited to watch last night's Indians game from the Tribe Social Deck, and I can tell you it was a great place to watch the game from, even though we technically didn't watch it from there. This is the first season for the Tribe Social Deck, which, for anyone who doesn't know, is an area set aside for bloggers and social media users. My wife sent me a story about it, with a link to apply, and you can probably figure out what happened from there.

We arrived at the Social Deck, which is right next to the left-field bleachers, about 10 minutes before game time, and were chatting with the fellow social media-ites (who included Kory, the night guy on Q104), and were sweating our petoots off when a helpful Tribe employee named Rob came by and told us we were being moved to a suite because there was rain in the forecast and because of the hot, sticky weather. And I probably don't need to tell you there's no better way to watch a baseball game than from a suite. That's my wife in the photo below.

Oh, don't get the wrong idea. They didn't feed us all the hot dogs and hamburgers we could eat or anything like that. They had the food cupboards and the fridge all tied off. But my wife scammed a beer off a nice older gentleman in the adjacent suite, who told her he and the friends he was with at the game are all from New York, but now live all over the country and get together to watch baseball games every so often. They're obviously all doing pretty well for themselves.

Anywho, Rob provided us with the materials that are usually only given to the reporters in the press box, which was four pages, front-and-back. It included a page of tidbits about what's going on with the Indians these days — to take just one example: "Better arms: Over the last 23 games the Indians pitchers as a whole sport an ERA of 3.10 (203.1 IP, 183H, 70ER) and have lowered their team ERA from 4.87 to 4.44... Starters are 11-7 w/a 3.46 ERA (137.2IP, 134H, 53ER) in the 23G... Pitching staff has allowed 3 earned runs or less in 17 of the last 23G, over with the Indians are 15-8." There was a page about last night's starter, Mitch Talbot; a page and a half of info about each of the Indians' other players, one by one; a bunch of charts; and a list of every game this season, with the outcomes. Fascinating stuff. I wonder if I could get them to email those materials to me before every game. (Special thanks to my wife for bringing her printout home; I forgot mine in the suite.)

Anyway, we watched the game from the seats around the deck, rather than sitting in the air-conditioned suite. Eight of the ten Tribe Social Deck guests did that; two ladies, whom I never actually met, chose to sit in the suite, which I kind of understand on some level, because it was certainly more comfortable in there, temperature-wise, but I don't go to games to sit inside.

And it started out well for the Indians, with Talbot on fire out of the gates. He tied a team record by striking out six hitters in a row — and it should have been seven, but a third strike was called a ball. But Talbot apparently wore out around the fifth inning, when he gave up a three-run home run to Ben Zobrist. The umpires originally said it was in play, and Zobrist appeared to have a triple, but I could see from our suite on the third-base side that it bounced off the railing, not the fence. Since baseball now has replay for possible home run calls, the umpires looked at it and got it right. The wheels came off for Talbot after that, and everybody was hitting him hard until Manny Acta finally took him out in the sixth.

Rays starter David Price went in the opposite direction, struggling early and giving up three runs in the first two innings, the last two of which came via a two-run homer by Shelley Duncan. But Price really settled down, and the Tribe hitters couldn't get anything going after that.

The loss was the Indians' first to the Rays at home since 2005, which is astounding, given that the Rays have been one of the best teams in baseball the last couple of years, and the Indians have been one of the worst. Still, the Tribe is playing good baseball right now, and is 7-2 since the All-Star break. Justin Masterson starts against Wade Davis in the rubber match at 1:05 today, and while Masterson's had a very up-and-down year, he's capable of shutting a team down.

So ... yeah, huzzah for the Tribe Social Deck. May it last for eons.

Browns' rookies report — yay, football!

2010-07-23T12:02:00.005-04:00

Today's post will be a roundup, because that's my favorite brand of weed killer:

• With the Indians season basically a lost cause and the Cavaliers in the throes of their most disappointing off-season in team history, it's with some degree of excitement that we welcome the start of Browns' training camp. Rookies reported today, and that includes presumed future starting quarterback Colt McCoy, who signed a four-year contract yesterday. McCoy will be third on the depth chart this year, behind Trent Dilfer and Jeff Garcia — sorry — behind Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace, but the winningest quarterback in NCAA history will get his shot, and probably soon. I predict he's the starter in 2011.

• The Tribe was hot out of the gates in the second half, and though they were never in Wednesday afternoon's 6-0 loss to the Twins, they're still 6-1 since the break. No, they won't contend this year, but if some of these youngsters start reaching their potential, a division title in 2011 wouldn't be that far-fetched.

• Shin-Soo Choo will reportedly be in uniform tonight for the series opener against the Rays. With Asdrubal Cabrera having been activated earlier this week, the Tribe is pretty darned close to full strength. The only key player still out is Grady Sizemore, who will miss the rest of the season. Maybe these guys can keep it going. Who knows. I do know this—the Indians have a surprising 17-game winning streak over the Rays at Progressive Field, even though the Rays have clearly been a better team than the Indians for the past three years.

• I've been invited to watch tomorrow night's game from the Tribe Social Deck, apparently because of my extreme blogging power. And I'm taking my most faithful reader — my lovely wife, Lisa — with me. Sorry if you were hoping I'd give you that other ticket. A lot has been written in other places about the Tribe Social Deck, so I won't bore you with any pregame details, but I'm sure I'll be moved to write a few words about it post-.

• The Cavaliers continue to be spurned by players who'd rather play for superior teams for less money. Matt Barnes, who played for the Magic last year, turned down an opportunity to replace a certain departing All-Star in the starting lineup, choosing instead to sign with the defending champion Lakers. He'd have made $7 million in two years here, but will pull in "just" $4 million in the same time frame in L.A. The Cavs can't seem to catch a break.

• Speaking of that departing All-Star, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson were among the former superstars who spoke out against what he did in leaving Cleveland for Miami. I heard a rumor on WKNR, quoting an unnamed blogger, that while LeBron doesn't give two turds what you and I think, Magic and Michael's comments made him reflect upon turning his back on Northeast Ohio, and now he regrets it. It's just a rumor, and anyway, no matter what LeBron thinks now, he's under contract to the Heat for the next six years. But regardless, I hope it's true. I hope he does regret it, I hope he never stops regretting it, and I hope he someday dies a bitter old man because of that regret. If that's hateful of me, then I guess I'm hateful.

You can't stop these Indians, you can only hope to contain them

2010-07-21T08:21:00.002-04:00

The Indians won their sixth straight game last night, beating the Twins 4-3, for their longest winning streak since September 2008. And for that, I believe we can thank Twins catcher Joe Mauer, who did one of the dumbest things I can think of a ballplayer doing. Mauer is a three-time batting champion despite being a fairly slow runner, which is typical for a catcher. The reigning American League MVP came up with one out and runners on first and second in the seventh inning of what was then a tie game, after the Twins had already plated two in the inning to even things up at 3. If I'm a Twins fan, I'm feeling pretty good. There's no guarantee Mauer gets a hit, obviously, but there's nobody the Twins would rather have up there in that situation. A single to the outfield would score the runner from second and put the Twins ahead.

So what does Mauer do? He tries to bunt his way on. From the Associated Press' gamer:

Mauer put forth a reasoned argument, saying that facing hard-throwing lefty Rafael Perez, who likes to throw cutters away, coupled with Indians third baseman Jhonny Peralta playing way back invited the move.

"It's just giving me a base hit," Mauer said. "It got off the end of the bat a little bit and I didn't get it out there far enough. Didn't execute."

That may be, but it apparently never occurred to Mauer that nobody scores from second on a bunt single. Joe Mauer is a great player, and if I were to pick one guy to build a team around, it would be either him or Albert Pujols, but that was just plain stupid. Thanks, Joe. Yesterday was not my birthday, but doubtless there are a few Tribe fans whose birthday it was, and I'm sure they appreciate the gift.

The Indians broke the tie in the top of the eighth when Travis Hafner doubled to the gap in right center to plate Carlos Santana, who had walked to lead off the inning, and after a scoreless bottom of the eighth and top of the ninth, Chris Perez — thrust back into the closer's role after Kerry Wood's recent injury — set the Twins down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth.

Justin Masterson, in his first start since the All-Star break, had a reasonably strong outing, going 6 1/3 and giving up three runs on seven hits. Two of those runs scored after Masterson left the game, as Rafael Perez gave up two hits to score the runners Masterson had left on base. R. Perez got the win, which bugs me a little, but that's the way baseball's archaic scoring system is.

And the Indians remain unbeaten in the season's second half. I'd like to point out, for what it's worth, that each of the six games of the current winning streak was started by a different pitcher — the five regular starters plus Jeanmar Gomez, who made a spot start against Detroit because of the doubleheader. Jake Westbrook, who started the first game of the streak, starts in a 1:10 p.m. game today, against Francisco Liriano. A seventh consecutive win would be super.

Indians are cooking with gas

2010-07-20T12:17:00.002-04:00

I don't know who those guys were wearing Indians uniforms at Target Field in Minnesota yesterday, but they sure didn't very much resemble the Cleveland Indians we've been watching all year. Not only did the Tribe put up double digits in the runs column, but they pounded out 20 hits, a season-high. And by going 5-0 out of the gate in the second half of the season, these terrible 2010 Tribesmen set a new club record. Who could have predicted that?

Trevor Crowe, who's hitting just .261 with just one single home run in 231 at-bats at the big-league level this year, had the game of his life last night, going 4-for-5 with a double and two RBIs. I don't know quite what the Indians expect of the 26-year-old Crowe, but based on what we've seen so far, this game might be the highlight of his career. Sorry, but he's just not that good; still, he should feel good about that performance last night.

Jayson Nix, who's so good the White Sox cut him in mid-season, had three hits. In fairness to Nix, he's been hitting a lot better since joining the Tribe on June 25. He's still hitting .227 for the season, but that's up from .163 when he came over; and he's hit six of his seven long balls this season in a Cleveland uniform.

Aaron Laffey got the win. He did labor through his five innings of work, but nonetheless held the Twins to one unearned run on five hits and four walks, striking out just two. The Twins had at least one runner on base all five of Laffey's innings, and loaded them in the fourth, when they got that unearned run on a passed ball by Carlos Santana. But the bottom line is he only gave up that one run, and got the win.

Justin Masterson takes the mound for the Tribe tonight against the Twins' Kevin Slowey. Let's see if they can keep it going. We still have a chance at an undefeated second half. That'd be awesome.

Four-game sweep, batches!

2010-07-19T12:16:00.003-04:00

I figured the Tribe had a chance to play well against the Tigers this weekend, but a four-game sweep? Never would have guessed that.

Yesterday's 7-2 win was particularly satisfying, in part because of Jhonny Peralta's extremely unlikely inside-the-park home run, which came in his first at-bat upon returning to the lineup after missing three games with the flu. I don't know about you, but I don't usually feel like running 120 yards at top speed when I'm getting over the flu—and Peralta's probably no faster than I am. He did get an assist from the bullpen door, which opened when Detroit's Ryan Raburn crashed into it in a vain attempt to catch Peralta's ball on the fly. Raburn subsequently landed on his petoot, and was unable to get up in time to make a play. I've often said that when you watch a baseball game, the chances are excellent that you'll see something you've never seen before, and that was one of those moments.

Jeanmar Gomez won his major-league debut yesterday, and was better than anyone had a right to expect. Dude was lights-out, going seven innings and giving up two unearned runs on just five hits. He walked one and struck out four. Gomez is a home-grown prospect, having signed with the Indians as an undrafted free agent out of Venezuela in 2006. His career ERA is 0.00. I'm pretty confident he won't keep that up, but he sure showed a lot of promise. Gomez only started that game because Saturday's doubleheader threw off the rotation, and he got sent back to Columbus after the game—but barring injury, we'll surely see him again this year, and probably very soon.

Sunday's victory followed a pair of one-run wins in Saturday's twinbill, necessitated by a May rainout; those, in turn, followed an easy 8-2 win on Friday night. And the Indians, who went a dismal 34-54 before the All-Star break, are now 4-0 since the break. If they can win all their games after the break, they'll finish 108-54. I think I'll order World Series tickets right now.

The second half approacheth; other thoughts

2010-07-16T12:15:00.002-04:00

• The Indians open the second half of the season tonight against the Tigers, with opening-day starter Jake Westbrook also starting the first game of the second half. I don't suppose it makes much difference, because the Indians ain't goin' nowhere nohow, but I'd have started Fausto Carmona tonight. He's been the team's best starter thus far, and he didn't pitch in the All-Star Game, so he's rested. But that's a minor quibble.

• The Tigers, though they are a strong 48-38 overall, are a surprising 16-25 on the road. That's probably an aberration, but regardless, the Tribe has a fighting chance in this series.

• I don't have time to write a complete second-half preview, but in a nutshell, here's what I think we'll see the rest of the season: trades of veterans with expiring contracts, and a lot of young players trying to prove they belong in the majors. It's hard to imagine that they could be much worse than they were in the first half, but if they get rid of their high-priced talent and put the games in the hands of unproven youngsters, that is in fact entirely possible. But it doesn't matter much. The important thing is trying to contend in 2012 or 2013. Preferably both.

• Shin-Soo Choo could be returning soon, which would be a big help. He hit off a tee Wednesday and took some swings in the batting cage Thursday, and says he feels close to 100%. The Tribe's offense isn't very potent even with Choo in the lineup, but if they're going to score some runs in the second half, he's going to have to be one of the guys who knocks them in. Asdrubal Cabrera will likely also be back soon; he's currently on a rehab assignment in Akron. He's not the run producer Choo is, but he can hit some, and his slick glove is always welcome.

• And now ... the Cavaliers. A judge has given Delonte West eight months' home detention rather than jail for carrying weapons in Maryland. He will be allowed to leave home for practices and games, which means he'll be able to play. There's no stopping the Cavs now ... (I would like to point out that West didn't actually use his guns on anyone, but I guess nobody much cares.)

• It took the Houston Rockets less than a day to match the Cavs' offer to guard Kyle Lowry, so the Cavs are still looking for a backup point guard. They may also be looking for other players. They seem to have a hole at small forward, for example. I can't remember who was there last year, but I think I remember hearing he's gone.

• Oh, yeah. I remember now. Here's something cheery for those who wish ill on the Miami Heat next year (which I'm thinking is pretty much all of us): LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were all on the team that represented the United States in the 2006 FIBA World Championship, which is basketball's version of the World Cup. Not only did that team not win the title, they didn't even get there. They were eliminated by Greece in the semifinals. That Greek team had exactly one NBA player on it (Vassilis Spanoulis), and I've never heard of him.

• Someone named "dkbfish" just commented on my last post about how he's getting back at LeBron with "forever ungrateful" T-shirts. I don't think whoever that is cares about my blog at all, he's just trying to sell T-shirts. But what the hell, I left it up. Maybe he'll send me a free one. (cough)

Z leaves too; other thoughts

2010-07-14T12:12:00.003-04:00

• OK, in my last post, I said that I hope my next post about the Cavaliers would be about the players we do have, rather than the ones we don't. Then Zydrunas Ilgauskas signed a contract with the dreaded Miami Heat — the same team that managed to land a somewhat more prominent ex-Cavalier. Z has long been one of my favorite players, and I'll miss him, but I don't begrudge him the chance to go gunning for a title in Miami. His situation is totally different from that of his teammate (whom I've chosen not to name in this post, for my own childish, petty reasons). If Miami does win a title next year, Z's presence on the roster will be the only saving grace, for me.

• The Cavaliers signed erstwhile Houston Rockets guard Kyle Lowry to an offer sheet yesterday. Under the NBA's labyrinthine salary-cap rules, the Rockets have a week to match the offer, if they so choose, because Lowry is a restricted free agent. Lowry is a tough defender who averaged 9.1 points and 4.5 assists in 21 minutes a game last year. ... Is he a high-impact guy? Heck, no. Let's hope this isn't the only move the Cavs make this offseason.

• Last night, the National League won its first All-Star Game since 1996, thanks to a three-run double by the Braves' Brian McCann — who's on my fantasy team, but I don't get any credit for that hit, which I think is BS. If the All-Star Game counts for something (home field advantage in the World Series), I think the stats should count in fantasy leagues. I'm dead serious about that.

• As I predicted, the Indians' lone All-Star, Fausto Carmona, did not get into the game. He wouldn't have gotten in unless the game went to 15 innings or so. But I hope he had a good time watching it from the bullpen.

• Overshadowing the All-Star Game, of course, was the death of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, 1930-2010. Steinbrenner was born on the Fourth of July in Rocky River, the son of a world-class hurdler. Long before he bought the Yankees, he revitalized the dying Kinsman Marine Transit Company and parlayed that into a majority share in the American Shipbuilding Company, in which he made enough money to buy the Yankees for $8.8 million in 1973. Never mind what the Yankees have done on the field since then — that was a remarkably sound investment. The team is now worth an estimated $1.5 billion, with a B. That's a 17,000% return on his initial investment. Steinbrenner owned the one team in American sports that I hate the most, but I've never held that against him. In fact, I kind of liked the old poop. The good news is, now that he and Billy Martin are reunited in the afterlife, he can hire and fire Martin again.

Stern weighs in

2010-07-13T06:47:00.003-04:00

NBA Commissioner David Stern says LeBron James' prime-time "The Decision" special was "ill-advised," and that he should have let the Cavaliers know he was leaving before he announced it on national TV. Gee, thanks, Dave. He added that the way James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh met to discuss their futures together didn't violate league rules and won't be investigated. Whatever. What good would an investigation have done anyway? What would we want out of it, for him to force LeBron to come back to Cleveland? Would we want a player who doesn't want to be here?

Stern also fined Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert $100,000 for his open letter to fans after James' announcement. Big deal. Dan Gilbert has $100,000 in his change jar. I'm pretty sure it was worth $100,000 for him to blow off that steam. Stern also rebuked Jesse Jackson, who said Gilbert's comments indicate he thinks of James as "a runaway slave." This is a sports blog, and I'm not going to get into issues involving the racial climate in this country, except to say I'm pretty confident Gilbert would reacted the same way if James were white.

This whole situation is just ugly, sad and unfortunate. Did Gilbert overreact? Sure, he did. But he was angry and hurt. How many of us can honestly say we'd have handled it better?

Regardless, there will be a Cavaliers season that starts in October. The Cavs won't be the marquee team they've been for the past seven years, but they'll win a few games. How many, I have no idea. They'll probably take a while to recover from this, but they've got a good management team in place, and given a few years, they'll be competitive again. I'm tired of thinking about who they don't have anymore. I hope my next Cavaliers-related post will be about who they do have.

LeBron is still gone

2010-07-12T08:29:00.003-04:00

• Obviously, the number-one sports story on everyone's mind in Cleveland is still LeBron James, even though it's been four days now since he made his ridiculous little announcement in a national TV special. And who am I kidding? It's still going to be the top Cleveland sports story for a little while yet. I don't want to wallow in this situation, but I can't deny the wound is still raw. My wife asked me last night if I hate LeBron James. I try not to be the kind of person who hates people in general, and especially not athletes, but I can't deny there's a little bit of hatred there. I've had fantasies about him accidentally getting one of his legs torn off, for example. That certainly doesn't come from a place of love and forgiveness. I'm not proud of those feelings, but like most Clevelanders, I feel betrayed.

• With that in mind, I understand why Dan Gilbert felt the need to spout off about LeBron after his announcement last week. If you're reading this blog, I'm sure you've read at least part of that letter, so I won't go into the details of it right now. But Gilbert was angry and frustrated, and let the world know about it. Not only did LeBron not tell Gilbert he was leaving before he told a national TV audience, he reportedly refused to return any of his voice mails or text messages at any point after the Cavaliers' playoff run ended. No wonder he was so fired up. Still ... as a team owner, he should have shown some restraint. As loyal Of Fair Hooker reader Jeff Brown pointed out in a reply to my last post, that kind of thing has the potential to scare off any other free agents that might have considered coming here.

• I didn't think the Cavaliers would do anything to help LeBron make more money, which would have involved a sign-and-trade deal. I'm happy to see I was wrong. Certainly not because LeBron will make more money, but because at least we got something out of this debacle. They got two first-round and two second-round draft picks. Given that the Heat will likely go deep into the playoffs, those picks will be low in those rounds, so we're obviously not going to get another LeBron out of any of them, but we should be able to get some decent talent out of that. The Cavs made the best of a bad situation.

• That's enough of that, at least for today. Maybe tomorrow or the next day, I'll post a list of companies that have LeBron as a spokesman, so we can all boycott them.

• The Indians go into the All-Star break with a dreadful 34-54 record, which is hardly surprising given the fact that they traded away most of their top veterans last year, and most of the rest of their top veterans have gotten hurt in the first half of the season. This team does have a lot of young talent stockpiled, but they're at least a couple of years away from contending. Thank goodness we're in the mediocre AL Central.

• The Tribe's lone All-Star is Fausto Carmona, and I'd say it's fairly doubtful that he'll get into the game. Fausto has had a fine first half (8-7, 3.64), but I think it's obvious that if it weren't for the rule that every team has to be represented, coupled with the fact that Shin-Soo Choo got hurt, he wouldn't be on the AL team. Still, he should be proud of what he's accomplished in coming back from some terrible, injury-filled years in 2008 and 2009.

He's gone

2010-07-09T08:06:00.003-04:00

This one hurts.

Northeast Ohio native LeBron James has turned his back on us. Arguably the greatest pro athlete ever to call Cleveland home has decided he'd rather play in Miami. He's chosen to leave the team that plays an hour from his hometown in order to play in a city to which he has absolutely no personal connection whatsoever. Not to mention, he left $30 million on the table to do it.

Over the 11 hours or so since LeBron made his announcement last night, I've had about a million different things go through my head that I thought about addressing in this space this morning, and if I had all day to write this post, I probably still wouldn't get to them all. But I think the thing that hurts the most about this is the knowledge that LeBron will probably win multiple NBA championships, but not for Cleveland.

It's hard to make sense of what LeBron just did. I can't help but think he doesn't really understand it himself. A celebrity of LeBron's stature lives his life in a bubble, and while he certainly knows he'll be leaving behind some hurt feelings back here, I don't think he realizes the full ramifications of this. If he'd stayed in Cleveland, he'd have been the city's greatest athletic hero of all time. After he retired, they'd have built a statue of him outside the Q (or whatever it'll be called then). He'd be universally loved in his hometown of Akron and the entire region. Now, he'll be forever despised here. This is not like Manny Ramirez or Jim Thome leaving for more money somewhere else. This is someone who was from here and could have made more money to stay, but chose to leave anyway. The fact that he's his sport's best player makes it hurt just that much more.

LeBron's stated reason for going to Miami is that he feels that's his best chance to win a title. I must admit, you can look at the Heat roster as it stands now and defend that sentiment. They've got Dwyane Wade and now Chris Bosh to go along with LeBron. I do believe LeBron is genuine when he says that's his reason for leaving. But here's the thing about that — he could have won a title in Cleveland THIS YEAR, if he himself had played up to his own standards in the playoffs. He wasn't the only Cavalier who didn't play well in the Boston series, but we've seen him play a whole lot better than he did then. Yes, with players like Wade and Bosh on his side, he won't shoulder so much of a burden, but if he'd stayed in Cleveland, the Cavs could have gotten him somebody like that. Bosh balked at playing with LeBron in Cleveland, but if LeBron had made the decision to stay here, I'll bet Bosh would have reconsidered.

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert's angry letter to fans guarantees that the Cavaliers will win a title before LeBron does. I wish I could believe that. Without a marquee player like LeBron, this team will be lucky just to reach the playoffs next year.

We Cleveland sports fans have been through a lot in our lives, and every time we see an event such as The Drive or The Shot or Jose Mesa's meltdown, it's another dagger in our hearts. As I've matured over my 39 years on this planet, I've learned to try to keep myself from getting too wrapped up in the outcomes of sporting events. Ever since the world learned what LeBron James has chosen to do with the next five years of his life, I've tried very hard to remind myself that it's just sports, that it's not really anything important. But so far, I haven't really been able to convince myself that this doesn't hurt.

It does. It hurts like hell.

LeBron's ready to choose ... right?

2010-07-07T08:19:00.003-04:00

Reportedly, LeBron James is going to announce at 9 p.m. Thursday on ESPN what he's going to do with the next five years of his life. ... Well, OK, we know he's going to play basketball, but we don't know for whom. We don't know where he's going to make his announcement, other than the fact that it's going to be shown on ESPN. So there's still not much that we know; only that we'll know more in a little over 36 hours.

According to reports, James tried to convince the Raptors' Chris Bosh to come to Cleveland from Toronto in a sign-and-trade deal that would have sent Anderson Varejao to the Raptors. That would seem to be a good sign for the Cavaliers, that LeBron is trying to recruit other big names to come here. But although Bosh wants to play with LeBron, he doesn't want to do it in Cleveland. That could be a huge blow to the Cavs. Bosh is reportedly close to signing with Miami to play with Dwyane Wade, but the Raptors aren't going to do a sign-and-trade with the Heat, as Miami doesn't have the players to make it worth their while. So if Bosh does sign in Miami, he'll be leaving $30 million on the table, under the NBA's salary cap rules; not to mention (possibly) the chance to play with LeBron. It is possible that LeBron could join Wade and Bosh in Miami, but if he does, he'll also be leaving $30 million on the table.

I could start going into what the Cavaliers' options are if they don't sign LeBron — or, for that matter, if they DO sign him — but I'm just going to wait and see what he does before I start in on that crap.

We'll find out tomorrow night. And whatever he decides, you and I will survive.

LeBron-a-thon continues

2010-07-06T08:20:00.004-04:00

I've been away from the computer for a few days, but I will attempt to round up my thoughts on what we've missed over the long weekend. Starting ... wait for it ... now!

• LeBron James is still keeping his mouth shut about his plans for signing anywhere, if he has any. He's currently running his three-day basketball camp in Akron, and is reportedly behaving as if he's got nothing else on his mind. That's a good thing for those young men who are attending his camp; maybe not so good for media outlets that are trying to get a read on what he's going to do. It's been reported that he's likely to announce something as soon as his camp is over. Maybe so. I guess we'll just have to wait.

• Amar'e Stoudemire announced yesterday that he's agreed to a nine-figure contract with the Knicks, and has been recruiting LeBron to join him there. How much difference will that make to LeBron? Only one man knows. And that's assuming he even knows, which he may not.

• The Indians are 3-2 so far in the month of July, but continue to get hit with injuries. Shin-Soo Choo, who's been their best player all year, is out with a thumb injury that he sustained while diving to catch a fly ball on Friday, and we don't know yet whether he needs surgery or not. He's likely to be out a couple of months, but we'll see. Grady Sizemore and Asdrubal Cabrera are both out too; Sizemore for the season, Cabrera until late July or early August. Those are the Tribe's three best position players. It's tough for any team to overcome that, much less a young, cheap team like the Indians.

• Matt LaPorta continues to sizzle, but took an elbow to the head while covering first base on a ground ball in yesterday's 9-3 win over Texas. LaPorta's two-run homer gave him five on the season — four of which have come since June 29 — and he's hitting .333 with a .412 OBP and .767 slugging average since taking over first base when Russell Branyan was traded June 27. But he was dazed and nauseous after Elvis Andrus clocked him with his elbow while LaPorta was trying to field a throw that bounced in the dirt. Let's hope this doesn't throw him off his game, because he's doing some fine things right now.

• The Netherlands, which I'm on record as rooting for in the World Cup, has its match with Uruguay at 2:30 this afternoon to see who plays the Germany-Spain winner for the championship. Uruguay, you may be surprised to learn, won the first-ever World Cup in 1930, and also won the title in 1950. The Dutch have reached the final twice, most recently in 1978, but never won it. The nation then known as West Germany won three titles out of its six trips to the final, and the unified German team lost the final in 2002. Spain, much to my surprise, has never gotten to the final. I tend to root for teams that have never tasted the glory, so I'll be rooting for the Dutch and the Spanish to reach the title game. It should be interesting.

Indians are on fire! But nobody put them out!

2010-07-02T08:13:00.004-04:00

Our lousy baseball team (the Indians, duh) swept a four-game series against the Blue Jays this week, culminating in yesterday afternoon's 6-1 triumph, keyed by a three-run homer off the bat of Matt LaPorta and a fine performance by starting pitcher Justin Masterson, who got his third win of 2010 after failing to win a single game the first two months of the season.

First, let's talk about LaPorta. At 25, he's getting his second shot to play every day in the bigs, thanks to the Russell Branyan trade. His first shot came at the beginning of the season, when he was the everyday first baseman for a while, but he knew he'd be losing his job when Branyan came off the disabled list. Now, he's in no one's shadow. Whether that explains this week's power surge, I cannot say, for I am not a licensed therapist, and I have never spoken to him anyway. But facts are facts, and it's a fact that he entered the series against the Blue Jays with just one home run in 123 at-bats at the major league level this year. He has now gone deep three games in a row, and since the start of the Toronto series, his average stats have jumped from .211/.281/.268 to .228/.300/.353. His minor league numbers (56 home runs in 884 at-bats, including five dingers in 69 at-bats at Columbus this year) suggest this is closer to the LaPorta we should expect to see, and I hope they're right. Don't lie to me, Matt LaPorta's minor league numbers.

Now, on to Masterson, who has been up-and-down the last few weeks, after being pretty much just down in April and May. He was bad in his last outing going into yesterday's game (six runs in five innings in a loss to Cincinnati), but was very good yesterday, giving up just one run in 8 1/3 innings, on eight hits. He struck out five, didn't walk anybody, and kept the ball in the yard. And while he's still not consistent enough, he's really turned his season around. On May 24, after giving up five runs in four innings of a loss to the White Sox, Masterson was 0-5 with a 6.13 ERA, and appeared to be about ready to lose his spot in the starting rotation. He's now 3-7 with a 4.85 ERA, and though he's not likely to pitch in any All-Star games anytime soon, he's obviously a highly serviceable starter right now.

Masterson did get into trouble in the ninth, the inning in which the Blue Jays got their one run. Masterson left with the bases loaded, just one out, and the one run in, and rookie Frank "Extra Consonants" Herrmann came in to face Jose Molina. It was a save situation, because the Jays had the tying run on deck. After getting ahead of Molina 1-2, Herrmann got him to hit a routine double-play ball to shortstop, ending the game. Not only was it Herrmann's first major league save, he became the third Indian to save a game in three days. I'm sure that's been done before, but I can't remember ever hearing of it. That's pretty cool, if you're into that sort of thing. Which I am. If that makes me a nerd, then I guess I'm a nerd.

The Tribe opens a three-gamer tonight against Oakland at Progressive Field, and comes in riding a season-long five-game winning streak. Can they keep it going? Tune in tonight to find out!

We cover all three Cleveland teams in this roundup!

2010-07-01T12:14:00.005-04:00

• Ladies and gentlemen, the best player currently under contract to the Cleveland Cavaliers is either Mo Williams or Antawn Jamison. LeBron James' contract expired a little more than 12 hours ago, and he is now beholden to no man. Until he signs his next contract, of course, at which point he'll be more beholden than ever, because it's going to have some very large numbers following dollar signs on it. He's going to spend the next few days meeting with representatives from several teams (the Nets are in town right now), who will probably do anything he asks in hopes of signing him. This is a family blog, so all I'm going to say is that there's really nothing I'd put past some of these team owners.

• After it looked so certain yesterday that the Cavs were going to name Brian Shaw as their next coach, the reports today are that Byron Scott is the guy. I frankly prefer Scott, since he's got head coach experience in the NBA and has even taken a team to the Finals. (Of course, so has Mike Brown ... Stop that, Steve.) Scott's agent has said he's agreed to be the next coach, which is a pretty strong source. Regardless, as I said yesterday, the only thing that really matters, as far as who the next coach is, is whether it makes LeBron want to stay. No matter who the coach is, they're title contenders with LeBron, but without him, they're the Clippers.

• Break up the Indians! After last night's 3-1 victory over Toronto, the Tribe is now riding a four-game winning streak. And for winning pitcher Aaron Laffey, it's been an enormous week. Not only did he just get his first win in the majors this season, his wife gave birth to their son on Tuesday. Laffey was very good last night, limiting the Blue Jays to one run on five hits over six innings, striking out five and walking two. Matt LaPorta, who has taken over first base after the Branyan trade, homered for the second-straight game; and Shin-Soo Choo also went deep. And Chris Perez, who had so many white-knuckle moments early in the season as the closer while Kerry Wood got healthy, slammed the door in a 1-2-3 ninth. Perez was closing this one because Wood had pitched three days in a row, and has really turned his season around.

• I will pass this factoid along without comment, but it's something I noticed: The Indians' starting lineup for today's series closer against the Jays has exactly two players who have spent the entire season with the Indians at the major league level this year: Choo and Travis Hafner.

• I was looking on the Yahoo fantasy sports site today, and found they have rated the Browns 31st out of 32 teams in the NFL from a fantasy perspective. The piece, by Andy Behrens, which you can read here, notes that the Browns figure to have a strong running game, featuring Jerome Harrison and second-round draft pick Montario Hardesty; but the passing game figures to be dookie, behind Jake Delhomme. An excerpt:

Seriously: If a team wants to deliver a groin-kick to its fan base, the best way to do so is to acquire Delhomme. He's turned the ball over 27 times in his last 12 games, dating back to his catastrophic playoff performance against Arizona. Jake threw 18 interceptions in 11 appearances last season.
At this stage in the 35-year-old's career, he's simply not someone you want at the controls of an offense — not in real-life, not in fantasy. Delhomme was a mess in Carolina when he had Steve Smith at his disposal; there's no reason to expect better results with the Browns' receiving corps.

Well, we do have Seneca Wallace waiting as his backup ...

Indians win third straight

2010-06-30T12:29:00.003-04:00

No time for anything but quick hits:

• The Indians have followed up their seven-game losing streak with a three-game winning streak. Yes, seven is a much bigger number than three, but still, it's nice to see them put a few W's together. Fausto Carmona pitched well, Kerry Wood slammed the door for the save, and Matt LaPorta homered in the 6-5 win over Toronto.

• Here it is, the last day of June, one month from baseball's non-waiver trade deadline. The Indians have a few pieces that could be attractive. In case you missed it, the trading has already started, as Russell Branyan got shipped off to Seattle over the weekend for a couple of OK prospects. Outfielder Ezequiel Carrera hasn't done much in AAA this year and is in fact currently on the disabled list, but won the Class AA Southern League batting title last year, hitting .336. He's only 22, so let's hope he develops. Shortstop Juan Diaz is hitting .295 with seven homers in high A-ball, at age 21. I'm looking forward to seeing what he's doing in a couple of years.

• Other players that could bring attractive prospects include Wood, Austin Kearns, Jhonny Peralta and Jake Westbrook, all of whom are in the last year of their current contract. (In Kearns' case, it's the only year of his contract.) None of those guys figure to be hugely expensive next year, but this team's not going anywhere right now anyway, and might as well try to get some players who could help build something for 2012 or '13.

• The Cavaliers have said they will have a coach in place by the time LeBron James becomes a free agent. That happens less than 12 hours from now, so we'll see. It's looking like it'll be either Brian Shaw, who has no NBA head coaching experience; or Byron Scott, who took the Nets to the NBA Finals a few years ago but has a sub-.500 record in 10 years as a head coach. And the reports are overwhelmingly that Shaw is the guy. In fact, though the most recent news story I can find says the Cavs haven't made an offer to Shaw, his Wikipedia page has been edited to say he's the current head coach of the Cavaliers. Take that with a grain of salt, because any idiot can make a Wikipedia page say anything, but still.

• I have no idea what to make of Shaw at this point, but he's been an assistant of Phil Jackson with the Lakers since 2004-05. Jackson, who has now won 11 titles as a head coach, would be any organization's first choice for head coach. But he's not available, so maybe his top assistant really is the best guy out there. It's hard to say what kind of head coach he'll be, but oddly enough, that's almost beside the point right now. The only thing that really matters is what coach will entice LeBron to stay in Cleveland. So the question isn't whether he'll really be a good coach, but whether LeBron thinks he'll be a good coach. It seems ridiculous to look at it that way, but the fact is, a player like James matters a lot more to the team's prospects than any coach ever could.

• Reports on where LeBron will end up have been flying like mosquitoes at dusk. I've read that he's leaning toward Chicago, that he's giving strong consideration to Miami, and that Cleveland still has the inside track—all in the same day. It's obviously not possible that he could go all three places. So who the hell knows.

• With the U.S. out of the World Cup, eliminated by Ghana for the second World Cup in a row, I initially decided to root for Mexico. Our neighbors to the south were eliminated the very next day. Out of the eight teams remaining, I think I'll pull for the Netherlands. I'm not sure why. Maybe because Dutch people wear wooden shoes and smoke pot in public and have names like Stijn Schaars and Demy de Zeeuw (both names of players on their squad). Either way, they're up against Brazil on Friday, after which I'll probably have to pick a new team to root for.

Tribe ends skid, but still sucks

2010-06-28T08:13:00.003-04:00

If you're a Tribe fan, you've got to love Shin-Soo Choo. After his two home runs yesterday, Choo is back in the team lead with 12, and his four RBIs were key to the Indians' 5-3 defeat of Cincinnati, ending the club's seven-game losing streak. Choo also leads the team in RBIs, hits, total bases, and the three major average stats (among those with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title).

Carlos Santana also went deep, for his fourth home run in just 15 games. True, 15 games isn't much of a sample size, but he's shown he's definitely a major league-caliber player, and could play in an All-Star Game as soon as 2011. Heck, he might have gotten there this year if he'd started the season in Cleveland. And speaking of young talent, rookie Mitch Talbot won his eighth game of the year, which leads the team; and his 3.88 ERA is none too shabby.

All of that is encouraging, unless you look at the standings. The Indians are now 27-47, which puts them on a pace to go 59-103. That would qualify as the second-worst record in team history, behind the 1991 team's 57-105. Though, it should be noted that the '91 team included a lot of players who would go on to be stars during the Tribe's coming glory days — players like Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga, Jim Thome, Sandy Alomar and Charles Nagy.

And the Indians are not, as a certain commenter recently claimed on a previous post, the worst team in the American League. That would be the Baltimore Orioles, who are an eye-popping-bad 23-52, which puts them on a pace to go 49-113. They could threaten the mark for single-season losses, set by the expansion 1962 Mets, who went 40-120. As bad as this Indians team is, we can at least take some comfort in the fact that the club that takes the field every day in Baltimore is worse. Not much comfort, but some.

News flash: Losing on a walk-off homer sucks

2010-06-24T08:25:00.005-04:00

A quick roundup on what's going on in the world of sports:

• The Indians lost a tough one last night in Philadelphia. They scratched out a run in the top of the ninth to go up 6-5, though they should have scored more. But then Kerry Wood gave up a two-run walk-off homer to Jimmy Rollins in the bottom half, and the Tribe now has a four-game losing streak and the second-worst record in the American League.

• Obscured in the difficult loss were Shin-Soo Choo's pair of two-run home runs, bringing his season total to 10 and tying him with Russell Branyan for the team lead. Also, Carlos Santana had two RBIs, both coming without hits (though he did have a hit in the game, and drew a walk). Santana's major league career is off to a roaring start, as he's hitting .353/.477/.706. He's only been up for two weeks, but if he were to keep up that pace long enough to qualify, he'd currently be leading the AL in both on-base percentage and slugging percentage. It's doubtful he could keep hitting like that over a full season, at least this early in his career, but he's shown Manny Acta enough that he's going to stay batting in that number-three hole for quite a while.

• The United States will play Ghana, who finished second in Group D, in the next round of the World Cup. Ghana finished 1-1-1 in group play, and is ranked 32nd in the world by FIFA. (The U.S. is ranked 14th.) I think we have an excellent chance of moving on, as long as we don't get another America-hating referee. Fingers crossed.

• The Cavaliers don't have a pick in tonight's NBA draft. There are rumors that they'll try to get one via trade, but I find it hard to care about the draft when there's a much, much bigger off-season consideration going on with this team. Off the top of my head, I can't remember what it is ... Oh, yeah. LeBron.

• I have never heard of a tennis match lasting 10 hours, but that's what's going on right now at Wimbledon. (And you've never heard of it either; it's never happened before.) American John Isner is locked in an epic struggle with Frenchman Nicolas Mahut that was suspended 10 hours into play. Can you imagine playing tennis for 10 hours? These guys are some of the best athletes in the world, but their bodies must be killing them right now. And they have to take it up again today, probably both fighting off soreness like they've never felt in their lives. From the Associated Press story:

Never before in the history of Wimbledon, which was first contested in 1877, had any match -- singles or doubles, men or women -- lasted more than 112 games, a mark set in 1969. Isner and Mahut have played more games than that in their fifth set, without a victor, although the American came close: He had four match points but Mahut saved each one.
"He's serving fantastic. I'm serving fantastic. That's really all there is to it," Isner said. "I'd like to see the stats and see what the ace count looks like for both of us."
Well, here they are: Isner has 98 aces, Mahut 95 -- both eclipsing the previous high in a match at any tournament, 78. All the numbers are truly astounding: There have been 881 points, 612 in the fifth set. Isner has compiled 218 winners, Mahut 217. Isner has only 44 unforced errors, Mahut 37.
And this cannot be emphasized enough: They are not finished.
No one won yet.

After the two men split the first four sets, they are tied 59-59 in the fifth set. They will start up again at 10:30 a.m. our time. One of them could win it right away, or it could last another few hours. Should be interesting.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

2010-06-23T12:08:00.004-04:00

When the clock hit 90 minutes in the U.S. match against Algeria this morning (our time), it was still zero-zero (or nil-nil, as they say across the pond). England was leading Slovenia 1-0, appearing to erase any possibility that we might sneak through to the next round on a tie-breaker. And then Landon Donovan, considered by many the greatest American-born soccer player in history, kicked in a rebound after Algerian goaltender Rais Bolihi stopped Jozy Altidore on a breakaway.

The unbelievably dramatic 91st-minute goal sent the Americans into the round of 16, eliminating the Slovenians after their loss to the Brits. And it also took the focus off what was apparently a bad call by a referee in the first half. I didn't see the game (I have a job), but according to the AP's initial report:

Clint Dempsey put the ball in the net in the 21st minute off the rebound of Herculez Gomez's shot. But the goal was called offside, just as Maurice Edu's late goal was disallowed against Slovenia last week, a score that would have given the Americans a victory. Replays appeared to show Dempsey was onside.

So not only did we get hosed out of a victory over Slovenia, we came this close to getting hosed out of a victory over Algeria. The U.S. would have gone 0-0-3 and been drummed out of the World Cup, when we should have been 2-0-1 and a strong favorite going into the next round. Is this a referee conspiracy? I doubt it, but I have to admit it's possible. There are a lot of America-haters out there, and surely some of them are soccer referees.

But it doesn't matter now, if we get clean officiating the rest of the way. As the Group C champions, the U.S. will next play the second-place team from Group D, which includes Germany, Ghana, Serbia and Australia, at 2:30 eastern time on Saturday. Any one of those nations could finish second, and that will be decided this afternoon. I don't know if we have a realistic shot at beating the Germans, but the rest of those teams shouldn't be a big problem for us.

Indians skidding again; more thoughts on more stuff

2010-06-23T08:14:00.003-04:00

Sometimes it's darn near impossible to keep a regular sports blog AND a regular life. But I'm back.

• Mitch Talbot was not yet three years old when Jamie Moyer made his major league debut in 1986, but Moyer has hung around long enough to pitch against Talbot last night, and it was quite a pitcher's duel. Moyer's Phillies scored two off Talbot in the bottom of the first, then the Indians came back with one in the top of the second, and there was no more scoring after that. Talbot, who's having a fine rookie season, was the hard-luck loser in this one. He went seven innings, giving up four hits and three walks, and striking out four, in the Tribe's third straight loss.

• The one run scored off Moyer came courtesy of a Russell Branyan home run, which was the 505th Moyer has given up in his lengthy career. That ties him with Phillies great Robin Roberts for the most home runs given up in a career, and Moyer will no doubt hold that record by himself in about four days, or possibly nine. Two weeks, tops. This falls under the category of dubious records you can't get without being pretty good for a long time, because nobody's going to keep throwing you out there if you suck. It's like holding the record for striking out (which belongs to Reggie Jackson, Hall of Famer), being caught stealing (Rickey Henderson, Hall of Famer) or grounding into double plays (Cal Ripken, Hall of Famer). More important than the home run total is that it was Moyer's 266th career win.

• The home run was Branyan's 10th of the year, in just 48 games, after he started the season on the disabled list. He's only pinch-hit in a lot of those games, too. He's only had 156 at-bats. So in a 600-at-bat season, he'd be on pace to hit 39. He and Shin-Soo Choo (who has eight dingers) are the only hitters providing any power for this team all year, though Carlos Santana has shown some promise in the two weeks since his call-up.

• The U.S. soccer team's game against the Algerians starts in about an hour and a half, and if the Americans win, we're into the round of 16. As I covered in my last post, there's a possibility of moving on with a tie, but I don't think anybody wants to see what happens in that case. This team is definitely one of the 16 best at the World Cup, but they have to prove it on the pitch. France was supposed to be one of the best too, but they've been eliminated. It can happen.

• From the department of "Are you bleeping kidding me?" comes a story of a fishing tournament in North Carolina. At the 52nd annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, anglers on a boat called the Citation bagged an 883-pound marlin, which not only would have won the event (the next-largest marlin was 528 pounds) and set a new record for biggest marlin caught in the tourney (previously 831), but would have brought in a nearly $1 million purse for the boat's owners and crew. But it was discovered that one of the boat's mates, 22-year-old Peter Martin Wann of Alexandria, Virginia, did not have a North Carolina fishing license, which he could have bought for $15, and the boat was disqualified, the catch erased from the records. They lost out on a high-six-figure purse because one of the crew members forgot to get his fishing license. Can you bleeping believe that bleep? Bleep, man! ... I first heard about this story on WTAM this morning, and Bill Wills was saying how that guy probably lost a bunch of friends over this. But I'm sure he feels awful about it, and at some point, whoever heads up the crew has to make sure all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed. Yes, it's his fault, but it's not all his fault.

Tie helps a little, but we needed a win

2010-06-18T13:03:00.003-04:00

Because most sporting events are at night and I go to bed early, it's fairly rare that I get a chance to blog about a sporting event that just happened. The U.S.-Slovenia match ended a little over an hour ago, but I still think that counts. Of course, I didn't actually watch it, because I have a job, but still, I am capable of laying out the potential advancement scenarios for you.

First, the match itself. Slovenia took a 2-0 lead into halftime, but a goal by Landon Donovan in the 48th minute (shortly after the second half started, for the uninitiated among us) cut the lead in half, and a goal by Michael Bradley tied it in the 82nd minute (perilously close to the end of the game).

By the sound of it, the Americans definitely outplayed the Slovenians, but were victimized by a questionable call by the obviously anti-American referees. (All right, I don't know if they were anti-American, but it seems plausible.) Maurice Edu appeared to score a goal that would have given us the lead in the 86th minute, but the Malian official disallowed it, apparently for a foul before Edu got the ball. And there were two other near-goals in the first half that the Slovenian goalkeeper managed to stop. U.S. goalie Tim Howard, playing with sore ribs, was not able to stop either of Slovenia's shots on goal in the first half.

For those of you who don't follow soccer or understand how this works, we're in a group with Slovenia, England and Algeria. The top two teams in the group advance to the next round. A win gets you three points, and a tie gets you one. Slovenia, at 1-0-1, leads with four points. The USA, at 0-0-2, is second with two points. England plays Algeria this afternoon, but currently has one point by virtue of tying the Americans on Saturday. Algeria has no points, because they lost to Slovenia in their only game so far. The U.S. team no longer controls its own destiny; we could beat Algeria and still not move on. Allow me to explain.

If, as expected, England defeats Algeria in this afternoon's game, which starts at 2:30 Eastern, that will tie England with Slovenia at 1-0-1. The Brits and Slovenes have a date with each other next week. So here are the scenarios, assuming the British beat the Algerians:
• If England and Slovenia tie and the U.S. beats Algeria, that will create a three-way tie between England, Slovenia, and the United States, at 1-0-2. The tiebreakers are top goal differential, followed by total goals, then total points in matches between the three teams concerned, then goal differential in those matches, then total goals scored in those matches. If the tie is unresolved after all of those questions are answered, FIFA will draw lots.
• If England beats Slovenia OR Slovenia beats England and the U.S. beats Algeria, we're into the next round, because we'll have five points and the loser of the Slovenia-England game will have four.
• If the U.S. ties or loses to Algeria, we're out, no matter what happens between Slovenia and England.

Now then, if England and Algeria should happen to tie, that would mean we'd be tied with England in the standings at 0-0-2. Under that scenario:
• If the U.S. beats Algeria, we're in, no matter what happens between Slovenia and England.
• If the U.S. ties Algeria and England beats Slovenia, we're out.
• If the U.S. ties Algeria and Slovenia beats England, we're in.
• If the U.S. ties Algeria and Slovenia ties England, it goes to a two-team tiebreaker between us and England.
• If Algeria beats the U.S., we're out.

And if Algeria should happen to defeat England, which is unlikely but nonetheless possible, that would put Algeria into second place, with the three points from that victory. Under that scenario:
• If the U.S. beats Algeria, we're in.
• If the U.S. ties Algeria and Slovenia beats England, we're out.
• If the U.S. ties Algeria and England beats Slovenia, we're out.
• If the U.S. ties Algeria and England ties Slovenia, we're into a two-team tiebreaker with Algeria.
• If the U.S. loses to Algeria, we're out.

Got all that? Good. There will be a test on it later. Bottom line? Go Algeria! Beat England! Or at least tie them! But don't get too much confidence!

Some birthday notes

2010-06-17T08:19:00.004-04:00

OK, I don't mean to fish for happy birthday wishes, but, well, it IS my birthday.

• The Indians were playing pretty well until they ran into the red-hot Mets. In each of the first two games of the series, the Mets have undone the Tribe with one big inning. On Tuesday, it was because of terrible fundamental defense by the Indians' infield, including the pitcher and catcher. Yesterday, it was because of four consecutive doubles given up by Tribe pitcher Mitch Talbot, who turned in his worst start of the season. Talbot attributed some of that to a problem with the signs between him and rookie catcher Carlos Santana, especially with runners on second.

• Left fielder Shelley "Slam" Duncan didn't play those doubles very well, as all four went to his part of the field. He did make a fine catch on a foul ball in front of the tarp, but that doesn't make up for his lapses. But he is an inexperienced left fielder, and Manny Acta knew that when he sent him out there. Duncan did hit a two-run homer for the second straight game, so maybe Acta knows what he's doing, at least a little bit.

• Game seven of the NBA Finals is tonight, and it starts at 9 p.m. here in the Eastern Time Zone, where approximately half of the country's population resides — including the visiting Boston Celtics' home fans. I'd like to stay up and watch it, but I have to work tomorrow. So I have to decide whether I want to miss the excitement or come to work bleary-eyed. This is an increasing trend in pro sports, and I'm getting sick and tired of it. I know the game starts at 6 p.m. in Los Angeles, where it's played, and that if it started earlier, ticket-holding fans who work would have trouble getting there in time. But which is more likely: that a few thousand Lakers fans who have tickets would have trouble finding a way to get out of work early, or that several million East Coast fans with TVs will decide to go to bed at halftime because they have to get up for work the next day? Stupid NBA.

• If the Celtics should happen to win tonight, it will make me feel ever-so-slightly better about the Cavaliers having lost to them two rounds ago. It will be very small comfort, but some comfort.

• It's been hard to pay very close attention to the World Cup, since all the games in South Africa are played during work hours over here, but it's been exciting so far. Switzerland pulled off a monumental upset of Spain yesterday, which I think is great because Switzerland is my daughter's ancestral homeland on her paternal side. The next US game is tomorrow morning (our time) against Slovenia, and there's been some question about the health of American goaltender Tim Howard, who sustained a rib injury in Saturday's tie with England. Howard has been cleared to play, with the assistance of pain pills. I hope they don't make him loopy.

• What in the world is up with those vuvuzelas that the South Africans keep blowing? It sounds like every stadium in the country is being attacked by killer bees. My beautiful wife says it drives her crazy, and things that drive my wife crazy are simply unacceptable. I'm told the players and some of the fans hate them, but that FIFA won't ban them because it's such a big part of South African culture. I'm also told that they can cause hearing damage. I'm sorry, but any culture that embraces something that stupid needs to re-evaluate its priorities.

Not heartbroken over Izzo

2010-06-16T08:25:00.003-04:00

I'm neither surprised nor disappointed that Tom Izzo has chosen not to become the next coach of the Cavaliers. Izzo left some money on the table in the short-term, as the Cavs were offering him $6 million a year — double what he's making at Michigan State. But he traded that for the job security of his college coaching gig, which is much greater than any NBA team could ever offer. He's pretty much guaranteed a job in East Lansing until he dies or decides to retire, and there's just no parallel in professional sports. Somebody like Phil Jackson will probably never get fired, but even he couldn't coach until he's in his 80s, like Joe Paterno has at Penn State. I know it's a different sport, but the principle is the same.

It's pretty obvious that if Izzo had been able to get some kind of indication from LeBron James that he's planning to stay in Cleveland, his decision would have been different. Izzo claims that if he found out LeBron were staying, that wouldn't necessarily change his decision. That may well be true, but it would clearly have shifted the equation in that direction, and Izzo admitted as much.

So now we know one person who's NOT going to be the Cavs' next coach. But who IS it going to be? I expect and hope that Dan Gilbert will look at other coaches with NBA experience, and not continue to go fishing in the college ranks. They've reportedly already talked to Mike Krzyzewski, whose situation at Duke is very similar to Izzo's at Michigan State, but even more so, if that makes sense. Coach K has already passed, which suits me just fine. Jeff Van Gundy apparently wants to stay a TV analyst, which is too bad, because I think he would have been a good choice. Byron Scott is available, but he wants to wait and see if Phil Jackson's going to stay with the Lakers, the team Scott spent most of his playing career with. That strikes me as a bit greedy, because there's no guarantee he'd get that job even if it did become available, but he's a grown man and can make his own decisions.

So who knows who the &#@$ it'll be. Whether LeBron stays or goes changes the whole package for any coach, that's for sure.

Thirty years ago today: Jorge Orta

2010-06-15T08:16:00.005-04:00

There's not much news in the Cleveland sports world today, so I thought I'd revisit something that happened 30 years ago today. On June 15, 1980, the memorable Jorge Orta went six-for-six in a 14-5 win over the Twins, becoming one of just 35 players in American League history to get six hits in a nine-inning game.

Orta, batting second and playing right field, hit five singles and a double in that game. But that might not even have been the most notable performance of the game, even if it was the rarest. Teammate Toby Harrah went four-for-five, including a triple and a home run, and knocked in seven runs.

Dan Spillner, in his last full season as a starter, went 6 2/3 innings for the win, even though he didn't pitch particularly well. He gave up five runs (four earned) on seven hits and four walks, striking out four. Sid Monge went the last 2 1/3. Spillner would spend 1981 in the bullpen, then become the team's closer in 1982.

Orta, a native of Mazatlan, Mexico, had a pretty decent year in 1980, hitting .291/.379/.403, in a low-offense era, and making his second (and last) All-Star appearance. He was spending his first of just two seasons in Cleveland, before being traded for Rick Sutcliffe. Orta's 16-year career that would end in 1987 with Kansas City, where he was a member of the World Series champions in 1985.

In fact, Orta would be a key player in one of the most controversial plays in major league history in that World Series, as first base umpire Don Denkinger made what might have been the most famous blown call in baseball history until Jim Joyce's recent gaffe. Orta led off the bottom of the ninth of game six with the Royals trailing the Cardinals three games to two, and 1-0 in the game. He hit a ground ball to St. Louis first baseman Jack Clark, who flipped to pitcher Todd Worrell at first, and the throw easily beat Orta to the bag. Denkinger was watching the bag and listening for the ball to hit Worrell's glove, but because it was so loud in the ballpark, he couldn't hear the ball hit the glove, and therefore had to guess. He guessed wrong, and called him safe. The Royals would go on to win that game 2-1, then beat the Cardinals 11-0 the next day to win a World Series that should have gone to the team on the other side of Missouri. And yet, 25 years later, we still don't have instant replay for anything but home run balls.

Tribe wins four straight; thoughts on Nebraska, World Cup, etc.

2010-06-13T10:43:00.004-04:00

A few thoughts on what's currently going on in the sports world:

* After last night's 7-1 victory, the Indians are riding a four-game winning streak. They're still a long way from contending, but this team is starting to do some exciting things. Last night's stars were Carlos Santana, who homered and doubled to drive in three runs in his second career major league game; and Fausto Carmona, who is really having a strong comeback season. The win evened his record to 5-5, but with a nifty 3.23 ERA that is good for 13th in the American League.

* The Indians have spent most of the season in last place in the AL Central, but their record is now a bad but at least somewhat respectable 25-36. That puts them on pace to finish 66-96. More importantly, they have moved into a virtual tie for fourth place, just percentage points behind the woeful Royals.

* As loyal reader Jeff Brown has been trying to get me to write about, the Indians are dead last in the majors in attendance. From Jeff's most recent email on the subject:

As I've mentioned several times now, the Indians rank dead-last in home attendance, and by a growing margin: they are averaging 15,658, and the next worst team (Toronto Blue Jays) are averaging 16,267.

For perspective, there are 12 major league teams averaging MORE THAN TWICE AS MANY FANS as our lowly Cleveland Indians, Steve,

But here's the real rub, Steve -- the Indians rank 14th out of 30 teams (in the upper 50 percentile) in AWAY attendance, meaning that in the eyes of the rest of the league, they are a worthy team to watch in person.

View it here:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance/_/sort/awayAvg

So what the hell is wrong with hometown Tribe fans, Steve? If visiting teams can support them better than more than 1/2 of the teams in the majors, why the hell can't Cleveland fans get their heads screwed on straight for a change?

I find it highly doubtful that fans on the road are all that interested in the Indians. I think it's much more likely that the Indians' road attendance is helped by the fact that they've played in cities where the home team draws well. They've gone to Minnesota, which has its new ballpark; along with places like Chicago, Anaheim, New York, etc. Their road average will probably come down.

But it is somewhat distressing to see the home attendance numbers. It's simply a function of the fact that this team got rid of its best established major leaguers last year in favor of cheaper young talent. It was an understandable decision, but it has definitely cost them at the gates.

* One game that will raise that average number, at least a little, is this afternoon's game, in which Indians hitters will face Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg in his second career start. That's going to be pretty interesting. Strasburg would have to strike out 13 Indians today to tie the major league record of 27 strikeouts in a pitcher's first two starts combined, set by Dodgers rookie Karl Spooner in 1954.

* Another mailbag item from Jeff Brown concerns the Big Ten landing Nebraska:

The Big Ten Conference hit a home run by getting the University of Nebraska as a new member.

Even if the Big Ten stays put and doesn't invite any new members from this point forward, this is a slam dunk and greatly improves the conference.

They have some of the best football fans, rich tradition, national titles, an iconic figure in Tom Osborne who is still their A.D., and fits in very well culturally into the Big Ten region.

And while they had a few down years after Osborne retired as head coach, lately they have come raring back and are once again a powerhouse under stud coach, Bo Pellini.

It's true that Nebraska is a great get for the Big Ten, but I don't know if I'd quite call it a home run. Texas, which is a national power in football, basketball and baseball, would be a home run. Notre Dame, the nation's most storied football program, would be a home run. Nebraska is a solid two-run double off the wall. The Cornhuskers have probably one of the 20 best football programs in the country, and they definitely make the conference stronger in that sport. And it gives the Big Ten a solid presence at its western end. Schools like Iowa and Wisconsin often have strong teams, but the conference is usually dominated by eastern teams like Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State. This makes the possibility of a Big Ten championship game more interesting, as the league will probably separate into eastern and western divisions.

* The United States soccer team got one of the luckiest goals you'll ever see to tie England yesterday. Short of an own-goal, I can't think of a luckier way to score in soccer than having the goaltender fail to scoop up a ball that's rolling slowly toward his waiting arms. But the Americans deserve credit for holding a very strong British team to one goal (which they scored just 3 1/2 minutes into the game), and this bodes well for our chances to advance in the World Cup. Our remaining preliminary-round games are against Slovenia and Algeria, and we'll be favored in both.

Gotta love the walk-off

2010-06-11T08:26:00.003-04:00

Some quick thoughts:

• Going into the bottom of the ninth last night, it looked like another tough loss for the Indians, as Kerry Wood had come this close to saving the game, but with two outs and two strikes on J.D. Drew, he threw a slider that slid too much, hitting Drew; and then gave up a two-run homer to Adrian Beltre to give the Red Sox a 7-6 lead. But the Indians' offense roared back in the bottom of the ninth, loading the bases with nobody out against Daniel Bard. Bard then bore down and struck out Travis Hafner, then got Jhonny Peralta on a pop foul. Enter Russell Branyan, who roped a single to right that scored two runs and gave the Indians a walk-off win.

• The Tribe won despite committing four errors, three of which were committed by third baseman Andy Marte in the first inning. Two of those were on one play, as he failed to field the ball cleanly to score one run, then threw it away to score another. As a result, Mitch Talbot had to work a lot harder. He only gave the Indians four innings, giving up five runs, three of which were unearned. Marte is supposed to be strong on defense, but he sure didn't show it last night.

• The Indians are reportedly set to call up catching uber-prospect Carlos Santana in time for tonight's game against the Nationals. In the words of ESPN's Rob Neyer:

There are so many things to love about Santana, whose performance has improved as he's moved up the ladder. He was great in fast-A, greater in Double-A, and sublimely brilliant in 56 Triple-A games this year. He's 24, though — older than Matt Wieters and Buster Posey — and so it's time to move him up and see what he's got.

Couldn't agree more, Rob. They will presumably send down Lou Marson, who's been good with the glove (and the arm) this season, but terrible with the bat.

• Speaking of the Nationals and uber-prospects, Stephen Strasburg will get his second career start Sunday afternoon at Progressive Field. Strasburg struck out 14 Pittsburgh Pirates in his first career start, while walking zero of them, in seven innings. This kid looks like the real deal. I look forward to seeing what he's got. And I'm obviously not the only one, as the Indians have reportedly sold more than 8,000 tickets to that game since it was announced that Strasburg would be starting.

• Tom Izzo was in town yesterday, being wined and dined by the Cavaliers. It sounds like they're close to a deal. I'm not backing off what I said the other day, which was that the track record of college coaches who jump to the NBA isn't good, and therefore it seems a bit foolish to hire one, but Dan Gilbert seems to have his mind made up. Izzo apparently hasn't signed anything yet, but if he does, I hope he proves me wrong.

A fun inning; Masterson's masterpiece

2010-06-10T08:10:00.005-04:00

Going into the bottom of the eighth inning last night, the Indians were clinging to a save-opportunity-size 3-0 lead over the Red Sox. The way Justin Masterson was pitching against his former team, that lead looked fairly safe, but it was the type of situation in which a team hopes to add an insurance run or two. Well, they did that, and then some.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona chose to use Boof Bonser to try to hold the Indians' lead to three. Bonser (fun fact: he legally changed his name to Boof a few years ago) hadn't pitched in the majors yet this season, having just been activated after a rehab stint in the minors due to a groin injury. He now has the distinction of a sideways 8 in his ERA and WHIP columns, because he didn't record an out. He pitched to four hitters, all of whom would eventually score. Since Bonser couldn't get anybody out, Francona pulled him in favor of Joe Nelson, who failed to retire any of the first five hitters he faced, and the first four of those would also score.

Here's a quick blow-by-blow of that Indians eighth:

1. Trevor Crowe walked and stole second.
2. Shin-Soo Choo singled to center, sending Crowe to third.
3. Austin Kearns walked to load the bases.
4. Russell Branyan singled to right, scoring Crowe. Score 4-0. Bases still loaded.
At this point, Nelson "relieved" Bonser.
5. Jhonny Peralta singled to right, scoring Choo. 5-0, bags still juiced.
6. Travis Hafner homered to right for his 10th career grand slam. Indians lead 9-0.
7. Luis Valbuena singled to right.
8. Anderson Hernandez, who was recently called up, doubled to deep right for his first hit as an Indian, sending Valbuena to third.
9. Lou Marson walked, loading the bases AGAIN.
10. Crowe grounded into a double play, plating Valbuena and sending Hernandez to third. 10-0, but now with two outs.
11. Choo walked.
12. Kearns walked, sending Choo to second and loading the bases yet again.
13. Branyan reached on an infield single to third, scoring Hernandez. And it was 11-0.
14. Peralta struck out looking.

So the Indians sent 14 men to the plate in the inning, six of whom batted with the bases loaded. They batted around before even making an out. They collected seven hits — including five in a row — and drew five walks.

As Crowe was coming to the plate to start the inning, I told my wife the game would probably be over in about 20 minutes, since if things went according to plan, we only had the bottom of the eighth and the top of the ninth to go. But the bottom of the eighth alone lasted more than half an hour. (She pointed out that she had predicted the game would last another hour, and that her prediction was closer than mine. True, honey, but who could have predicted an eight-run bottom of the eighth by the punchless Indians?)

Masterson, whom the Tribe acquired in last year's Victor Martinez deadline deal, made quick work of his former teammates in the top of the ninth, as he had done all night. Masterson put together a masterpiece, a two-hit complete-game shutout, the first nine-inning goose egg of his career. And he needed it. Though he has now won his last two starts, that two-game winning streak follows a streak of 17 starts without a win, dating back to last year. He hadn't been as bad as that sounds — after this one, his ERA is a decent 4.74 — but he certainly didn't look like any great shakes on the mound. But he pitched like an ace last night. In the words of Francona, his ex-manager:

"All the things we used to brag about when he was in our uniform he showed tonight. He maintained his velocity from the first pitch to the last pitch, he threw a lot of strikes, he stayed down in the zone, he elevated a couple of times I'm sure on purpose, changed speeds enough on the lefties, got the slider under their hands. That's about as good a game as he could pitch."

Let's hope we see more of that from Masterson. If he can keep it going, the Indians could actually have the makings of a strong starting rotation.

Tribe's new young arm

2010-06-08T08:15:00.002-04:00

There are a few things I could write about today. There's the Indians' 4-1 loss to Boston yesterday, in which Austin Kearns' homer was the Tribe's only run; there's Victor Martinez's first return to Cleveland in an enemy uniform; there's further developments on the Izzo front; there's minor stuff from the Browns' optional workouts; there's always more to report on LeBron; and there's the fact that the Cavaliers will be introducing new general manager Chris Grant this afternoon.

But today's Cleveland sports news that interests me the most is Major League Baseball's amateur draft, in which the Indians, with the fifth overall pick, selected Drew Pomeranz, a left-handed pitcher from the University of Mississippi. Pomeranz, named the Southeastern Conference Pitcher of the Year as a junior this season, went 9-2 with a 2.24 ERA in 16 starts for the Rebels. He struck out 139 hitters in 100 2/3 innings, against 49 walks. Opposing hitters batted .195 against him.

I listened to a little bit of the Indians-Red Sox game on the radio last night, and Mike Hegan and Tom Hamilton were talking about Pomeranz's prospects. They compared him to Mike Leake, whom the Reds took with the eighth pick in last year's draft. For those who haven't been following, Leake signed late last summer, the Reds chose to rest his arm the remainder of the season, and after a stint in the Instructional League, he made the big club out of spring training to be the first player to totally skip the minor leagues since Xavier Nady in 2000. Leake is off to a phenomenal start, going 5-0 with a 2.22 ERA so far. (It must be noted that Leake is a right-hander, and Pomeranz is a southpaw; nonetheless, their college numbers are similar.)

It would be ridiculous to predict such a start for Pomeranz, simply because it so rarely happens. For that matter, it would have been ridiculous to predict such a start for Leake. And even Leake's fast start doesn't necessarily indicate future success in the majors. How many times have we seen a young pitcher dominate, only to flame out because of arm trouble? Current Indians closer Kerry Wood is a prime example of that, but at least he's been able to stick around as a reliever. The same cannot be said of his former teammate Mark Prior, who won 18 games at the age of 22, but hasn't pitched in the bigs since 2006, when he was just 25, because his arm gave out. There's just an awful lot that can happen to a young arm.

The Indians have until August to sign Pomeranz. If they don't, he can go back to Ole Miss and pitch again next year; but I don't anticipate too much trouble on that front. I would presume they'll handle him similarly to how the Reds handled Leake last year. And barring injury, we'll see him at Progressive Field in 2011 or 2012. I look forward to it.

Izzo to Cleveland?

2010-06-07T08:23:00.003-04:00

The Cavaliers have reportedly offered their vacant head coaching job to Michigan State's Tom Izzo, one of the most successful college coaches out there since he took over the job in 1995. In Izzo's 15 seasons, the Spartans have won one NCAA championship (in 2000) and six Big Ten titles. They have reached the Final Four six times, including each of the last two years. In his first two years in East Lansing, Izzo took the Spartans to the NIT; they have not failed to secure an invitation to the NCAA Tournament in the 13 years since. He is the winningest coach in MSU history. This man has earned his stripes.

I should note at this point that the Cavs are in kind of a catch-22 situation right now, as they will likely have trouble hiring a top coach without signing LeBron James first, and they will likely have trouble signing LeBron James without hiring a top coach first. That said ...

I caught a little bit of talk about Izzo on "Mike & Mike in the Morning" on WKNR this morning, and the eponymous hosts disagreed about whether they wanted Izzo to test his skills in the NBA. Mike Greenberg really hopes he stays in the college ranks, where he's built up a great program and makes more of a difference to his team than he might in the NBA; and Mike Golic would like to see him at the top level of the sport, which is of course the NBA. (Both were careful to say that they're not presuming to tell Izzo what to do.)

Of course, Greenberg and Golic are not Cavaliers fans, so far as I know, and therefore are looking at this through the lens of the national sports media. But Greenberg made some good points. Izzo would be taking a great risk by jumping to the NBA. If he stays at Michigan State (my dad's alma mater, by the way, in the interest of full disclosure), he's basically guaranteed a job for as long as he wants it, and could eventually become East Lansing's version of Dean Smith or Jim Calhoun — or Woody Hayes or Bo Schembechler. They would someday name the court after him and such. If he goes to the NBA, even if he's very successful for a few years, he's probably gone the first time the team has a 50-win season when the team leaders were expecting 60 wins.

And the fact is, the track record for successful college coaches coming to the NBA is not very good. Look up P.J. Carlesimo, Rick Pitino, Tim Floyd, Lon Kruger, and John Calipari, just for starters. All were highly successful college coaches who bombed in the NBA. The only one of those who had any real success at all after going to the pros was Pitino, who won a division title with the Knicks in 1988-89 but lost in the second round of the playoffs; Pitino nonetheless has a losing record as an NBA coach, as that was his only plus-.500 record in six NBA seasons. There probably is a college coach who's come to the NBA and done very well, but off the top of my head, I'm not thinking of him.

Can Izzo break that mold? I don't know, but I kind of doubt it. He's a great coach in the college ranks, and I think he should stay there.