Very quickly ...

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 ...

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

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

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

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)

• 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 ...

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

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

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

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

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

• 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?

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

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?

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

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

• 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!

• 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

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!

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.