Clevinger to make MLB debut Wednesday; Indians activate Chisenhall
May 17, 2016Hue Jackson has high praise for rookie QB Cody Kessler
May 17, 2016Since word first leaked that ESPN would be putting together one of their critically acclaimed 30 For 30 documentaries about our fair city and its sports teams, I couldn’t help but be excited and sick all at once. I will admit to being very conflicted. A big part of me felt as though I didn’t need to relive the agony and despair of my upbringing as a diehard Cleveland Sports Fan. (It’s bad enough that we are always reminded by ESPN, et all, with the “Misery Montage” that pops up during Cavs, Browns, or Indians National broadcasts at least a couple time a year.) I also recognized how people outside of Cleveland may think they know the stories, but do so without knowledge of how deep some of the pain truly runs. So with that in mind, I was back on board.
As you know by now, Kris Bellman’s version of this film was tabled and gave way to a new director, Andy Billman. During the pre-production and investigation phase, I was in my writing prime for WFNY, and I was contacted by Adam Weinreb, who is credited as being the Associate Producer on the project. At the time, in talking to Weinreb, it sounded to me as if the voices of the fans would be a big part of the project. As it turns out, the Billman version of the story was very short on the fans and long on local sports personality and, for lack of better term, celebrities.
As a 40-year-old born-and-raised Clevelander, I thought it was important that my two kids—now nine and six—both watch this start to finish so they can get a little history lesson. They needed to know why their father is how he is. On Sunday morning the three of us sat down and viewed “Believeland” start to finish. A second viewing with my wife came Sunday night. While I think the overall story was told to the national audience, I found myself very unsatisfied and confused on how certain key events and stories were either completely left out or glossed over in a way that rendered them irrelevant.
The overuse of the same ESPN-related scribes
Let me just start off by saying that I really enjoyed what ESPN 850’s Tony Rizzo brought to the documentary. His passion for the city and insights on the many sports tragedies we all endured were spot on. Tony Grossi, also of ESPN Cleveland, did nice work as well. Same goes with ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. See a pattern here? As much as I enjoyed Rizz, any particular reason he had more screen time than anyone other than Scott Raab (who produced of the flim)? Rizz was very effective, but completely overused. The same can be said for Raab, who I also really enjoyed.
You can’t tell a story of the sad history of Cleveland sports and leave out the town’s most respected and senior member of the media, Terry Pluto.1 Another giant figure notably absent from the doc was Joe Tait, the greatest play by play man the city has ever seen. Tait was the voice of the Cavs for 40 years as well as calling Indians games for 15 years in the 70s and 80s. Knowing Tait, it wouldn’t shock me one bit if he was asked and told the producers that he had no interest in it (he’s only given one interview since he retired in 2011), but how do you not have any of Tait’s calls in the film at a minimum?
[Related: Believeland is about Cleveland Sports, but mostly about Cleveland]
What about Les Levine? The Self Proclaimed Voice of Truth in Cleveland Sports has been through and has seen it all in his 40-plus years as a sports talk host here in the 216. He was spoken to early on, but was also conspicuously absent. You can’t give Aaron Goldhammer, a 33- year old Denver native, a platform in a documentary about the history of Cleveland sports and be taken seriously. I understand nobody outside of our city knows that about Goldhammer, but to see him on screen and not see Pluto was a crime.
Wouldn’t the film have been better-served with giving half of what Rizzo had to say over to Pluto? Or some of the excess Raab time to Les? Wouldn’t been nice to have heard what Tait had to say about the Cavs during the Lenny Wilkens era? This was obviously an ESPN production, which speaks to why all ESPN related media members were featured. However, I have seen every single 30 For 30 and I don’t ever remember one where only ESPN affiliated guys were featured so heavily.
The gaps in the story
Here in Cleveland, we all know the stories in depth. Heck, we can fill a book with them. I completely understand the producers of “Believeland” only had an hour and a half to work with, but there were major details of the stories that to me, were completely glossed over. Lets go in chronological order.
I was born in 1976, the year of “Miracle of Richfield.” It was given about 90 seconds. What wasn’t mentioned and was the first real sign of the Cleveland Curse in my lifetime was Jim Chones breaking his foot in the final practice before the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics. Most believe the Cavs would have gone on to beat the Celtics with a healthy Chones, who averaged 15 and seven boards. They lost in six games. This was not even mentioned in “Believeland.”
Nine-year old TD was sitting frozen in section 37 in January of 1987 when John Elway went 98 yards to tie things up 20-20 in the AFC Championship game. “The Drive” itself got plenty of run, but what was missed was the fact that not only did the Browns win the toss in overtime, but they crossed the 50 yard line before stalling. Fine, that can be skipped. But for those that remember and those of us who were there, we still don’t believe that Rich Karlis’s game winning kick was good. I will go to my grave thinking the kick was wide left. “Believeland” never even showed the end zone angle of the kick! Watch a replay of the kick (2:01 mark)
Take a look at the Browns players. They are all waving as though the kick was no good. Again, not in the film.
Art Modell moving the team to Baltimore rightfully was the centerpiece of the documentary. I think Billman and company missed nary a detail telling the tale of how the carpet-bagging Modell stole the team from the city with the NFL’s blessing. They even allowed David Modell tell his father’s side of the story. But the move was only half of it. The Browns becoming the laughingstock of the NFL going through a legion of Quarterbacks, GM’s, coaches, and multiple bumbling ownership groups while posting only two winning seasons and playing in one playoff game since the return in 1999 cannot just be ignored. Lets also not forget that the NFL screwed the Browns over with their way too quick timeline and tighter rules after watching Jacksonville and Carolina come into the league and become playoff teams within their first two years. No mention of that. Modell took the team to Baltimore, won a Super Bowl before he eventually selling the team and watching them turn into a model franchise while the Browns can’t seem to get anything right gets no mention?
While missing out on these events was bad, perhaps toe biggest miss to me was the complete ignoring of the 2007 Indians. Like the ’97 Tribe, the ’07 team felt like a team of destiny. They won the AL Central with 96 wins and had to face the New York Yankees in the ALDS. With a 2-1 lead, everyone wanted Manager Eric Wedge to pitch Cy Young Award winner CC Sabathia on short rest. Instead, he went with veteran Paul Byrd, who pitched five plus innings of two-run ball before turning it over to the pen who closed out the series. Up next was the equally mighty Boston Red Sox. The Indians jumped out to a 3-1 series lead which included the incredibly memorable Game 2, 13-6 extra-inning win where the Wahoos dropped a seven spot in the 11th inning, capped by a grand slam of Franklyn Gutierrez off of Jon Lester. All they needed was one win in the next three games to reach the World Series. They had their top three starters — Sabathia, fellow 19-game winner Fausto Carmona, and Jake Westbrook — lined up. They lost 7-1 in Game 5, 12-2 in Game 6, and then came Game 7 at Fenway Park.
With Boston clinging to a 3-2 lead in the seventh and Kenny Lofton (featured in the film, but only to discuss the mid-90s squads) on second, Gutierrez laced one down the left field line fair. The ball hit the part of the stands that jut out just past third and ricocheted into short left. Third base coach Joel Skinner put up the now infamous “Skinner Stop Sign” which held Lofton at third.
He would have scored easily, tying the game. Casey Blake would go on to swing at the first pitch and ground into an inning-ending double play. After that game-changing mistake by Skinner, the wheels fell off and the Red Sox exploded with the momentum to finish off the Indians in another gigantic Cleveland collapse.
Someone explain to me how that gets absolutely zero mention? These are four major plot points that cannot be ignored.
Missing voice of The Fan
Back when I spoke to Weinreb, our conversations were centered on growing up as a Cleveland sports fan, the sense of community it gives us, and how we dealt with the many disappointments. I spun my webs. My earliest childhood memory was my now-late father smashing one of my toys when Tommy Kramer hit Ahmad Rashad with a Hail Mary to beat the Browns when I was four. How my father who was at the ’64 NFL Title game, had us leave the ’86 Divisional Playoff game against the Jets (also never mentioned) early because the Browns were down 10 with under four minutes left and things seemed all but over. We were literally back at my uncle’s house to watch OT and double OT. Then we came back the next week and stayed until the bitter end, walking slowly to the car after Elway did it to us. We sat in the car in dead silence for two plus hours. The man didn’t say a single word. None of us did. We couldn’t believe what we just saw.
Or my story from Game 7 of the World Series. When Mesa blew the save, I spent the 10th inning sitting on the toilet, leaning forward to see a small TV in my roommate’s bedroom because I was so sick to my stomach, then returning to the couch to see the Tony Fernandez error and the Edgar Renteria single. The second that ball got through I went right into my room, and lied on my bed staring at the ceiling. The room started to spin and I ran into the bathroom and began to vomit profusely. I jumped in the shower and began to weep. Yes, this was a little over the top and at the time, my father was still alive — I didn’t know what real loss was.
I’m not saying I should have been a part of the documentary, but thousands of us have stories like this and I believe a few of these to go along with the stories of “The Drive” or “The Fumble” or Game Seven in Miami or even the Browns move could have given better context to the story. Essentially we were left to get those stories from the same two people.
Things I did love
It is not as though there weren’t positive in the film. The Earnest Byner stuff was beyond riveting. What a spectacular human being he is. When he looked into the camera and apologized to the fans, I literally began to tear up. How can you not feel for the man? The game was played 28 years ago and the wound is still so deep. Adding Kevin Mack and an emotional Marty Schottenheimer talking about that day and that moment was perfection. They really captured what is what like to be there with Earnest.
The ’97 World Series run insight from Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome and Mike Hargrove was also fantastic. Hargrove summed up my exact same sentiments with one line: “Someone asked me when did I get over the loss in game seven. I told him ‘When it happens, I will let you know.’” Amen, Grover.
While they were overused, I found Rizzo, Raab, and Windhorst solid in their storytelling. From a historical standpoint, it was great for my kids to see the rise, fall, rise, fall, and re-emergence of the city where they were born and are being raised. They have had no history of Cleveland other than what I have told them over these years and I’m not sure how much has stuck with them.
And in the end…
My daughter only cried three time: When Byner told his story, when the Browns moved, and when LeBron left — all legit reasons to shed tears as a young sports fan. My wife and kids all thought the documentary was well done. My friends outside of Cleveland, many of whom reached out to me to get my take, all thought it was great. When I stressed my beefs with them, they all had the same reaction to me: “you are too close to what happened to see it for what it is.” I totally get that, and they are right. Nothing in the documentary was new to me. I lived it. We all did. I just wish things could have been put together a little differently.
But as my grandmother used to say: “That’s why they make chocolate and vanilla.”
- Ed. Note: Pluto was billed to be a part of the first run of the film, but was not included in the Biillman version. [↩]
45 Comments
No Pluto, Tait or anyone from WTAM besides Hamilton. Wow. I thought it was good enough. I still don’t believe Raab and his kid didn’t touch any of their food though.
I don’t disagree with a lot of your criticisms, but I still came out thinking it was a really great and effective documentary. Though I’m biased, I thought Raab’s contributions and his being a stand-in for the father-son storyline that runs through most of our Cleveland sports stories was integral and hit all the right notes.
Any nitpicks that I did have were related to my being too close to it all and knowing so much of this history as well as I do. In the end, I thought the documentary effectively took all those sports fans from around the country that think of us only as a montage, a little bit deeper into what actually makes us tick. We’re resilient and we’ve stuck around through some serious stuff, but there’s more to it than just the 30-second montage of misery.
And like you TD, I NEVER would complain about some Joe Tait, Les Levine, and Terry Pluto added to the mix.
“As a 40-year-old born-and-raised Clevelander, I thought it was important that my two kids—now nine and six—both watch this start to finish so they can get a little history lesson. They needed to know why their father is how he is.”
Arguably a more depressing history to pass on to our kids than stories of pharaohs and Romans, and plagues and enslavement.
I agree, the 07 Indians was the biggest glaring omission. The midges, Cliff Lee not even in the rotation because of his strain (but won the Cy the next year), Garko’s “champagne on the road is just as sweet,” Ortiz given time during Byrd’s windup, and the unsurprising domination/sweep of the Rockies in the WS that any of the AL playoff teams would have replicated. Yes, it still burns my biscuits that we lost that one.
also Bottlegate
Good documentary and I enjoyed it overall. Not to nitpick but here were a couple of thoughts I had while watching it:
– They were way too fair to Modell and failed to mention that he had more than a sweet deal with Stadium Corp for years and yet he still ran the ship aground. Cleveland Frowns has had some excellent takedowns there over the years and Fred Nance alluded to it on the show, however Modell was a terrible businessman and many (most?) of the financial drivers for the move were his own fault. There’s no honor there for Modell.
– Would have been interesting to mention that the 95 Browns team was a also dark horse SB contender, and had 9 future head coaches or GM’s on the staff including possible best coach of all time Bill Belicheck. Little extra salt in the wound there…
– Agree on the lack of local personalities – would have loved to have seen more variety and takes. Why not Bernie? Or Michael White?
– Totally left out was the fact that our teams (particularly the 90’s / aughts Tribe) generally served as talent feeders for big market teams. While that’s not unusual for small/middle market teams in MLB, the FA loss off Belle, Ramirez, Thome and the necessitated trading of Colon, Sabithia and Cliff Lee (3 Cy Young winners) were particularly brutal. This played directly into an overall city paranoia around keeping Lebron, which the media (and especially ESPN) gleefully played up from day 1. That set the table for some less than successful short-term signings and trades that ultimately doomed his first stint here.
– That also made ‘The Decision’ particularly painful since it was the biggest loss for the city and fans in a decade of them, and also smug affirmation from media and non-Clevelanders that they had been right all along.
“Rizz was very effective, but completely overused. The same can be said for Raab, who I also really enjoyed.”
I don’t (and didn’t here) enjoy these two, but this was a feature, not a bug. These two, along with the rest of the sports talk media involved try to sell a narrative of ‘woe is us’. It draws in inane callers to radio shows, and sells books with lewd titles. Pluto and Levine weren’t included because this wasn’t intended to be an accurate history of Cleveland sports.
Also, I know this is a Browns town, but it was a bit ridiculous how much it focused on the Browns over the other two. There are plenty of great stories about those 70s Cavs teams, which build up a great narrative about how it actually was a miracle in 1976, that can’t be glossed over by mentioning it was only winning one round of the playoffs. We hear none of that.
Also I hated the father-son approach. If my son finds me still whining about stuff from 40 years ago, I hope he puts me in a mental home. All it does, and all it has been doing in this town is ingraining the whininess and pessimism into the next generation before they even get a chance to truly experience Cleveland sports. And that seemed like the whole point of the movie, to tell people “here’s why I’m bitchy about my sports teams”, and pat ourselves on the back for having to go through that.
Why is it even called Believeland? Because supposedly we’ll support our teams through thick and thin? Tell that to the Indians who receive grief for finishing at .500, or the Cavs, who were ushering fans with upper level seats to the lower levels during between-Lebron years to give the appearance that people were going to games. Yeah, you could field a JV team and sell out as long as they had Browns helmets, but the other two sports? As fairweather as any other town.
I found the omission of the Chones injury very odd.
I grew up in CLE from ’69 through ’82 and I completely sympathize with your ’97 Gm 7 story. My mother-in-law was in town for some reason and my wife decided that our 11 month old should cry himself to sleep during the game. I screamed “Would somebody comfort that child!” at my wife in front of my mother-in-law. (Regrettable.) Then my wife said, “We can bring him out here and he can say he watched the Indians win the World Series with his daddy.” “What did you say?” I asked, knowing that she had just cursed the game. Our worst fight ever, ended with something like “You’ll never watch a Cleveland game in this house again,” to which I responded. “Be careful what you wish for!” I clenched a balled up piece of Kleenex in my hand the whole game and I rocked back in forth in my chair as if stopping would change the game. I was possessed.
In closing, C’mon Cavs. Gotta make it happen.
Remember a Boston columnist breaking the Byrd HGH buying non- story right before his start?
Ugh, it’s all coming back.
And why no mention of George Steinbrenner being a Cleveland guy? That always irked me.
What should we hang in the background for our Thome interview?
How about his White Sox jersey?
Good call.
It wasn’t Byrd’s start. It was the morning of Game 7 of the ALCS. But, ALL the Boston writers of course wanted to pepper every Indians player with those questions.
Nothing fishy about the report coming from an investigator with ties to the Red Sox organization nor with the fact that the report mostly focused on the Yankees and Mets, plus their current opponent, right?
So things haven’t gone well in Cleveland sports for a long time and now they made a movie to help you relive all that not-going-well?
https://m.popkey.co/1107e1/X035o.gif
Ah! That’s right. Still mad though.
“it was that time when i lost my job and was very desperate”…nz566 until i started with my PC and earning 89 d/hr … last month little over 28 k ,,,, my monthly income …
dg45…
Learn More
“my room mate Mary Is getting paid on the internet 98$/hr”…..!jk300etwo days ago grey MacLaren P1 I bought after earning 18,512 Dollars..it was my previous month’s payout..just a little over.17k Dollars Last month..3-5 hours job a day…with weekly payouts..it’s realy the simplest. job I have ever Do.. I Joined This 7 months. ago. and now making over. hourly 87 Dollars…Learn. More right Here !jk300e:➽:➽:➽➽➽➽ http://GlobalSuperJobsReportsEmploymentsSalvageGetPay-Hour$98…. .✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸::::::!jk300e….,……
ooh ive got one of those! wife and friend were chatting about who knows what while i was watching the browns playoff game vs steelers. to say they didnt get would be understatement and that’s probably enough of that story.
great writeup, and you hit all the points: chones, yes, karlis FG, YES! on 2007 i’d add that sabathia all of the sudden couldnt find the plate vs redsox **cough** squeezed **cough** leading to him serving meatballs. and we should probably throw in losing three straight in the 99 LDS with pedro throwing six innings of scoreless relief (after he’d been sidelined for some injury or something) in game 5.
the part modell was “helping out the city” by assuming all stadium revenue (luxury boxes) for a venue that has tenant providing 81 MLB games.. that of course was priceless.
finally, the 54 indians deserved more mention. won 111 games in a 154 game season. that that team came along during the peak of the yankees dynasty was bad luck; losing four straight in the world series was some old testament god stuff there.
TD, great thoughts, many of which I share.
Don’t know if others have mentioned it, but in addition to the unrealized dreams of the ’90s Indians, another painful wound was our homegrown stars (Belle, Ramirez, Thome) spurning Cleveland for bigger contracts in coastal cities. I felt the film generally did a nice job weaving the fate of Cleveland’s sports franchises with the larger economic situation across the decades, and this would have been a great way of showing how the MLB’s free market and lack of salary cap helped gut our midwestern franchise and contribute to the heartbreak narrative.
Agreed that the fan perspective was muted in favor of media talking heads (and Arsenio Hall?), which was disappointing. I’ve long admired TD’s writing about his father, as it so profoundly captures the pathos of Cleveland sports passed through the generations. A story from someone like him would have conveyed this much more poignantly than the contrived conversation between Scott Raab and his son, who tepidly mumbled something about liking Cleveland (“it’s ok, I guess…yeah, I like it”).
And speaking of that, I know WFNY loves Scott Raab, but that guy is a total blowhard. Shame that he played such a prominent role in the film, but what can you do?
Lastly, the documentary reminded me of just how stunning the Lebron James story is and how fortunate we are to be witnessing (sorry) the arc of his legend in real time. Love that the film essentially closed with him and thereby left the viewer in a place of hope during the mid-May playoff run.
They also showed the Thome statue a couple times without referencing how much of a pathology it represents for Clevelanders
“But for those that remember and those of us who were there, we still don’t believe that Rich Karlis’s game winning kick was good. I will go to my grave thinking the kick was wide left.”
I watched the film with my wife, and turned to her as they were talking about this and said, “There are still people who will swear that kick was no good.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I am one of those people. She’d have thought I was nuts.
The father-son message is quite important, as Cleveland sports fandom is so often passed down across generations.
My problem was the execution of this message, which was a classic study of how important it is to “show not tell”. Under the bright lights of television cameras, Raab coaxed a forced “I like Cleveland” comment from his son, who didn’t grow up here and apparently had never voiced this sentiment to his dad in two decades. Was emotionally flat where I felt the film deserved to be especially poignant. Show us real examples of how fathers-sons (and mothers/daughters) have shared moments of grieving and heartbreak. What rituals/stories have been passed down to make sense of and cope with constant losing? Which are being given to the next generation? So much to mine here, and they made only a token attempt.
Craig, curious how you think Raab deftly captured the father-son storyline. I’ve put my thoughts elsewhere on this thread, but thought that was one of the film’s biggest failures. Would be interested in your thoughts
haha, that is the most un-Cleveland behavior possible. For shame
On initial viewing, I thought the film was okay. Upon reflection thereafter, I think was actually done pretty poorly. With the significant exception of the Byner story, the film was completely devoid of any real emotional gravitas – and even there, they completely ignored Byner’s return to Cleveland and the way we embraced him (and embrace him still). Everyone else has hit the important stuff that was also missing, so I won’t repeat it, and I get that a short documentary can only hit so much. But what they chose to highlight was often more egregious than what they chose to neglect. While I’m one that has long been willing to forgive Art Modell, why even give David Modell a part in this thing at all?
As for the primary voices in the film, I loved Rizzo. I have no time for Raab, and just wished they had picked a better lead voice and face (with a razor) (but fine, I know he’s loved). Windhorst just came off as the smug ex-pat that found greener pastures and now looks condescendingly back on the place that made him. (Maybe it’s because that’s how I think of him.) And I just don’t get putting the film’s writer on screen so often to give his impression of a city he doesn’t really know. Dude, you’re writing the film. Write the film. Let other people, with connection and knowledge, do the talking.
In the end, my primary take-away is that they just utterly failed to capture the spirit of Cleveland and Clevelanders (NE Ohioans) – and this under a film title that is entirely about spirit. I also watched it with my son, now 12, primarily – like a lot of us – so that he could capture a little bit of what it is about Cleveland and our passion for our teams that has such a hold on me. He was certainly interested, but there was nothing that really grabbed him. That’s sad to me, because Cleveland is a city, and we are a people, with a great story that should pull people in – especially our sons and daughters. Oh well, I guess that’s ultimately up to me, anyway.
[On final note: The clips that they showed of the Indians 1997 WS collapse are the first clips of that game that I’ve ever seen. Seriously. It’s a long story, but I wasn’t able to watch any of that game, and I have purposefully avoided watching any of it until this film came out. I just figured it was time to pull off the band aid. Wow. That sucked.]
“And I just don’t get putting the film’s writer on screen so often to give his impression of a city he doesn’t really know”
Honestly, I enjoyed his assessments more than any of the locals. Maybe that’s mostly because I’m not a fan of the Rizzo/Raab/Windhorst contingent to begin with, but it does seem like the guy cared enough to try and actually understand the situation and underlying factors. Raab, Rizzo, etc just wanted to tell you how much it sucked for them.
Well said all-around. And I agree about the ’97 World Series. I felt a visceral reaction to that footage that exceeded any other portion of the documentary. Like you, I hadn’t watched a single replay of that game since I laid face down on the carpet for 10 minutes after Renteria’s game winning hit.
One observation: the Marlins hit some pretty good pitches from Jose Mesa
I think you’re right. He was good. I just don’t get why the went with him. Clearly, he grasps it all well enough to write the story; I just wished the writer had been in the background with Cleveland voices telling the story that he was writing. It was just an odd production decision, to me.
Interesting that you should say that about the Marlins and Mesa. I had the same impression. For almost 20 years, I have just understood it to be that “Mesa sucked and totally imploded.” Watching those pitches for the first time left me with an entirely different impression. He always walked the edge, but that’s what made him good. The Marlins just knocked him off that edge. Happens. I thought Hargrove’s response to the criticism of putting him in the game was also pretty good. If you have a closer, you use the closer. Mesa was the closer.
Oh, I agree with you. When I first saw him, I was like “who the hell is this and why should I care what he thinks”. But when Rizzo and Raab were just rehashing the same complaining they’ve done for who knows how many years, I started to appreciate the alternative perspective. I think they might have just run the entire (and short) gamut of Raab and Rizzo takes, and needed someone else to fill up some time.
Exactly! At those points, I was thinking, “Why not get Jay Crawford to speak here, if you just need some solid filler/commentary?” (I’ve always enjoyed Crawford’s assessment of his hometown when he has a chance to give it on ESPN.)
As I said above, I think the lack of level-headed solid commenters was a feature, not a bug.
The demonization of Mesa strikes me as deeply unfair, particularly juxtaposed w/ the fact that we have a statue of someone (Thome) who brazenly left the franchise for more money standing in center field. Mesa was an All-Star in ’95-96 and played an instrumental role on some of the best teams we’ve seen.
Why hasn’t the franchise sought to embrace/honor him in some way? Why did we build a statue for the other guy again?
Because the real darling of the Indians (Vizquel – legitimately; I’m not complaining or criticizing) hates Mesa. Can’t alienate that guy. But of course, that poses the question: Why didn’t they put up a statue to Vizquel instead of Thome?
The Fumble was my senior year in college. Room full of both male and female friends. My friend Jill, “He can’t do that! That’s reaching in!” I have already stated that if the Browns ever make the SB, I will watch alone. All alone.
Yeah, you’re right – I remember they had some lingering grievance with one another. I was a big Vizquel fan – my family named our cat “Omar” in the mid-90s, plus he was briefly referenced on The Simpsons 🙂 – but that guy’s baggage shouldn’t be dictating the behavior of the franchise towards its distinguished alumni.
Jose Mesa Appreciation Day: A Ceremony of Forgiveness, Healing, and Taking the High Ground. Make it happen, Dolans 🙂
https://static.simpsonswiki.com/images/thumb/1/14/Omar_Vizquel.png/250px-Omar_Vizquel.png
That’s perfect. The event could be co-hosted by prior recipients Earnest Byner, Jim Thome, and LeBron James. (Turns out, we have a lot of forgiveness in our hearts. For anyone not named Modell.)
Absolutely. Would have been nice to see that theme brought out a bit more, but we know who we are 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QuJwf4Umho
Lofton, so woefully underrated, even by this fanbase.
Career WAR in an Indian uniform of the 90s contingent: Lofton 48.5, Thome 47.9, Ramirez 33.2, Vizquel 30.0, Belle 27.3, Nagy 25.1.
Besides, a statue of Lofton going over the wall to rob a home run would look a lot better than that lying hillbilly grabbing his crotch.
That would be beautiful. Favorite Indians player ever.
Why does Lofton need forgiveness?
I had some frustrations with the overall tone of the film, as well. For someone who easily gets stupidly emotional about this subject matter, it seemed odd how nothing was pushing the buttons. I think part of the issue was that the film was presented like a long-form version of the infamous “misery montages” TD mentions. The famous plays– Shot, Fumble, Drive, Renteria–were the foundation of the piece, rather than the actual teams and why we cared/care about them.
I think focusing the ’90s Indians story on Game 7 without really properly showcasing the incredible excitement around that team… it makes the drama fall flat. I know there is limited time to work with, but I can really see a lot of examples were a 90 second span of footage could have worked wonders– a montage of Tribe walkoff wins from the mid ’90s, a mention of the 455 sellout streak, a quick look at that incredible line-up. Anything for deeper context.
Similarly, the national audience knows the Drive and the Fumble because ESPN reminds them. They probably don’t know much else about those Browns teams. The doc at least touched on the Bernie phenomenon and the formation of the Dawg Pound. No similar elements were really there for the Cavs or Indians. Finally… it seems a HUGE misfire not to, again, spare 90 seconds to quickly montage-away the expansion Browns nightmare… particularly as a reply to David Modell’s assessment that the team just went on “pause” and everything wound up fine. How can you 100% ignore 20 years of maybe the most representative example of Cleveland sports loyalty? The city’s devotion to its horrendous expansion football team tops it all. Not mentioned.
I can’t really criticize the interviewees quite as much, because I’m sure at least many of the names mentioned were invited and passed. I’m sure they didn’t consider asking LeBron, considering the Raab connection.
Not for forgiveness, but for being the best Indians player from that era.
The critiques make me wonder. If the stereotypical Cleveland thing is to be defensive and misery-laden about its teams and the city itself…then what is the non-stereotype reality of Clevelanders?
And as others have said about the title itself, “Believeland” leads me to thing of a place where there is always hope and a willingness to try. Down but never out.