October
26 th
Whoever coined the phrase “a picture says 1000 words” must have had this photo in mind. Yes, folks, Mark Shapiro’s worst nightmare has come true – Wednesday night is Game One of the 2009 World Series and will feature the last two AL Cy Young award winners. Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia. Hey, did you all know they are former Indians?
To quote Mr. Gump: “That’s all I have to say about that.”
Author: Rick
Rick is a co-founder and editor of WFNY. His love of Cleveland sports is surpassed only by his faith and love of his family. Follow him on Twitter- @rickwfny.Rick has written 743 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
Did you all know they are happily former Indians?
C.C. looks svelte as a bobblehead. And I never noticed how piercingly blue Cliff’s eyes are.
I like the sponsorship on the Cliff one. They had to include that after only one year?
And those bodies are a BIT out of proportion to one another.
Some of you need to wake up or you’ll end up becoming a bobblehead-head bobbing at every Shapiro move is not conducive to your mental well-being.
Neither is head-shaking.
Over under on how many times the commentators mention the Indians?
This should be Bud Selig’s worst nightmare. It’s Exhibit A on why his sport’s financial system is broken. As long as the networks love having the Yankees, Red Sox, etc. in the playoffs, then it will never change.
@6
At this very moment, McCarver is researching how the latitude and longitude of Progressive Field has impacted the release points of the two pitchers. He’s also living with Victor Martinez to pick his brain about the rosin bag habits of each.
More proof, in my opinion, why as a baseball owner you have to spend spend spend or start demanding a salary cap. Who thinks the organization would’ve traded those two if either of those two conditions had been met?
It truely is the *sigh* young award in cleveland.
@ Isis – do you consider yourself a fan of the Cleveland Indians? Not of the organization, but of the team?
I consider myself a fan, but what saddens me about this upcoming Game 1 is what many other have pointed out – that the Indians simply cannot afford, as a mid-market team to retain their talent. That’s not on Shapiro, it’s somewhat on the Dolans, but mostly it’s on the ridiculous system of inequities that baseball continues to perpetuate.
Right now, the Indians best case scenario is to be like the Minnesota Twins – in contention every year to win the AL Central and get eliminated in the first round.
@ AMC — How were we good in the 90s/mid 2000s? Luck, or something else? Just curious.
May I use that chair and desk? I think I need to lay my head down for a while after seeing this.
Boomhauer, good point, but kind of contradictory. If the league makes the most money when the best players are on the most popular teams why would they change anything?
Sure it’s bad for the long term health of the sport, but since when do people give up short term money for long term gain?
AMC, you can’t have the team without the organization, just look at the Browns. The team is here but all the organization left.
I miss Dick Jacobs.
@14/Swig: that’s right. Selig’s nightmare is the ‘97 Cleveland/Florida World Series nobody watches, not the Yankees starting a popular likeable personality against the reigning Cy Young pitching for the defending champs. There’s a bounce in ol’ Bud’s step today.
it sickens me every time i hear/read something to the effect of:
“not since 2002 have the yankees made it this far!”
…2002? really? REALLY? yeah… long time. wow. poor yankee fans. pobre, pobre yankees fans.
@ #12 – The Indians were good and competitive in the mid 90’s for a few reasons:
1) They drafted well (hello, Ramirez, Thome, Nagy et all), infinitely better than they have the last few years
2) They moved into a brand new park at a perfect time (shiny new park + exciting team = hundreds of straight sellouts)
3) There was little competition for the Cleveland sports dollar (the Cavs were beyond boring & the Browns were gone)
4) They did not have to compete with the great “unequalizer” in baseball today: the Regional Sports Network.
Back in the mid 90s through the early 2000s, gate receipts and merchandise were the primary two sources of baseball revenue for most teams and the Indians were awash in those kind of revenues. Nowadays, the RSN drives such a huge component of revenues that the Indians can’t possibly compete; even though they own and operate a RSN, there’s no way that Sportstime Ohio (which reaches, and I’m guessing here, 5 million people) can compete with the YES Network (founded in 2002, which probably reaches 30+ million people) in terms of the revenue it generates for their respective baseball teams.
So unless this team was either able to draft incredibly well (and lord knows they haven’t the last few years) or be blessed with a billionaire owner who wasn’t dependant on his tiny RSN for revenues (and we all know that ain’t Larry), the chips are certainly stacked against the Indians in a way that they weren’t back in the glory days.
15 years ago, selling out the Jake was enough to compete with the big boys for top free agents. Today, it isn’t.
So here’s to hoping that the young guys pan out, Manny Acta turns out to be the anti-grind, and David finally beats Goliath one of these days.
Thanks JD, really good points all around.
@6… probably as many times as the nit wits doing the Browns game on TV mentioned the team having the flu !
JD and AMC, great posts.
@16 Harv: But look at the NFL. When teams have a chance year after year, people care about teams in other cities.
I hope that Shapiro is happy with his decisions, as a Cleveland fan the fact that the World Series starters are former stud pitchers for the Tribe is awful.
I don’t know how much longer as a fan I can support these terrible decisions. Every spring hope is renewed here that this year Dolan will reach into hi pocket and help us find people that will return this team to the hey day of the 90’s. Every year we again are disappointed, and this year with Sabathia vs Lee this is the final straw. I am no longer supporting this team I just can’t be teased and promised like we all have in Cleveland and see how our farm team here supports all the teams willing to spend, get us an owner here that can afford a team, sell the team Dolan and dump Shapiro, I don’t believe anything he says.
God Rest Dick Jacobs, I hope he isn’t looking at the mess that is the Indians.