Evaluating Cleveland as a Baseball Town: Part I.

The most important topic addressed by this blog has always been Cleveland as a baseball town. What makes a city a great baseball town; how to understand what that means; how to make our city an even better town for baseball. Along with this my interests focus on the culture of baseball, the role of media and the changes that happen as social media increasingly transforms how we encounter the game, and, ultimately, how we approach and understand the game of baseball.

So I began this afternoon sitting inside on a hot day, listening the the Indians play the Cardinals, and intending to write about the topic of what makes a great baseball town as a response to the interesting interview with Indians President Mark Shapiro published Saturday by the Plain Dealer.  The overwhelming reason I was intending to write about this is because the other post I'm working on focuses on inter-League play, and inevitably that turns into an apocalyptic rant about the irreversible decline of American culture and the inevitable end of our way of life. (I get irrationally negative over the abhorrent abberation of baseball often called inter-League play.)

What attracted me to write about this interview was Shapiro addressing the concept of Cleveland as a baseball town. But I made an all too frequent error as I sat down to write. I scrolled down and read the comments. And now whether I talk about Shapiro and evaluation Cleveland as a baseball town, or the current inter-league nonsense, it's going to go poorly.

So let's hope that the Tribe pulls off a good win as I'm writing in order to lift my spirits.

Reviewing the interview and, unfortunately, looking at the comments, leaves me in a place where I have to admit that right now the front office is stuck doing three things: 1) Deflecting the same idiotic comments time and again (re: ownership, payroll, spending, revenue); 2) Answering inquiries on "evaluating" trades past or present (ranging from Ubaldo way back to the long dead horses of the C.C. / Cliff Lee trades); 3) Expressing some kind of confidence in Cleveland as a team and a worthwhile city for baseball.

Quite frankly, #3 is going to be the only one that matters in the long run; and my unfortunate reading of the comments reinforces that. (I need to block all of the cleveland.com site from my computer and only read it on my phone. The mobile site doesn't display comments.)

These points are really tied into my own central concerns of the cultures of baseball fans, changing roles of media, and what it means to be a baseball town. Why?

The comments following the article were, sadly, what they always are, a random combination of:

• Unfounded statements relying on totalizing language ("we never...",  "This team always...", "No one thinks...", etc.)
• Absolutist statements and ad hominim attacks, frequently amplified by the CAPS LOCK OF RAGE.  (e.g., "Shapiro is a LIAR", "The Dolans make huge profits", and various insults to the intelligence of all parties involved). 
• Direct attacks as rebuttals. (in the vein of "if you disagree, you're an idiot / on drugs / paid by the Dolans to write that")
• And, occasionally, brave souls who challenge the faulty logic, lack of evidence, or sheer idiocy of other commentators. 

Now, I know and hope that anyone reading this knows that comments on a news site do not reflect the general level of discourse. There is a strong inclination toward aggressive trolling and generally hostile interaction that comes from a combination of the security of anonymity and simply the demographics involved. And as I keep discovering, to my constant delight, for all the idiots making these kinds of posts and comments, there are many more who have no part in that discourse and just enjoy the game. I usually meet them on the RTA Red Line going to ballgames. I find them in the stands watching the game. 

Increasingly, and this is a very important point, I'm finding the better fans of the game claiming social media. Even as I write this I'm sending and receiving messages on Twitter from Cleveland fans delighted with a close, tight 1-1 game in the top of the 9th. 

This is why I say that the most important recurring motif I'm seeing in communication by Shapiro and the rest of the Indians Organization is expressing confidence in the fans and in Cleveland as a great city for baseball. Because this speaks directly to people like the fans I talk to on the train and the fans I follow on Twitter. This helps encourage us. 

The reality of the situation is that since the front office, especially Shapiro, are immediately put on the defensive, they've already lost. No amount of fact, no disclosure of information, no dose of reality matters. There is an established narrative that determines and decides what most people think, however idiotic. When you have to react to that, you've already given that narrative control. 

It really remains up to us to reclaim the narrative and redirect it. 

#GoTribe

A Lazy Sunday for Slow Games and the Head Game

Little to say about the series in Chicago thus far. I suppose it is noteworthy that, given how much concern has been raised by commentators over how many walks our pitchers have given up, there was only one walk in yesterday's 14-7 loss. Otherwise, I'll just stick with saying it's a long season and 162+ is a lot of baseball.

Instead, with a respectful not to the ever eloquent and thoughtful "Lazy Sunday"posts each week at TheDiatribe blog, I'll offer some brief thoughts of my own on this warm Memorial Day Weekend Sunday.

I enjoy pitching. The brilliant game this past week between Masterson and Verlander kept me spellbound watching each pitcher get his outs, or pitch out of jams, or the unbelievable ability of Verlander to find more speed and power as the game goes on.

Now, I know many people don't share my love for close pitching battles.  I remember a close game last season, an inter-league match between Cincinnati and Cleveland on May 21, 2011. I took a friend who is more of a casual fan of the game and after what I thought was a thrilling, fast-paced game we met some friends in Ohio City. They asked how the game was and he said, "Good, it was pretty slow for awhile but it picked up near the end."

I stared at my scorecard in shock trying to figure out how a game that finished in 2:21 could possible have been slow. Through six innings there were only three hits. There was no scoring until the top of the 7th, when Brandon Phillips was hit by a pitch, advanced to third on a single, and scored on a ground-out. The Tribe answered in the bottom of the seventh with a lead-off single by Asdrubal Cabrera and scored 2 runs on a 2-out home run by Travis Buck. By end of the 7th, Josh Tomlin and Hector Bailey had faced a combined 50 batters with 190 pitches. That, to me, was a fast paced and exciting game!

But I recognize how for most of the sell-out crowd that day the highlights were the free Choo jerseys and the thrill of a homerun in the bottom of the 7th. And both were exciting, even if the promotional jerseys had a hot-dog company logo on the sleeve. I can understand how most people want to see towering home runs that make the crowd stomp and cheer. The game I was watching and thoroughly enjoying is more like what Roger Kahn described in his classic on baseball from the pitcher's perspective: The Head Game. Watching the pitcher face off each batter, thinking about what he's throwing and why; trying to understand -- from the distant perspective of the top row of the upper deck -- what he's doing and why. Kahn called it "chess at 90mph", and one of the delights of baseball is playing along in my head and trying to understand, keeping track on my scorecard and revisiting each match-up at a later date, still trying to understand it.

Admittedly, I'm no expert. Neither at pitching nor at chess. I've never played, and whatever daydreams I have of debuting on the mound as a phenomenal left-handed fire-baller, I have never thrown a fastball and only understand the mechanics of breaking pitches in theory. For that matter, my own visual acuity is rarely sharp enough to tell one pitch from another when watching the game. In fact, I'm not even left-handed. But part of the joy of baseball remains watching and trying to figure it out; always learning, always seeing something new and unexpected.

This part of the game has only grown more fun in recent years. Alongside my writings in theory and prose, there are countless blogs and articles at his very moment expanding the statistical representation and analysis of baseball. I can, and will, say more about this in forthcoming posts. But the explosion of sabermetrics and "moneyball" approaches to the game present even more opportunities for delving into the Head Game, really playing along by thinking about the game, and getting more deeply involved.

This is a key point for the use of statistical analysis and modeling, at least for me. Along with each blog post or article out there, there's a comment thread full of arguments ranging from methodological battles over statistical analysis to personal insults to ordinary vapid cheering of the "My team rocks, you guys suck" variety. I can't get behind the methods or the math as a definitive understanding of the game, nor as a process of finding the right or most perfect way of describing and predicting the progress of baseball. But it is, and remains, another avenue of entering into the head game. For that, I'm happy to dive in and dust off my old statistics and calculus textbooks.

A sweep... but what's in it for me?

After last night's amazing game and taking a series from the Tigers, I couldn't resist coming out to see Masterson face off against one of the best pitchers in the game. I'll admit that I rationally did not expect a win. Like many people have said, since we already won the series, we were "playing with house money." All the better, just go enjoy the game, see a great pitching match-up, and enjoy a beautiful day.

Needless to say it was a great game, from Choo's lead off homerun that landed just a few seats away from me in the mezzanine through Chris Perez's third save of the series. Verlander was amazing, and you can only respect him as a pitcher. Anyone who not only goes the distance in a loss, but somehow throws harder at the end of the game, deserves respect and admiration.

So I went to the game not expecting to win. Even when we went to the 9th leading 2-1, I was willing to concede a blown save and a loss. Not that I didn't think we could win, but because I recognized that this is baseball. As much as I wanted the win, I know the Tiger fans who drove down to Progressive Field were just as fervently hoping for a comeback.

Something about this raises a question about how we approach the game, our expectations and the realities of being a fan. So many of the negative voices sound like they feel like they deserve a World Series winning team for the price of their tickets. So much of the rhetoric they repeat about the ownership and the management sounds like they think unless we win, and win everything, and win all the time, then they've been cheated and refuse to spend a dime seeing a game.

And yes, it's a long season. There's a lot of baseball still to go. A sweep in may isn't a statement in a pennant race. But what does it say, and more to the point, what's in it for me?

We did win, but it would have been no less enjoyable of a game if it ended with a Tiger win. We swept, but it would still have been a win in the series without today's victory.

Really, if I knew my ticket money was buying a guaranteed victory, like the AL-Central Pennant most commentators awarded Detroit for signing Prince Fielder to a quarter-billion dollar contract, why bother going? What fun is it?

The tribe swept, beyond my expectations. What's in it for me? A great day of baseball, two days of games with great crowds who were excited and behind their team, a little sunburn and a sore throat.

Of Many "What If"s

Last years' Cleveland Indians “What If?” advertising campaign was well received by many of us, to say the least. The short commercial managed to capture the scope and depth of so much of what we celebrate and enjoy about baseball and its history in Cleveland.

And, as someone who always thinks that if you can't be at a game, baseball is best watched on the radio, I thought the radio versions were even better than the video. The simple and unanswered question “What if it never happened?” reminded us of a long history at League Park, Municipal Stadium, and Jacobs' Field. It connected us with Tris Speaker, Lou Boudreau, Rocky Colivato, and the great and recently passed Bob Feller. It reminded us that our history included the pioneering activities of the first Larry Doby as African-American player in the AL and Frank Robinson as the first African-American manager. Most of all, it connected all these together into a single thread.

Perhaps, then, we should reconsider one of the questions it posed last year: “What if the 90's were just the 90's?”

I first came to Cleveland and became a fan of the Indians in the 90's, yet the connection to that longer history is more important than just recalling a brief period of sellouts and division titles. In fact, knowing I may be approaching blasphemy with his statement, in many ways the 90's were not the end-all-be-all of baseball. We were winning, true. There was excitement, also true. 455 sellouts. But I also saw a team eventually move from building a championship group of players to maintaining the status quo. Instead of developing a generation of players, we now had to pay the same outrageous payrolls and trade for star power. The ill-fated trade to bring John Rocker to Cleveland really made me reconsider if this was a team worth cheering for, or just another baseball business meeting financial success.

Thus I'm a bit disturbed by this year's continuation of the “What If” spots. Unlike last year's evocative and emotional ad connecting us with a longer past, this year seems more concerned with the idea of bringing back the 90's.

Thome was great – Thome came back. Alomar was great – Alomar came back. Lofton! Back in some capacity. 455 sellouts … please come back?

 The 90's were a good time for baseball in Cleveland. But for me, they were great not because of our victories. The real greatness came from sharing seasons in a good town for baseball. Many others hav written about the unique set of conditions we had at the time: the Cavs didn't matter, the Browns were gone, the Jake was novel, etc.

 What no one can account for is the difference between then and now in terms of the fans I met and how fluently and insightfully everyone was talking about baseball. I remember talking to older fans on the train who told me about the starting rotations they grew up with. I remember listening to Herb Score call games, sometimes forgetting who was playing, and my coworkers forgiving him and telling me why they loved listening to him. (I'm almost certain one game in 1997 he called a play where Feller was pitching to Mickey Mantle.) What I miss most about the 90's isn't the players whose memories I still cherish, nor the sellout streak that meant I almost never got to go to a game. What I miss is that this was a great town for baseball, with fans who knew and loved the game.

 So what if the 90's were just the 90's? What if it we lost the world series in 1995? What if 1997 was a heartbreaking year? It's part of our history, and what if it's just one more part of a long tradition?