Written by Brian McPeek

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It was an interesting week around here for any number of reasons. The Indians are playing pretty decent baseball in front of pretty sparse crowds and they have a young player who is establishing himself as a bona fide star. It was also a week where another NFL legend shot himself to death just a few years after retiring from the league and that's got a lot of people questioning player safety and head injuries, if not the future of the game itself.

You might believe I have a few thoughts on all of that.

You might be right.

The Seau Situation

Don’t confuse what I’m about to say with my feelings and memories of Junior Seau. It’s deeply sad when a man with a family and a man with friends and admirers can find no better idea on how to end his pain than to put a gun to his chest, pull the trigger and take his own life. And I have no right or desire to make a comment on the religious implications or the right and wrong of Seau taking his own life. That’s between him and his God and you and yours.

I was saddened and shocked when I heard the news last week and I feel for those who left behind. I’ll leave it at that. To me, Seau picked up the baton from the Bears Mike Singletary as a picture of intensity and a fearsome, three-down linebacker who could change a game on any play. He’s a first ballot Hall of Famer who will live forever on NFL films highlights and in the hearts of thousands of players who played against him.

But ever since I was a kid I’ve had a pretty healthy fear of fire. My greatest fear in life would probably be to be trapped in a burning building. So you know what career never appealed to me at all? Yeah…I never became a fire fighter. You know why? Because they willingly go into burning freaking buildings...

I’m not sure what you know about NFL football and football in general, but guys actually hit each other. You’re dressed in pads and protective material, but you run fast and you hit each other and at the end of every play any number of very large, very fast men collide with Mother Earth which also does not yield at all.

The very nature of the game is to hit and be hit just like the very nature of firefighting is to wear the best protective equipment money can buy and go INTO the building where the fire is. Very rarely (if ever) have I heard of a firefighter suing his municipality or whoever he works for because he was burned or injured when he went into a burning building. They know what they’re getting into, the dangers that are present on every call and they CHOOSE the career and the daily requirements their jobs bring. Most of the time, if they have issues, their collective bargaining agreements have them proceeding through their union to resolve discrepancies, issues and complaints.

I can't imagine my friends and relatives who are or were cops suing the city they worked for because when they were dispatched to the scene of an armed man assaulting his wife they got there and weapons were involved. "Hey, you guys put me in danger when you sent me on that call with the knife wielding lunatic..." They know what they are getting into every single time they put on the uniform.

Just like effing NFL football players except with far fewer zeros in front of the decimal points on their checks.

The bottom line for me is I’m really getting sick of this Nancy-assed world where lawsuits are as common as the rhinovirus and where those lawsuits and whining are about as annoying as a raw and runny nose. I’m about to the point where it won’t surprise me in the least when one boxer sues the other for assault when he gets punched in the face during the sixth round.

It’s ridiculous.

The Seau thing is incredibly sad. But literally tens of thousands of NFL players have died of natural causes over the years. If the game has gotten too big and too fast then do what needs to be done to either slow it back down or upgrade the equipment you’re having these guys play in. And by all means make sure you severely punish any asshole who is too stupid to either offer $10,000 bonuses for injuring or maiming another player or who are at least too stupid to keep them from becoming public.

Suspend dirt bags like James Harrison for multiple games and ratchet up the fines too. These idiots that go broke within five years of retiring from multi-million dollar deals will feel the sting of big fines. I don’t care how much they whine. If they had any brains they’d understand that their howls about the game becoming sissified is because it’s being played in a country that has gone that direction. The owners see it. And they’ve taken big steps in the past couple years not only because a few actually probably give a shit about the players but because they know that the only wolf that can kill the goose laying golden footballs is a huge lawsuit over concussions and player safety.

When players are shooting themselves in the chest so their brains can be studied for the effect of concussions and head injuries the owners tend to take notice. The stiffer penalties and the rules being changed to eliminate a greater percentage of kickoff returns are a direct result of their fear of litigation.

If the league isn’t protecting players fully and isn’t outfitting them or developing better equipment then hang a big number on them in the courtroom. Hold the league to the fire in terms of making sure these players understand the second they enter the league that they will very soon be leaving it and help the players prepare for that time that none of them think is coming.

But make sure before you do take the players side or lay a financial hit on the league that you understand these while many of these players are stupid, they are not stupid enough to have no clue about the risks they assume every time they take the field.

If they ARE so GD stupid that they don’t understand that, then maybe shooting themselves in the chest is the best thing we can hope for. That at least ensures they won’t reproduce another generation of people stupid enough to believe that lie, and anyone saying they didn’t understand the dangers of hurling themselves into other moving objects probably doesn’t deserve to walk the earth with the rest of us anyway.

Anyone Home?

Attendance (or lack thereof) seems to be a big topic of conversation and concern with many of the people I respect around town. Learned baseball people and long-time fans who support the team with their presence are grumbling about the larger crowds being 16k-20k and the regular crowds being nearly countable on week nights.

It’s true. 20 minutes before a game a week ago I was able to count the people in the bleachers (18) and the number of people in the mezzanine (none other than ushers) as well as the number of people in the club seats (two people standing and looking out over the field and none seated- maybe they were all eating).

People haven’t shown up like you’d hope. There were 16,000 this past Friday for a matchup of first place teams on a decent May evening and with the season’s first firework show immediately afterward.

But that said, I’m not sure what people expect.

It’d be great to go back to the days of “455” but that’s not happening and the last ten years of Tribe baseball have basically caused the majority of people out there to take a wait and see approach with this team. The Indians were 20-8 last season when die hards began complaining that the casual fans weren’t going to the ball park. The Indians went 30-15 over their first 45 games and weren’t drawing large crowds every night. The decision by most to stay home was justified when the Indians turned that 20-8 and 30-15 into another sub .500 season.

And you think 14-10 is going to have people scrambling for tickets?

I’ve always gotten a kick out of the folks who chastise people for not coming down to the park and then complain about bandwagon fans and ‘Johnny Come Latelys’ taking their seats and parking spots when they do show up. One of the criticisms regarding “455” is that it was built on the attendance of so many people who wouldn’t know a baseball from a boat anchor but who knew that ‘The Jake’ was the place to be during the mid 90’s.

I’d love to see more people down there every night. I don’t believe all of the die-hard baseball fans who know the game and live and die with the team are attending games when I can count people in the bleachers and mezzanine or when I could tumble from the press box and not be fearful at all of landing on another living person.

But I also understand (especially early in the year with weather and school being factors) why this Indians team hasn’t earned a lot of trips to the park. They’ve built a mediocre record mostly against the dregs of the American League and they fell on their faces last season after a hotter start. They’re going to need to keep winning and they’re going to need to keep winning against some quality teams to earn the fans’ attendance.

You might not like it and it might offend you that more folks aren’t supporting the club. You might even understand that people staying away in droves does nothing to help this team get better in the near future or remain viable farther down the road.

But you should be able to understand why most casual fans haven’t jumped on board with this club just yet.

With That in Mind…

The Johnny Damon acquisition was a good one on the field and a good one off the field. I know people are attached to Shelley Duncan and/or prefer that a young kid gets that spot to see if they can be a long term answer, but Shelley Duncan isn’t taking that LF spot and running with it and the Indians are devoid of any OF help that could arrive today and own the LF spot tomorrow.

If Duncan is Duncan and is better suited for a platoon role or PH duties and there are no younger kids ready to play, then signing Damon cheaply is a very good move for the team and for attendance. Johnny Damon isn’t Jim Thome, a guy who brought nostalgic Clevelanders out to Progressive Field again last summer while the team was collapsing, and he’s not Alex Rodriguez, who still is a powerful and impactful bat at a similar age as Damon, but Damon does have a name and a face people recognize.

And if you want casual fans to occasionally show up, you’re simply better off with hoping they recognize Damon as opposed to relate to Shelley Duncan’s underdog and everyman “appeal”. Damon’s still the better player in my mind, though there are 9-year old girls throwing off the wrong foot who have stronger arms than he does.

I have no way of knowing what, if any, effect Damon will have on attendance but what I’m saying is his acquisition simply can’t hurt. If he brings a few people more into the park on a given night than Shelley Duncan does and he’s just as ‘productive’ on the field then acquiring Damon was the right move.

The Real Reason You Should Be There…

Is that you’d be watching first-hand the birth of a legitimate star with the organization. Jason Kipnis is on his way people. He has some kinks to iron out defensively but he’s going to be in the mix for the next 8-10 years for the AL All-Star spot at second base with guys like Ian Kinsler and Robinson Cano.

He’s that good and that gifted as a hitter and he’s going to get better and better as his knowledge of pitchers and their approach grows.

I’ve watched Kipnis since was called up last season and there’s never been a minute when I was watching, either during games or down on the field during batting practice, where Jason Kipnis looked scared or overwhelmed by the major league environment. There’s never been a look or a glance or any body language that has ever said that Kipnis was fearful of success or that the moment was too big.

Why do I bring that up? For one it gives you the clear idea that Kipnis has a great deal of confidence in his ability and that’s critical in the major leagues. The other reason is because I watched Cord Phelps handle his promotion and time in the big leagues with a lot more hesitancy and discomfort. Phelps looked like he was in over his head last season. I never saw the same thing from Kipnis and, to be honest and to give one reason I had and still have high hopes for Jason Donald as a big league hitter, is that I never saw it from Donald either.

But Kipnis is even better a player than Donald. He has a position he can play every day albeit one where he needs a ton of work. Jason Kipnis is not a plus defender. He’s an adequate defender and he’s good enough to play 2b for ten years if he hits like he’s capable of. But defensively Kipnis is a bit stiff, not very fluid, doesn’t have a ton of range and he’s a bit slow in turning the double play. He can and likely will improve in all of those areas and his arm is strong enough to make up for some of those deficiencies, but he’s never going to remind anyone of Robbie Alomar. He’ll remind you more of Carlos Baerga, but he’s going to likely win more Silver Sluggers than Gold Gloves and that’s perfectly fine.

The thing that impresses me most about Kipnis, even with the limited experience he has, is how quiet his hands and body are at the plate. Kipnis goes through that relaxation technique where he extends the bat back toward the home plate umpire and exaggerates the flattening of the bat, but when he resets and awaits a pitch watch how little motion there is from that point until he begins his swing. There is no bat waving, there is no cocking of the legs or rhythmic rocking of the hips. There is almost ZERO motion. Why is that important for any hitter, much less a very young one? Because motion equals moving parts and when there are moving parts there’s more a chance one of them gets out of sync.

Kipnis is a study in relaxation and in ‘quiet’. His hands are set, he’s relaxed and in good starting position to get into his swing and he stays that way until the pitch is delivered because nothing else is moving. When you teach kids to swing a bit you can approach it with a very simple (for them, parents and coaches) mantra of “Start, Step, and Finish”. Those are the three basic elements of the swing. And there are thousands of movements or potential slips between them. But Kipnis would be a perfect guy to show kids on the fundamentals of “Start, Step, Finish”.

The point is guys who are that ‘quiet’ slump less and come out of it faster. It’s like engine work. It’s far easier and faster to diagnose and correct problems with a lawn mower engine than a jet fighter engine because of the simplicity of one over the other.

The other thing I like about Kipnis is his willingness and ability to hit balls hard all over the field. If you look at a spray chart for the Indians 2B you’ll note he hits as more balls into left field than he does into right field and that he hits more balls to center than right as well. That’s indicative of a good hitter who goes with the pitch and doesn’t get overly pull or power happy with his swing. It’s impressive for veteran hitters (compare it to Duncan’s penchant for trying to yank everything he hits) much less younger players. Kipnis will develop more power as he gets older and smarter but he’s developing excellent hitting habits at the major league level right now. He will go through slumps and periods where he needs to adjust his approach based on how guys are trying to get him out, but that again comes back to the kid looking like he belongs and having the confidence and ability to make those adjustments.

Lastly, before I completely jinx the kid and get him hurt or muddled in an epic slump, I love the way he approaches the game. He doesn’t mope or big time it like Michael Brantley (who has far less talent, ability and reason to ‘big league’ it like he does) but he’s also not some sugared up tool like a lot of guys in the league. He displays intensity and a passion for the game without being a caricature or a cheerleader.

He’s a dirt dog. He’s a ballplayer. He’s a guy I’d pay to see and he’s a kid the Indians offense and franchise may be using as a centerpiece of the team and their marketing efforts for years to come.

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