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Gary Benz

Fox Sports logoOne of the abiding questions of recent times about what's happening with the business side of the Cleveland Indians revolves around the Dolans' recent sale of SportsTime Ohio.

The Dolans went to some difficulty and expense to first cancel its television broadcast contract with Fox Sports Ohio and then launch their own cable venture m 2006 with Indians games as the centerpiece. Yet just a handful of years later they abandoned the project and sold STO, ironically to Fox Sports. Did the Dolans cash in? Is that what funded this past season's free agent splurge? Hard to know in either case, but perhaps they sold for a more mundane reason: it may not have been generating the profits they thought.

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Jeff Rich

0-JimKernUsually, it happens around the MLB All-Star break.  It's mid-July, and without a regular slate of games, it's virtually a couple of days without sports.  It's really some birthday present for someone like myself; I'm craving a game to watch, but the gods are telling me that I will get nothing, and I will like it.  On the other hand, it gives me some time to reflect on what's happened during my time in this world.  Sure, it isn't as fascinating as the story of Forrest Gump, or even a real person whose story might include more relevant occurrences than a regular kid from Cleveland, but this is my story, and the only one I can tell with such a degree of accuracy.

35 years ago, Jim Kern represented the Indians in the Mid-Summer Classic in San Diego, with his 6-3 record and 7 saves, as the National League All-Stars bested the American League by a count of 7-3.  Kern came on in the 7th inning of a tie game, struck out Reggie Smith of the Dodgers, surrendered a double to Pete Rose, retired Joe Morgan on a flyball, and issued a free pass to George Foster, before AL skipper Billy Martin went with his guy from the Yankees, "Louisiana Lightning" Ron Guidry.  Guidry got them out of the inning, but the stars of the Senior Circuit took batting practice of 1st-year Yankee Goose Gossage in the eighth inning to secure the win.  When it was over, the result was logged in the annals of baseball history and forgotten.  You'll have to forgive me for the lack of details, I was literally born at 10:36 that morning, and unable to ask the powers-that-be at Euclid General to put the game on.

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Gary Benz

Paula DeenIf I had just one wish as a sports columnist, it would be to write with the absolute clarity and sense of purpose of Jason Whitlock. He doesn't duck important issues, particularly when race is involved. He doesn't adhere to conventional wisdom or anyone's party line and doesn't write to meet anyone's expectations but his own. Time and again he'll be on the opposite side of where you'd thought he'd be on a particular issue and where you might be. When you're finished, he'll change your mind.

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Jonathan Knight

001 last willNow that Cleveland has once again gone viral for the wrong reasons following Scott Entsminger’s much-publicized dying wish, many of us have begun thinking about the same thing.

Granted, it’s natural to think about death around the time the Browns’ training camp begins, but Entsminger has us putting a little more emphasis on it this year. 

In case you didn’t catch it on SportsCenter or The Tonight Show, he requested that everybody at his funeral wear Browns-themed gear (which, admittedly, depicts grief far more effectively than a black suit) and that six members of the team serve as his pallbearers so the Browns could “let him down one more time.”

Brilliant.

I, for one, now feel like we need to add some cheese to these nachos. Especially since we’re going to have to endure the 2013 Browns season and Mr. Entsminger got out of it.

He got me thinking...could I use the magnitude of my own passing to make things a little better? Could I cash in on the guilt of my survivors to get some shit done?

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Jerry Roche

Mantle bookOf all the books written about sport, perhaps none is as definitive as “The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood,” wherein author Jane Leavy explores the heights — and depths — of one of the most acclaimed baseball stars of the 20th century.

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