Written by Brian McPeek

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I know they say you can’t go home again. I just had to come back one last time. 
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam. But these handprints on the front steps are mine.
 
Up those stairs in that little back bedroom is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar. I bet you didn’t know under that live oak my favorite dog is buried in the yard. 
 
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it, this brokenness inside me might start healing. 
Out here it’s like I’m someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself .
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave. Won’t take nothing but a memory from the house that built me.

Probably not what Miranda Lambert was considering when she sang that song, but the house that built me in terms of a sports view point was a crappy little place in the projects. It had an ever-changing, shifting uneven foundation, was built from the cheapest material possible and was in constant need of repair. People laughed at it as they rode by and it got to the point where the laughter stopped and was replaced by pity. People from shitty neighborhoods in Kansas City and New Orleans felt bad for those in my neighborhood. 

The Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Cavaliers of the 1970’s and for most of the 1980’s were a ghetto in terms of sports prosperity. The teams were almost always bad and almost always devoid of stars and the city's sports fans were usually more excited about football season than anything else on the sports horizon. 

Well, Who says you can’t go home again to all of those fond memories?

It was always easy to mark time back in those days. Aside from Christmas the best day of the year was the day of the NFL or NBA draft when you had momentary hope that Willis Adams, Gregg Rakoczy, Tommy Vardell, Stephen Bragg, Mel Turpin, Keith Lee, John Bagley and Chad Kinch wouldn’t blow and would help the Browns or Cavs move from Complete Suck to Hopeful Mediocrity. 

You knew that it was almost time to go back to school not by the commercials for back-to-school shopping, but rather because August always came the day after the Indians traded anyone of any value for a handful of beads, promises and trinkets.  

And here we are again. It’s very clearly August because the Tribe just purged all remaining veteran talent from their roster, the Cavs are star-less and signing guys like Joey Graham instead of LeBron James and because people are again jacked up about a Browns team that will do well to win half their scheduled games. 

Deep breath…. 

It’s difficult watching 30+ years of this. It builds a lot of stress and tension. Let’s play a game. Let’s see if you can guess which chair I’d be if I were indeed a chair:

 
 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, on to what’s happened in the last week. 

Same Old Same Old 

The Indians have become an impulsive college kid with a credit card. On the spur of the moment they spend a lot of money they don’t necessarily have on luxury items like Kerry Wood and they find not only is that item of poor quality but also that they never really had much use for it anyway. They then sell the item at a deep discount and are stuck with the debt that sucks up their income for months (if not years) to come. 

It’s a deadly cycle and it’s indicative of the bad decisions that have come to define the Mark Shapiro era in Cleveland. Yes, Shapiro has had a few hits and purchased a few nice items. But the poor decisions have far outweighed the good ones and that has put the Tribe in a precarious position going forward. It’s simply more expensive to take your family to an Indians game and many people are reluctant to pay the price to watch a glorified Triple-A team. 

This last week saw the Indians purge themselves of not only Wood but also Jhonny Peralta, Austin Kearns and Jake Westbrook. It used to be that such moves would provide an infusion of young talent to the organization but the Tribe received only two players (both minor leaguer pitchers at or below the AA level as of now) and money was the biggest reason for the moves. And it’s not even money that comes into play today. The Indians are still on the hook for a big chunk of the salaries they traded away and won’t see much financial benefit from the deals this season. 

From a financial standpoint the Tribe is clearing the deck and the balance sheet of some bad debts going forward. Even a solid pitcher (and much better person) like Westbrook was overpaid at $11million per year so at least someone in the front office has a clue that the deficit death cycle needs to stop. 

But it doesn’t help immediately on the field and Tribe fans are tired of waiting for next year when it comes to competing on baseball’s effed up economic landscape. The Indians need more hits than misses just to keep their head above water and for the majority of the last ten years that simply hasn’t happened. Worse yet, a look at the current roster doesn’t bring much hope that things are going to be any better in the near future. 

The Tribe is going to need be very smart and very lucky over the next five years to get back to a point where they can contend.  

Forgive me if I’m a bit pessimistic about their chances. 

A Bit More on Westbrook 

Paul Cousineau, the fine TCF Indians writer said it as well as anyone could in his ‘Lazy Sunday’ column regarding Westbrook and his time with the Tribe: 

Before getting into the “who” and the “where” with Westbrook, it bears mentioning that he – unlike most of the players of the early-to-mid-to-late-2000s incarnation of the Indians – leaves with an amount of respect and admiration that few have earned in their time with the Indians. Westbrook was never the ace of the staff nor did he ever represent the face of the franchise, but he simply contributed to this team in a manner in which few will truly ever recognize, right down to him likely leaving dollars and years that he could have attained on the open market when he signed his 3-year extension in 2007. 
 
While that extension would never work out for either party, with Jake making only 51 starts over the 2+ years that he pitched in Cleveland (with a 99 ERA+) during that time, everything that needs to be said about Jake Westbrook as a person can be summed up in a quote that is his own, explaining why he lessened the $2M (that was rightfully owed to him in the chance of a trade) to allow the Indians to move him to St. Louis:

 
“Any way that I could help out the Indians, I needed to do that,” said Westbrook, "because I didn’t really feel like I honored my contract as well as I would have liked to, being hurt. It was in my best interest and the Indians’ best interest to do something like that.” 
 
In this age of televised debacles and a former aCCe unsure of whom he once played with while in Cleveland, Westbrook’s character (personal, not just professional) shows through in that quote. As his exit calls to mind the manner in which Travis Fryman exited the game with grace, it is important to remember that Jake Westbrook – injuries and all – was a quintessential Indian and should always be remembered as such, just as much as he will be remembered for the manner in which he (and not Sabathia or Carmona) tried to put the Indians’ on his back in that 2007 ALCS. 

Westbrook was a solid pitcher and a better person during his tenure with the Indians. The organization and Indians fans will miss both those characteristics. 

Where We Going Here? 

Signing Joey Graham to a free agent deal wasn’t the strangest move of the week for the Cavaliers. The players are going to change and the talent level for the 2010-2011 Cavaliers can’t possibly be close to where it was before James left. A veteran like Graham is roster filler if nothing else. 

What is more puzzling than who is brought in to compete for roster spots is the shuffling in the Cavaliers front office. Not only is an experienced GM in Danny Ferry gone but the Cavaliers promoted Chris Grant, a man with no previous top job experience, to replace him. 

You’d think a team with a green GM would prefer to surround him with some experienced front office personnel but this week the Cavaliers also saw Mike Winger, who served as legal counsel and salary cap adviser in Cleveland, move on to Oklahoma City in a front office role and also watched as Assistant GM Lance Blanks emerged as the top candidate for the GM job in Phoenix. 

If you’re keeping score at home the Cavs have now lost Mike Brown, Ferry, Winger and likely Blanks out of their front office. On the court they’ve lost James, Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair ( both traded to Minnesota), Shaquille O’Neal and Zydrunas Ilgauskas.  

In the place of those men is Grant in the front office, Byron Scott in the head coaches chair and Ramon Sessions, Joey Graham, C Ryan Hollins and Christian Eyenga on the roster. 

Makes you want to run out and lay down some money on season tickets, doesn’t it? Remember last week when I mentioned that the Cavaliers had two choices in regard to how they’d approach the coming season? I stated they could look to either reload on the way by acquiring impactful talent or they could simply blow things up and start over again. 

Which approach does it look like they’re taking? 

I’ll forego another picture of a chair under duress. 

Death Benefit Beneficiaries 

The struggles of the Cavs and Indians bring us back to the Cleveland Sports Circle of Life. Someone is likely going to benefit from death and in this case the death of the Cavaliers and Tribe leave the Browns as the sole beneficiary of Cleveland’s hope (as well as its discretionary sports entertainment income). 

So it was that more than 3,000 people showed up in Berea on Saturday for the Browns first training camp practice under new team president Mike Holmgren. They watched grown men in shorts and helmets go through the paces of a practice, cheering mightily the fact Jake Delhomme is not Derek Anderson and forgiving Eric Mangini his previous trespasses as only Browns fans can forgive trespasses against them. 

Reports from all over indicate everyone looked really good. We’re told that Delhomme was crisp and decisive and in control of the huddle and that Carlton Mitchell, Mo Massaquoi and Brian Robiskie all look like keepers and legit NFL receivers if not the second coming of Webster Slaughter, Reggie Langhorne and Brian Brennan. 

After the first July practice it looks like Scott Fujita is a technician at the position and a leader in the linebacking corps and that D’Qwell Jackson is blowing people up.  

I spent a couple years working Browns training camps in the mid-80’s. I watched Greg Allen look like Gayle Sayers in July and August and fail to make an impact or the team later on. I watched Mike Norseth, a rookie QB from Kansas at the time, look like the next Joe Montana in seven-on-seven drills.  

I’m not trying to throw a wet blanket on the Browns chances. I’m just saying everyone looks pretty damn good in drills. The real tests clearly come later when Delhomme is facing a 4^th quarter Steeler blitz on 3^rd and 8 in a game the Browns trail by four points. I’m saying we should probably reserve our opinions on the receivers until they line up against Darrelle Revis and Fabian Washington. 

But I also understand the optimism. The Browns are pygmies amongst midgets in the Cleveland sports population and there is some reason the optimism being displayed. As I said last week, I think they’ll be a better football team this season than they were last season and they’ll be better this season in December than they are in September.  

But in many cities the Browns would be the stumbling step-child as opposed to the golden child.  

That’s just where we are right now with out three sports teams.  

Proceed with Caution 

The worst news from Day 1 of Browns camp was that Montario Hardesty never even made it as far as LeCharles Bentley did a few years back when Bentley was injured and saw his career end on the very first snap of the very first drill without ever being touched.  

Hardesty, who battled the injury bug at Tennessee, apparently ‘tweaked’ a knee before the drills even began and will miss ‘a couple weeks’ according to Mangini. Those nebulous diagnoses and prognoses scare me a bit. Especially with a rookie RB. The complexity of the NFL game trips up even bright players who are healthy enough to participate in all the drills and practices. Hardesty is a guy that the Browns are counting on in a big way to be a three down running back who can run with power, elusiveness and catch balls out of the backfield.  

If the rookie is down for any significant amount of time it could deeply curtail any contribution he could make in his rookie season. Rookie running backs are overwhelmed as it is when they come into the league. Not only with their role running the football but with their assignments in the passing game and protections. They are eased into the flow in rookie camp, get a bit more at a faster pace in OTAs and then even more during training camp when the speed of the drills and games quickens even more. 

If Hardesty is forced to miss a large amount of training camp his development will be affected. Putting him into the backfield in a regular season game will be akin to placing a kid from a junior high school science class into an operating room with a scalpel in his hand and a patient on the table and hoping for the best surgical outcome. 

The Browns invested a great deal to move up and grab Hardesty where they did in the draft. Hopefully they, as opposed to us, can temper their enthusiasm and bring the kid along the right way. 

Only in Cleveland. 

 

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