Written by Dan Wismar

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A column that may or may not be recurring, composed of brief items on topics sporting, or at least close....

-- Well, I’ve sent my ticket money to Randy Lerner and promised to show up on the lakefront in my customary spot in Section 129 for the Browns opener. What the owners and the players union have promised me is a summer full of litigation and posturing in the media....in other words, contempt for me, the fan...and no guarantee that I’ll have a game to watch on September 11. They can’t be dumb enough to jeopardize my season, can they?  Or did I lose track of things somewhere, and this is no longer all about me?

Meanwhile, the Browns draft reinforced my belief that we finally have grown-ups in charge of selecting the players for this team. Heckert is proving to be the anti-Mangini, showing a preference for pure talent over choir boys and academic all-stars. Seemed like a checkered past and a nasty attitude were requirements rather than disqualifiers to be selected early by the Browns this year. It’s refreshing, in a Turkey Jones kind of way.

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-- Fandom is unpredictable....it looks like events are conspiring in a way that may soon have me rooting for Carlos Boozer.

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-- ESPN can be tiresome and lame and full of itself, but the Family of Networks knows how to give documentary. The “30 for 30” series is great television, (and E:60 is always well done too).   I caught the show on the 2004 ALCS with the Yankees and the Red Sox the other night, and got caught up in the memories of that incredible comeback by Boston from down 3 games to none. The postseason motto of the then long-suffering Red Sox had special resonance for me in light of recent events at Carnegie and Ontario.....”Why Not Us?”  If you’re a baseball fan, don’t miss that show...even if, like me, you hate both teams.

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-- I saw Milton Bradley was cut loose by the Mariners. Poor kid can’t catch a break. (The Alex Johnson of his day?)

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-- The other day on the golf course, I knocked a putt way too hard, completely unnecessarily, and ran it downhill fifteen feet past the cup. It occurred to me that I had “Tresseled” the shot. That’s the new catch-all name for anything you do with some kind of plan in mind, but after which you ask yourself, “What the f*** was I thinking about?”

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-- The Indians’ hot start has been exceedingly well-chronicled by our crazy-good Tribe staff here at TCF, but I’ve got to weigh in as this stunning phenomenon of a baseball team approaches the quarter-pole squarely atop the AL. ( I’m known around here as the Buckeye guy, but the reality is that the Bucks and Browns are tied for second place in my heart of hearts)

Looking back at the offseason discussion of the Tribe’s chances to contend, it just seemed like there were too many different things that had to go right for there to be any realistic expectation that the majority of them would. The very real concerns fell into four basic categories...and with the obligatory, but rapidly expiring caveat that “it’s still early”...here they are, with the preliminary results:

a) the two injured veterans, Sizemore and Hafner would simply have to return and look something like their old selves. Check and Check.

b) some of the young, up-and-coming talents acquired in major trades, especially Brantley and Masterson and LaPorta, would have to...well....up and come. Check, Check  and Check.

c) the miserable infield defense of 2010 would simply have to get better for our groundball pitchers’ sake, and with the yawn-inspiring offseason acquisitions of Cabrera and Hannahan, it has...in spades. Check.

d) the youthful starting pitching would have to overachieve and grow and surprise some people by keeping the team in games with quality starts that their experience gave us little reason to expect. Double Check.

Remarkably, all four concerns have been answered in the positive in the still young season. And on top of the major issues, there have been added bonuses.... a bullpen that was somewhat less a question mark than the rotation, but still iffy, has been solid. The bench, with the exception of Kearns, has been productive at the plate. The MVP’s of the fast start?..... Manny Acta and Tim Belcher, hands down.

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I recall our fearless leader Swerb imploring in “The Dish” in late-March, “My kingdom for a fast start”.  He knew as well as anyone that this town could be absolutely owned by an Indians team that could give a starving city even a small taste of winning. I suspect his wildest hopes have been exceeded. Now...about that kingdom...

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-- It was announced Wednesday that the Sept.17 Ohio State at Miami game will be played in prime time, and broadcast on ABC or ESPN. Kickoff time TBA, but probably 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. The contest will feature the national television debuts of Al Golden as Miami head coach, and Luke Fickell as the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Man, that sounds strange.

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-- Browns 2nd rounder Greg Little looks like he has a level of physical talent that is at least the equal of Braylon Edwards. (He reminds me more of an Andre Johnson or David Boston in body type...which is to say.....big...like 230 pounds big).  Apparently though, like Braylon did (does?), he also has some growing up to do. Still, the ability is exciting. Watch some here, here, and here.

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-- My Auburn articles in recent months have gained me some email correspondents from Alabama, both Tide and Tiger fans. I was having some fun with one of them, a ‘Bama alum and a Tide season ticket holder, when I heard that they were erecting a statue of Nick Saban outside the stadium. I asked him, don’t schools normally wait until you either retire or get into your 80’s, (whichever comes first)  before casting you in bronze?  Given Saban’s reputation for self-promotion, I jokingly suggested it was probably his own idea.

I did not know this, but Alabama has constructed a “Walk of Champions”, complete with statues of all the coaches who have won national titles (five of them, to date) and they figured there was no reason to wait on Saban’s graven image. My new friend sent me a nice article on the process of creating the Saban statue....and reminded me that the coach’s rep is mitigated by all manner of good works that he and his wife do for various causes. So noted.  Saban’s connections to northeast Ohio consist of having once been a Browns assistant coach, and having been a member of the last Kent State football team to be good...in 1972-73.

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-- Victor Martinez is on a tear of the sort that used to inspire slack-jawed admiration if not outright man-love for the guy when he played here. Since his return from the DL he has carried the Tigers on their recent hot streak, putting 64 points on his batting average (now .314) in the seven games he’s played, with 10 RBI in his last four games, all Detroit wins. His Tiger mate Jhonny Peralta is hot too, adding 23 points to his BA over the last ten games, reaching .289 for the season, a level of performance he rarely sniffed during his last season or two in Cleveland.

It remains to be seen if the Tigers will regret the $17.25 million they’re paying those two this year, (let alone the $38 million they’ll still owe Victor after this year). You won’t catch me pining for Peralta, but I still have a soft spot for Victor. Now that he’s with a division rival, this means I’m conflicted. Which seems to prove right that wise man (wise guy?) who said that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

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-- Turns out Thaddeus Gibson didn’t get a used car for free at a Columbus dealership. All it took to find that out, and knock down the national media’s OSU scandal du jour, was a little journalism.  Before running with the story, they might have contacted Gibson, who says he’s still paying on his loan for that car. No need for me to expand on this, since Ramzy at Eleven Warriors has already done the heavy lifting.

There’s blood in the water in at Ohio State, and as long as the NCAA is doing their earnest best to get to the bottom of the situation in Columbus, they can pretend they’re dealing seriously with college football‘s bad actors. Right.

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-- If I’ve got one Ohio State football coffee table book, anthology or history volume, I’ve got a dozen of them. Far and away my favorite though is Mark Rea’s 2009 book, “The Die-Hard Fan’s Guide to Buckeye Football”. Rea is the Managing Editor of Buckeye Sports Bulletin, and a veteran of the OSU media corps, and he has assembled a nicely illustrated, 300-page volume with dozens of anecdotes, factoids and historical notes I had never seen anywhere else. All of it is told in a conversational, casual narrative targeted at the OSU fan, and it doubles as a helpful reference volume for the more serious student of Ohio State football. As a gift for the OSU fan in your life, or as an indulgence for yourself, you can’t go wrong with this one.

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“Without winners, there wouldn’t even be any civilization” - Woody Hayes

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Be back soon with Buckeye Leaves.

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