Where have you gone, Robbie Alomar?
12/13/2001
Codding Home / Sports Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
Have you ever seen something you truly cared about just fall apart? Maybe you watched your first car slowly fade away into a junkyard clunker thanks to years of wear, rust and corrosion. You've probably seen one or two of your favorite TV shows make some suicidal, in-house changes that first led to decreased ratings before the network mercifully pulled the plug. Or how about those 10-year-old boxers you've got stashed in your dresser with the huge hole in the crotch... .
Okay, maybe those are mine.
But we've all no doubt witnessed the downfall of something we held close to our hearts, something that brought us hope and happiness no matter how pathetic our lives really were. Something that made the coldest days just a little warmer, our darkest hours just a little brighter. And then, in an instant, it was taken away from us, gone before we ever had a chance to say goodbye. Out of our lives for good, with only sweet-and-sour memories left behind.
No, I'm not talking about the Spice Girls. All they left behind was some crappy music and plenty of horrible cologne jokes.
Just this week, I felt the pain of loss. I sit behind my computer right now trying to sift through the array of emotions I've been flooded with the past couple of days. There's sadness, hostility, hopelessness, numbness, anger, despair, disbelief and plenty of confusion.
The Cleveland Indians are gone and I just don't know how to deal with it.
Sure, the franchise is still here and a baseball team will go out next season to play 162 games under the theory that they'll again be a legitimate World Series contender, but we all know better. After winning the American League Central Division crown six of the past seven years and going to the World Series twice since 1995, this former AL powerhouse will spend more time in the coming years trying to get above .500 than they will trying to get into the playoffs.
This collapse all started when Larry Dolan bought the Indians from then-owner Dick Jacobs a couple years ago. Dolan said all the right things at his initial press conference, claiming that he planned to have a contender on the diamond for several years to come, hoping to keep the "winning tradition" that echoed from Jacobs Field during the summer months alive and well.
That tradition took a shot to the jaw last winter, though, when the Tribe was unable to sign outfielder Manny Ramirez to a long-term deal. Instead, we watched him pack his bags and head to Boston for about a gagillion dollars, leaving behind the organization and the fans that coddled him from day one of his pro baseball career.
Sure, as fans we were hurt, but we also understood that our team simply got outbid. That's fine. In fact, with the money he didn't spend on Manny, GM John Hart went out and signed two proven hitters, Juan Gonzalez and Ellis Burks, who combined for 63 homers, 214 RBI and 180 runs scored in 264 games last season. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Little did we know at the time that "not bad" would be about the best we could hope for from that point on.
While it's true that Cleveland won the Central again last year, it wasn't pretty. The Tribe owned a pitiful 4.64 team ERA thanks to a starting rotation that could only muster three complete games and four shutouts all season. Starters Dave Burba and Charles Nagy each had ERAs above 6.00 in 40 combined starts, winning 15 games between them, horrible numbers for two guys who, in their previous three full seasons, had won 93 games in a Cleveland uniform. Chuck Finley, with 189 wins and a 3.83 ERA in his 12-year career, wasn't much better, going 8-7 with a 5.54 ERA in his 22 starts.
But there were some high notes in this mildly disappointing 2001 campaign: mammoth left-handed pitcher C.C. Sabathia won 17 games and finished second in the Rookie-of-the-Year voting; Jim Thome set career-highs with 49 homers and 124 RBI while hitting better than .290 for the first time since 1998; Burks hit .280 with 28 long balls in 124 games; Marty Cordova revived his career by notching a .301 average with 20 homers and 20 doubles in only 122 games; Gonzalez turned his back on an ugly 2000 season by jacking 35 home runs, driving in 140 runs and registering the league's sixth-best average, .325; and Robbie Alomar, in his third year with the Indians, put together perhaps his finest season, hitting a career-best .336 with 20 homers, 100 RBI, 193 hits and 30 steals while winning his 10th-straight Gold Glove at second base, appearing in his 12th All Star game and finishing fourth in the AL MVP voting.
So yes, there were some highlights last year. Problem is, most of those guys will be starring in highlight reels with different teams in 2002 while the Indians try to reach the postseason for the seventh time in eight years with a dugout full of geriatrics who saw their best days when O.J. Simpson was just a retired Hall of Fame running back and Chris Farley was just a funny guy with "a little bit of a weight problem."
Marty Cordova... gone. To the Baltimore Orioles for $9.1 million over three years.
Gonzo... gone. Filed for free agency and, with Dolan's suddenly slim wallet, on his way to a team in need of a cleanup hitter and two-time MVP.
Alomar... gone. Traded to the New York Mets this week for Matt Lawton, Jerrod Riggan, minor league outfielder Alex Escobar and two players to be named, who turned out to be minor leaguers Billy Traber and Earl Snyder.
Without question, the Indians are a team in transition. New GM Mark Shapiro barely even acknowledged Cordova, Gonzalez and Kenny Lofton this offseason, letting free agency take three potentially heavy contracts off his hands, which, for a team admittedly trying to trim payroll, is a reasonable move.
But then there's Alomar, that Hall of Famer who can hit for average, hit for power, drive in runs, steal some bases and flash some nifty defense at second base, all for $8 million a year.
... So you can see why they had to trade him, huh?
By today's standards, $8 million per season is chump change for a guy who's arguably the greatest all-round second baseman ever and certainly one of the best players in the game today. He does everything on the field you could ask him to do, but now he's going to do it all for Bobby Valentine and the Mets. Why?
It wasn't a salary-cutting move... the Indians didn't even save much money in the deal -- roughly about $2 million, according the Shapiro. So is there really a reason the trade had to be made? Shapiro says he got a "championship player" back in Matt Lawton... I don't see any championship rings on his fingers -- hell, in his seven-year career Lawton hasn't even taken the field for one playoff game, let alone the World Series. Show me his championship credentials.
Shapiro also said this was a move geared toward the future. Fine, I can listen to that, but it doesn't seem like they got the right youngsters -- or maybe not enough of them -- in return. Alex Escobar was one of the top minor leaguers in all of baseball, but after struggling in a few games with the Mets and having a down year last season in Triple-A, the 23 year old is no longer a "can't miss" kind of prospect. In fact, with his 146 strikeouts and 46 walks last year in Norfolk, he's more of a "misses a whole hell of a lot" kind of prospect, and we've got plenty of human-sized fans in this lineup already -- Thome and Russell Branyan alone struck out 217 times last year. As for the other guys -- a middle reliever and two low-level minor leaguers -- we'll have to wait and see, obviously, although Riggan is reportedly a solid bullpen arm and Traber, a lefty pitcher, could be a decent starter someday.
But that's all Shapiro could get for Robbie Alomar? Come on.
Of course, to make matters worse we've got Mr. Sideburns on our roster now. That's right, Brady Anderson, the guy who very nearly won my Hole in Your Bat award this year (talk about your cruel irony) with his whopping .202 average, .300 slugging percentage and .311 on-base percentage, will fight for playing time in left field next season.
There comes a point in time when you know you've just taken a major turn for the worse, that moment you shot past "troubling" and are now headed straight for "horrifying" at about 300 mph with a bomb in your lap and no helmet on.
Brady Anderson is that bomb and the Indians passed "troubling" the moment he signed his name to a contract.
I guess I don't really blame Shapiro, though. He came into this situation knowing that Dolan wanted to cut payroll in the very near future, and he's had his hands tied since he took over the job at the end of the season.
But I sure as hell have a problem with Mr. Dolan.
Tell me, how do you come in and purchase a team like the Cleveland Indians -- a team that's sold out every game since the mid-90s, a team that always has an eye toward the World Series, a team that won five-straight division championships and two American League titles in three years -- and then not have enough money to sustain that level of success? He knew what it took to win in this league, and when Dolan first took over as the owner he said the Indians would be an elite AL team for years to come.
But when you trade your marquee player for questionable talent and then let some of your best position players walk without even waving goodbye, how can you hope to remain competitive when teams like the Yankees continue stockpiling top free agent talent every single winter? It doesn't make any sense to me -- either make a steadfast commitment to winning or get out of your damn luxury box. Please.
Ya know, "All good things must come to an end" is a well-known saying, but it's not a very popular one with Cleveland fans right now. After watching the Indians win 1,733 games and lose 2,077 from 1970 to 1993 -- a stellar 344 games below .500, or an average of 14 per year -- Tribe fans finally got used to heading to the ballpark and actually cheering for a winner the past eight years. We saw pennant- clinching wins, extra-inning postseason games that lasted till 3:00 in the morning, game sevens against Livan Hernandez and Randy Johnson, and even a few World Series contests in late-October.
Sure, we never saw our guys win that fourth game in the Fall Classic, but it was still a great ride.
Who knows when the Jake will be sold out again, filled with that electricity, that anticipation that comes handcuffed to a city's October dreams. Guys like Manny Ramirez, Robbie Alomar, Carlos Baerga, Dennis Martinez, Juan Gonzalez, Sandy Alomar and Kenny Lofton brought an attitude and a brand of baseball to Cleveland that hadn't been seen on our Erie Shores since the days of Lou Boudreau, Bob Feller, Larry Doby and Bob Lemon. And while I'm too young to remember most of those dark days -- I'm old enough to drink, not quite old enough to rent a car -- my very first baseball memories involve me, my parents and about 3,000 other fans in dreary Municipal Stadium watching the Indians lose 849 games in the 1980s.
Don't get me wrong -- I loved those days. It was still baseball, and first and foremost I'm a baseball fan. But after having one of baseball's best teams in my hometown for the past eight years, I'm not ready to go back to those dark days.
Unfortunately, it looks like I don't really have a choice.
In the Bullz-Eye
The Philadelphia Eagles. At 8-4, Philly stands atop the NFC East standings, but a trip to Washington is on the schedule this weekend. Following an 0-5 start, the 'Skins are now 6-6 and a Washington win would push them to just a game behind the Eagles. Philly could have nearly had this division wrapped up weeks ago but a home loss to Washington on November 11 has kept the race very interesting.