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***Official 2007 CLEVELAND INDIANS Thread*** (1 Viewer)

What a game yesterday! Awesome! I had to choke back tears when they raised the banner. I'm not sure what I'd do if we win it all!

:thumbup: :bag: :banned: :banned:

And for who do I want....I want the #1 seed, then it doesn't matter who we play. :yes:

 
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Been going on most of the year...doesn't matter what Nixon has done on the field, his impact has been off the field. More than than just this...

Indians' Nixon behind the pie-jinks

It's the Tribe Prank of the Year, one that beggan when the boisterous clubhouse cutup, Trot Nixon, decided that any teammate interviewed on TV after a game absolutely needs a plateful of whipped cream in his face.

Trot Nixon's teammates don't know it yet, but they should be afraid. The Indians outfielder has been plotting and planning. He has been scheming and concocting new ways to improve and outdo what no one thinks can be improved or outdone.

So when Nixon lowers his voice and leans in conspiratorially, it is to share the details that not a soul in the Tribe locker room is privy to.

"Condiments," he says, eyebrows raising, head bobbing knowingly.

That's the most the team prankster will reveal for now, because the job of smashing mounds of whipped cream into the faces of his very suspecting teammates is serious business.

It's the Tribe Prank of the Year, one that began when the boisterous and official clubhouse cutup, Nixon, simply decided that whichever teammate was interviewed live on SportsTime Ohio's postgame show absolutely, positively needed a plateful of whipped cream mashed in his face.

Many fans are reminded of the bubblegum bubbles placed on unsuspecting players' hats during the 1995 season, or the high socks of 1997, when Indians players pulled their pant legs up to the knee to mimic Jim Thome on his birthday. Both seasons, by the way, ended in World Series appearances.

The tradition of the Rally Pie has grown into formula: Only at Jacobs Field, only during postgame interviews that follow victories. One-half a can of whipped cream sprayed on a plate. (Shaving cream is off-limits because it might sting the eyes, of course.) A sneak-attack that results in the plate pushed into a talking face. All of it followed by much laughter.

C.C. Sabathia

"C.C. is pretty easy. He's usually exhausted after one of his games. So if he's out there panting, he'll take a good bit in the mouth."

Kelly Shoppach

"He was so excited he was going to get a pie in the face. I walked down the dugout and I pretended like I had a pie behind my back. He's sitting there, jumping around like he's going to get it . . . and [Ryan] Garko runs up behind him and douses him."

Josh Barfield

"I think it was Josh, at least. We gave it to someone who was coming out of the bullpen, because guys were always turning around and looking to see who was going to throw it in their face. You have to be secretive."

Trot Nixon

Only once has Nixon been on the receiving end of a pie, coming at the hands of outfielder David Dellucci. "He's going to get beat down," Nixon has vowed.

Every player expects it now. Some happily accept the pie. Others try to duck. The club has embraced the prank in the form of a late-inning montage played on the scoreboard, scenes of white fluff covering players' faces before proclaiming "Rally Pie!"

"It never gets old," said designated hitter Travis Hafner, the former title-holder of Team Prankster before Nixon's arrival from Boston this season. "Because you have to win to get one."

With Nixon's creaky 33-year-old bones - and left leg muscles that still are strengthening after nerve damage caused them to weaken before off-season hernia surgery - he has warned teammates of the unofficial rules of the official team prank.

"No ducking, no running," Nixon said. "Just take it."

Sometimes it's easy, like with left-hander C.C. Sabathia, who always takes a good dollop of whipped cream smack in the mouth while he earnestly answers questions on TV.

"I just always forget," Sabathia lamented of his easy-target status. "I always have no clue, and by the time I realize it, it's too late."

Sometimes it's tougher, like when - horror of all horrors! - the team somehow ran out of whipped cream, and Nixon had to douse Grady Sizemore with Gatorade instead of a Rally Pie. The team stocked up on the sweet topping after that unfortunate episode, and there will be no more repeat misses, Nixon promised. "I think they've got plenty of it now," Nixon said.

Only once has Nixon been on the receiving end of a pie, something he blames on his .243 batting average and home-field slumping. His pie came at the hands of a fellow prankster, outfielder David Dellucci, and was a shaving-cream version on the road - both clear violations of the pie code. For that, Nixon promised, Dellucci will pay.

"He's going to get beat down," Nixon vowed. In a friendly prank way, of course, because the Rally Pies are merely an indication of the playful chemistry in the Indians' clubhouse, a camaraderie that is so palpable in the locker room that they arrange video-game tournaments during downtime in their 57-40 season.

"I don't have any problem with it as long as it's all in good fun and doesn't end up in a fight," manager Eric Wedge said. "It's good for morale, as long as it doesn't take away from your focus, and I know the guys in this clubhouse know how to separate."

Sure, Nixon can separate. Starting with a separation of condiments he wants to plop on the pies. But when urged for specifics - sprinkles? hot fudge? cherry? - he evaded.

"Just other toppings that go good on whipped cream," Nixon said, eyes darting.

Then he snickered. "If anyone in this clubhouse can read, they might consider themselves warned."
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Nixon, simply decided that whichever teammate was interviewed live on SportsTime Ohio's postgame show absolutely, positively needed a plateful of whipped cream mashed in his face

Phillies have been doing this for YEARS. Not very original.

 
RedRaiders said:
Nixon, simply decided that whichever teammate was interviewed live on SportsTime Ohio's postgame show absolutely, positively needed a plateful of whipped cream mashed in his facePhillies have been doing this for YEARS. Not very original.
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Quoting my gb TU:
I don't really spend a helluva lot of time following the intricacies of the <insert> Phillies <outsert>, however...
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Plus, we win things (like lots of Central Division titles), the Phillies don't (and I could care less about the Braves). If they had Nixon doing this for years, they'd maybe have won something.
 
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YEAH...my timeout is over! Apparently the faceless mod didn't like one of my comments last week.

Going to Game 1 Thursday! :shrug:

 
Should the Tribe be down 2-1 on Monday, you gotta figure they'll throw CC on 3 days rest, no?

Then Carmona could come back on full rest for a game 5 if there is one...

 
wadegarrett said:
YEAH...my timeout is over! Apparently the faceless mod didn't like one of my comments last week.Going to Game 1 Thursday! :lmao:
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Your tickets from the lottery?Have they done the ALCS drawing yet? I was shut out for the ALDS.
 
Everyone should be thanking us.

http://ussmariner.com/2007/10/09/the-seeds-of-success/

The four teams in the League Championship Series have been set - Cleveland vs Boston, Arizona vs Colorado. If every postseason tells a story, then so far, the story of 2007 is the dominance of the new school of baseball executives.

Theo Epstein is 33 years old. Josh Byrnes is 37 years old. Mark Shapiro is 39 years old. Dan O’Dowd is the old man in the room, coming in at 47 years old. All of them are running the team that gave them their first chance to be a general manager. None of them played an inning of major league baseball. And they all came from the same tree.

In 1998, John Hart was the General Manager of the Cleveland Indians, who were winning another division title in the middle of a mini-dynasty. His Assistant General Manger was a man named Dan O’Dowd, who had worked his way up through the ranks beginning in 1988. The Assistant Director of Scouting was Josh Byrnes. And the current Cleveland GM, Mark Shapiro, was the Director of Minor League Operations that year.

John Hart had three of the four GMs in the 2007 LCS working for him in the same front office that year. It gets better. When Dan O’Dowd was hired by the Colorado Rockies in 2000 to be their GM, he took Josh Byrnes with him, giving him an Assistant General Manager role. Byrnes stayed in that job for three years before taking an Asst. GM job with the Boston Red Sox, working for Theo Epstein - the GM of the other team alive in the 2007 LCS. After several years in Boston, the Arizona Diamondbacks handed him the reins of their organization.

Byrnes worked with Shapiro and O’Dowd, then for O’Dowd, and then for Epstein. These four organizations are all intertwined by the people who they have put in charge in the last decade. And they all have one singular goal in common - to gather as much information as possible and put it to use in the best possible ways in order to win baseball games. Cleveland, Arizona, Colorado, and Boston aren’t true “Moneyball” organizations - they’re Moneyball 2.0 clubs, the ones who have successfully integrated both scouting and statistical analysis into a cohesive organization and are leveraging every good piece of information they can find into a competitive advantage.

These are the organizations who won’t settle for time honored traditions. They won’t settle for doing things the way they’ve always been done. They question conventional wisdom and they look for empirical answers. They hire the smartest people they can find and let experience take a back seat to talent.

And they win baseball games.

This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going. The John Hart family tree has branched out even beyond the Billy Beane family tree - the Pirates just hired Neil Huntington from the Indians, and Shapiro’s right hand man, Chris Antonetti, can essentially pick whatever job he wants whenever he decides to run a franchise. With Andrew Friedman as something of a second cousin down in Tampa along with Kevin Towers and Doug Melvin as the crazy uncles over in San Diego and Milwaukee, this is no longer a cute theory about how the Oakland A’s are winning with a small payroll. This is the 21st century of baseball management.

If you’re rooting for an organization that isn’t adapting to the changing face of how baseball teams are run (and if you’re reading this blog, you probably are), expect 2007 to be the norm. The good organizations are going to win a lot of baseball games, and the people who rely on analysis that was handed down to them from 1970s will sit at home in October, wondering which free agent pitcher they can overpay to try to save their jobs.
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Associated Press Online

October 10, 2007 Wednesday

Chapman Plaque Key to Indians Success?

Ray Chapman's spirit could be floating the Cleveland Indians through a season unlike any other in their history.

Strange, unexplainable, improbable, head-scratching events have surrounded this team for months, beginning almost from the moment the Indians rediscovered a lost piece of Chapman's legacy.

Unexpected snowstorms, thrilling comebacks, unlikely heroes, invading bugs who swarmed the New York Yankees in the playoffs.

It's been downright eerie for the Indians, who play their home games a few tape-measure home runs from the shores of Lake Erie.

And Chapman, a popular shortstop killed by a pitch that struck him in the head on Aug. 17, 1920, has hung around to witness it all.

Back in March, when the Indians opened Heritage Park, a walkthrough exhibit beyond the center-field wall at Jacobs Field honoring the club's storied history, a forgotten plaque of Chapman was unveiled and mounted on a wall facing home plate.

The gorgeous, 175-pound bronze memorial had been stashed away inside a crate when the Indians moved from Municipal Stadium to the Jake in 1994. Workers discovered it while cleaning out a storage room.

Years of neglect had made the plaque's text illegible, but it was refurbished and placed alongside those honoring Hall of Famers Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, Larry Doby, Lou Boudreau and other Cleveland baseball greats.

Chapman's tragic saga had been reborn.

Things haven't been the same for the Indians since.

The club's home opener on April 6 was postponed when a freak spring storm dumped more than 2 feet of lake-effect snow on Cleveland, which until that point had been enjoying a rare, mild winter.

"Weirdest thing I've ever seen," said Jim Folk, the club's vice president of ballpark operations. "By far."

The snow started falling on a Friday and didn't stop for three days, forcing the club to reschedule a four-game series with Seattle throughout the season. More bad weather sent the Indians to Milwaukee to play their next "home" series against the Los Angeles Angels under Miller Park's roof.

On Sept. 26, the Indians, who will meet the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS starting Friday, were the "home" team at Seattle's Safeco Field three home games in three cities.

Odd? Well, consider a few of these quirks:

The Indians beat the Chicago White Sox 2-1 on April 15 despite getting just one hit a leadoff double in the first. They became the first team since 1952 to win when its only hit opened the game.

Cleveland played an April 28 game under protest when umpires awarded the Baltimore Orioles a run three innings after it scored!

Fausto Carmona, ticketed for the minors before injuries to other starters put him in the rotation, began the season 7-1 and finished with 19 wins. In 2006, he went 1-10 and flamed out spectacularly in a tryout as Cleveland's closer.

Ten years after catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. homered in the All-Star game at Cleveland, Indians catcher Victor Martinez hit a two-run homer in July's All-Star game in San Francisco, a shot that secured home-field advantage for the AL in this year's World Series.

On Aug. 27, the Indians turned their first triple play at the Jake.

Cleveland finished the regular season with 44 come-from-behind wins, 26 in its final at-bat.

And then came The Bug Game. Last week, millions of tiny insects called "midges," descended upon the Jake in Game 2 of the playoffs and buzzed Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain, who threw two wild pitches in the eighth inning to help the Indians tie it 1-1 in a game they'd win 2-1 in 11 innings.

"This team," manager Eric Wedge said, "has seen it all."

Then there's the unforeseen role of rookie Asdrubal Cabrera in the Indians' rise.

Called up from the minors in August, Cabrera, a shortstop acquired in a trade last season from Seattle, replaced second baseman Josh Barfield in the starting lineup and sparked Cleveland. The Indians went 28-12 when he started and 24-6 when the 21-year-old batted second.

In 1920, after Chapman was killed by a pitch from New York Yankees submarining right-hander Carl Mays, the Indians brought up a young shortstop, Joe Sewell, whose arrival pushed Cleveland to its first World Series title, a championship the Indians dedicated to Chapman.

Sewell went on to have a Hall of Fame career.

Without Cabrera, there's no telling what would have happened to the Indians, who were scuffling along before finally pulling away from the Detroit Tigers.

Cleveland didn't take over first place in the AL Central for good until Aug. 17 the 87th anniversary of Chapman's death.

Raymond Johnson Chapman's grave sits under a giant maple tree at historic Lake View Cemetery, where President James A. Garfield, famed detective Eliot Ness and industrialist John D. Rockefeller are among the other famously interred.

It's Sept. 24, one day after Cleveland clinched its first division title since 2001, and a warm breeze rustles clinging leaves which have yet to turn fall colors during another Indian summer afternoon.

Chapman's massive head stone is adorned with bats, gloves, faded Indians caps and a ticket from a 2005 game left by those who have stopped to pay their respects to "Chappie," the consummate team player who led the AL in sacrifices three times.

A few miles away, Indians fans were scooping up division championship souvenirs, relishing a season few could have imagined.

As he left the team shop at Jacobs Field with a new T-shirt, Sam Maul of Cleveland, considered a visit to pay homage to a player who could be helping the Indians end a World Series drought dating to 1948.

"Stopping to honor Ray Chapman couldn't hurt," Maul said. "Just think, that this plaque was buried for years and years. How lucky could that be? It had to play a part. Look at Boston they had to have something to break that spell.

"Maybe this is what broke ours."
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I hope so, Bob. I hope so.

A worthy cause to champion

By Bob Ryan

Boston Globe

October 17, 2007

CLEVELAND - You probably don't want to hear it, but if the Red Sox must lose to someone this year, let it be the Indians.

These people deserve it.

Only Cubs fans have waited longer for a championship than the Indians, who last won it all in 1948. These people have waited 43 years for a Cleveland team to be champions in anything. Like, how many people are left around here who actually saw Jim Brown play?

But there are plenty here who lived through the dreary 3 1/2 decades in which their Indians did not play one meaningful game in September, and precious few after May. That's why I used to laugh at the self-pitying Red Sox "woe is me" sorts who could never quite get it into their pretty little heads that it is far, far better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

For 34 seasons, from 1960 through 1993, the Indians were relentlessly awful, and if you don't believe me, how else would you describe the circumstance of finishing above fourth once (a third in 1968) during all those years?

Going to Indians games in the '70s and '80s was a surreal experience. Oh, the faithful would bring the mammoth Municipal Stadium alive for Opening Day, when they would pull in 65 or 70 thousand, which would represent a significant percentage of their annual gate. You'd come back on Day 2 and it would be down to the hardy 7,387 or so, and that would set the tone for the season.

The stadium didn't help. People called it The Mistake By The Lake, among other things. It was built way too large (78,000) in 1931, when Cleveland was something like the fourth-largest city in the land and brimming with pride. Cleveland was hoping to get the 1932 Olympics (they would go to Los Angeles), and when it didn't, it was kind of stuck with it. The Indians didn't abandon cozy League Park completely until 1947.

But its great size did come into play in 1948, when, thanks to a very good ball club and the incessant promotion of new owner Bill Veeck, the Indians established a major league attendance record of 2,620,627 and followed that up by bringing in 2,233,771 the next season.

As the years went on, the very size of the ballpark worked against them. Who needed to buy a ticket in advance? No matter who was in town, you could awake on the morning of the game and make a snap decision to hit Municipal Stadium.

One thing we'll never know is what the disappointment of 1954 meant in the Big Picture. The '54 Indians established an American League record by winning 111 games. An interesting byproduct was that the Yankees were second with 103 wins, and no Casey Stengel team ever won more.

Anchored by a Bob Lemon-Early Wynn-Mike Garcia pitching staff, the Indians were expected to walk through the New York Giants in the World Series. But the Giants stole Game 1 when Willie Mays made the famous catch off Vic Wertz and Dusty Rhodes hit his cheesy pinch-hit homer (probably carrying 257 1/2 feet down the 257-foot right-field foul line), and three days later (no travel day), it was over, just like that. The Indians had been swept. There had to be massive fan disillusionment.

The Tribe finished a strong second to the White Sox in 1959, and that was the last time they had even a long-distance sniff until the aborted 1994 season. Through it all, Cleveland never ceased caring about the Indians. The fans listened to and watched the games, and they had their firm opinions, as expressed in some wonderful letters to the editor in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, on the 15 full-time and two interim managers the Indians presented for their perusal (none for more than three years) until Mike Hargrove began his nine-year tenure in 1991.

They just didn't go to the big, fading mansion on the lake very often.

I really don't think people who follow baseball were shocked when Jacobs Field opened in 1994 and people responded to general manager John Hart's nice young ball club by filling the place on a nightly basis. There was always a residual fan base. The Indians would have finished first in 1994, and they did finish first every year from 1995-99, during which time they became the first team ever to sell out a ballpark before a season began.

But it would have been nice to finish the deal, and the Indians twice lost in the World Series ('95 and '97), the second time in excruciating fashion when closer Jose Mesa could not hold a one-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 7 against the Marlins.

There was a tear-down situation based on financial considerations, but now GM Mark Shapiro and a sharp staff have reconstructed the squad. It is impossible not to like this team, and if you heard the noise in The Jake Monday night, you know the fans have embraced them.

C'mon. The Marlins have won twice. The Diamondbacks have won. The Rockies might win. This is fair? You got yours three years ago. If these fans wind up getting theirs, please remember there are a lot worse clubs to lose to than the Cleveland Indians.
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I think there are two missing ingredients to transform the indians into a true regional team. They need to win a couple titles. They also need to have a true superstar that defines their era, plays most if not all of his career with the club, and enter the hall wearing chief wahoo. That player should have been Manny, but, it didn't work out that way. Among this current group the best candidate is Sabathia, but he will probably leave as well after 2008. If they just win a couple titles its not enough. The Athletics were big winners in the 1980s, but it didn't carry over as guys like Eckersley and McGwire split to make their mark somewhere else. They got to keep their players to to really grow the fanbase and become a regional team with big money to spend.

 
Just catching up on the thread. Great article about the John Hart family, BobCat. Thanks for posting.

Tribe 3, Beckett 2. Just one more, baby.

 
With the World Series over (actually the World Series was the ALCS), it's time to move on. I'm working up a little offseason thread that I'll post soon. Once you are over your pains, come join me, we have lots to talk about (or maybe very little since I think much of the club is coming back).

 
Bobcat10 said:
Doctor Detroit said:
Bobcat10 said:
Doctor Detroit said:
Die said:
I think there are two missing ingredients to transform the indians into a true regional team.
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Serious question: What region?Please show your work. :popcorn:
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East of the Mississippi?
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Well at least you're aiming high. :lmao:
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I was speaking for Die.I would have said central/northeast Ohio and Pittsburgh. :lmao:
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Yeah I know that's why i said that. I will be waiting for his reply with :thumbup: though.
 
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