August 28th, 2005

By CRS Staff

While the surprising Indians continue their march towards the postseason, I have already begun asking myself the same questions I do every time a Cleveland sports team appears to have any shot of making a championship run.  Can this team win it all?  If it comes down to a final game, who will I watch it with, and where?  And, will this be the first year of my lifetime I can wear Cleveland sports gear out-of-town and not feel a slight sense of embarassment?

While I ponder the answers to these questions as they pertain to the 2005 Indians, lets review the situation.  A championship-less 2005 would mark the 41st year in which no Cleveland team has won a title (the last team being the 1964 Browns; sorry soccer fans, the Force & Crunch don't count), which if my unhealthy obsession with ESPN serves me correctly is the longest such drought of any city with at least three pro sports teams.  While we seem to have nothing going for us these days, it seems most of our neighboring cities have had at least one recent success story to get excited about.  Pittsburgh may have bad baseball and hockey teams (when there even is hockey, that is), but they still have the Steelers knocking on the door of the Super Bowl.  Detroit?  The Lions may be so desperate they signed Jeff Garcia in the off-season, but they also have the Pistons 2004 championship to counteract the frustration.  In Cincinnati, the Bungles may have been the joke of the NFL during the 90's, but they at least have the, uh, never mind....bad example.  The point is that here in Cleveland, with a perennially rebuilding football team and a basketball team with one superstar on rent for two more years, we have no single team to hang our hat on --- yet.

The Tribe had been teasing us the past few years, trying to convince us they were assembling top-notch young talent, all the while refusing to spend the extra nickel to maintain a bridge to the past through players like Jim Thome and Omar Vizquel.  They were like that annoying relative who sells for Amway and keeps trying to recruit you, promising riches for all involved if you'll just embrace the concept, despite the fact they have yet to even recoup their sign-up fee.  Judging from the attendance figures, the fans still haven't fully bought in to the Tribe's argument, even as the team has become one of the American League's elite.  While that may seem unfair, you get the feeling Shapiro must still wonder if his boss will really pull out the checkbook when it counts this off-season. 

Of course, all the talk about Dolan's cheapness will become a moot point if the Indians can get into the postseason and win 11 games.  Hey Albert, Carlos, Jose, Sandy & Roberto....you guys gonna be watchin'?  I will be, all the while thinking about which lucky shirt I'll be wearing during Game 7 of the World Series.