The Voice of Reason

Before you bomb me with hate messages, let's look at the situation....

The Tribe's magic number is 2.  We've seen monumental collapses in baseball's history, but if you think the Indians won't win at least one more game & the Tigers won't lose at least one more game, you probably don't bet much. 

The Tigers are essentially competing with the Yankees for the Wild Card.  I absolutely hate anything & everything about the Yankees, and I would like to see them miss the playoffs for 3 reasons: 

1) I'm tired of the AL East always getting the attention as the best division.  This morning, I watched ESPN baseball "analyst" Tim Kurkjian proclaim that the ONLY fitting way to end the AL season would be a Boston-New York ALCS....Excuse me while I vomit on my remote control. 

2) Who would you rather play in the playoffs:  the Tigers or the Yankees??  We're due to beat the Yanks, but don't be so shortsighted as to forget what happens to that team in October, regardless of how shaky their rotation is in the regular season.

3)Who wouldn't love to see the Yankees & their fans crying over lost opportunities by missing the playoffs??

If the Indians do their job in this last week or so of baseball, they shouldn't need any help to clinch the Division.  I'm all for bringing the Wild Card to Detroit.

Go Tribe!!

I'm a die-hard Browns fan, and I don't see how that will ever change. 

Having said that, to all of the airheads out there who have proclaimed that this is the year the Brownies take us to the Super Bowl, take a look at Game 1 to see what this "Championship" team has to offer.  It's only one game, and I'm not even saying that they will be awful this year, but if it isn't obvious that this team has some HUGE holes to fill in their lineup, you don't deserve to make football predictions.  So much for the encouragement of the 3-1 preseason.  Once again, it's proof that there is a major difference when the games count. 

Forgive me for venting, but it needs to be done...

Here's my beef with the Browns in general: 

It's been almost a decade since they returned to the league, and with one brief playoff appearance excluded, they've been nothing short of a league joke ever since.    Teams like the Rams, the Chargers, the Bengals, the Seahawks, and even the Patriots have yo-yoed from the bottom of the league to the top, and some back down and already back towards the top......all since the Browns have been back.   Are we really that cursed w/ the poor draft picks and the injuries, etc., or are we just so impatient as fans and as an organization that we shoot ourselves in the foot by turning the whole system over every couple years??  Something has to give, and the odds say that one of these combinations of management/coaches/players would have created a competitive team, yet we are a perennial "pieces & parts" team  of about 4 or 5 "good" players surrounded by players that AT BEST would rate as "mediocre," and that's being generous.   The coaching has been anything but steady or efficient.  Even the little things like actually challenging calls that really matter and look like credible mistakes  are bungled by our staff.  Not that it ultimately mattered, but we flat-out wasted both of our challenges (and two timeouts) in the first half on calls that obviously weren't going to be reversed.  Romeo should've put that damn red flag away and pulled out the playbook for some adjusting that never really happened.  I don't know who looked worse--Frye or Anderson.  I'm not willing to destroy Quinn before he even gets his feet wet in the NFL (see my comments above about patience), so these two QBs are gonna have to make something happen soon to prevent another coaching blunder that could destroy one of our touted draft picks (sound familiar?).   

My dad lives near Charleston, SC, and, for reasons unknown, he's decided to become a Browns fan this year after 50+ years of casually rooting for the Bengals (We're originally from Columbus).  I told him to stock up on hard liquor, aspirin, and blood pressure meds if he has any.  After  Sunday's game, I think he understands....

I just stumbled upon the DUMBEST thing I have ever seen on T.V.   I was channel surfing and stopped at ESPN2, where I thought I was watching the beginning of one of those dumb car insurance commercials or something.  When I realized it was real, I was floored. 

There is an association called USARPS, which stands for "U.S. Association of Rock, Paper, Scissors."  There's a judge that stands in between 2 contestants, who slap their hand 5 times, making their "play" on the 5th slap.  You know the game; Rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock.  To make it even dumber, there were spectators cheering wildly, and 2 commentators talked it up like this was some amazing skill that these folks have practiced every day for most of their lives, and their voices got all worked up as if this was a national obsession.  One of the commentators was Trey Wingo, a sports reporter who I actually had respect for up until now.  They showed pics of these guys behind the stage getting their "game faces" on, and they even came out of a commercial break with tips on "special" strategy moves.  Is ESPN really that desperate to fill air time?  First, it was Texas Hold 'Em, which I actually can watch when I'm in the right mood.  Then, they started showing competitive eating contests, which are stupid and disgusting IMO, and NOT athletic demonstrations in my book.  This, however, has got to be the worst.

What the heck has happened to the Tribe's offense as of late?  I realize that in many of the interleague games the pitchers have had to bat, but that alone doesn't diminish the "O" as much as they've dropped off.  

This team lived and died with its starting pitching for the first two months, but lately the starters have been pretty consistent, yet we're playing .500 baseball.  Was the offense overachieving (even though it was far from outstanding) in April and May, or is there something amiss in the machine?  Travis Hafner is having a terrible year.  Yes, he leads the AL in walks (thanks to last year's numbers), and he has a lot of RBI, but many of those RBI are groundouts and sac flies w/ Grady or Casey on third base.  Hardly the thunderous run producer that we saw before.  I'm hoping he snaps out of this soon, as it's getting to be a loooooooong slump. 

The reason I'm starting to get concerned is that it's beginning to spiral on its own.  Example:  Tribe hitters were making starters throw A LOT of pitches early in the season.  They were very selective, and they could foul off enough pitches to force mistakes.  Now, they seem to be trying to make something happen, and as a result they're swinging at bad pitches early in the count, and making quick outs.  The harder they try, the more they struggle.  Aside from Casey's streak and Victor and Grady doing what we expect them to do, this unit has been struggling.  With all due respect to Jason Michaels and Kelly Shopach, when these guys are your hottest hitters in the clutch, there are serious problems to be fixed!!

Should we be concerned, or am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?