CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Playoff talk was in the air(waves) on this late August Saturday...not you, Indians.
The Tribe carries serious postseason promise. In fact, if my prognosticator's resume didn't include George McGovern comfortably over Richard Nixon and Walter Mondale in a rout over Ronald Reagan I'd chance the blowback by officially predicting the Tribe will finish with a wild-card berth.
So let's call it unofficial. The last trip through Minnesota, Oakland and Anaheim showed enough resilience and pitching for me to feel good about predicting the return of October baseball. And the burning questions heard around town Saturday were naturally these:
Can Garret Gilkey really be the answer at guard?
Who wins the starting cornerback job opposite Joe Haden?
Norv Turner: Play-calling genius or quarterback savant?
Does the Browns' preseason success conjure comparisons to 2007 when they went 10-6 or to 1994 when they went 11-5? Be honest now. Who hasn't driven 127 miles an hour on a city highway?
As for the Indians? Oh, yeah, them.
This is the plight of a baseball team in a football town. Fine. No one is required to explain themselves, not to the media or to Chris Perez or anyone else. It just makes it tough to identify the prevailing attitude about the Indians. Apathy or distrust?
The Tribe look like legitimate contenders for reasons that include a September schedule as soft as a media homer's criticism. The Indians are in contention without a bunch of guys playing over their heads. Terry Francona is a two-time World Series manager. They have playoff run experience and post-season experience on their roster.
They only have three games remaining against the Tigers. With their postseason possibilities reasonably reduced to the wild-card, being finished with Detroit by this time next week is reason to rejoice.
In Anaheim, they won games without scaring the opposing pitcher. They won without their most consistent contributors leading the charge. They won a few games without anyone able to explain how.
Nick Swisher and Mark Reynolds? One isn't all there, whether it's because of a sore shoulder or the pressure of living up to a big contract. The other isn't here at all. You can identify players who aren't performing close to their best seasons (Swisher, Asdrubal Cabrera) but you can't find many fashioning career years.
That's no promise of an offensive kick-start to come. But the pitching and a steady diet of sub-.500 teams in September at least gives the underachievers a chance to find themselves and contribute to a playoff run.
Francona and pitching coach Mickey Callaway have handled the bullpen and staff admirably. Justin Masterson, Danny Salazar, Zach McAllister, Ubaldo Jimenez and Corey Kluber to come may not rival the Tigers' pitching. But you can win any game with any of them.
September is fast upon us. It's safe to to consider the Indians playoff-worthy.
Pending Norv Turner's opinion, of course.
SPINOFFS
• LeBron James listed his top three all-time players: Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Julius Erving. He quickly added Magic Johnson to the list when the interviewer brought him up but that didn't quite satisfy the former Lakers' star, who took to Twitter.
NBA Championship rings are all that matter; Jordan 6, Me 5, Bird 3, LeBron 2 and Dr. J 1.
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) August 22, 2013[1]
That clears things up.
So Robert Horry (seven), Steve Kerr (five) and Will Perdue (four) really are better than Bird and LeBron, as the smart basketball minds have long contended.
• Don't ask Pete Rose, who holds the all-time record for hits at 4,256, if he feels threatened by Ichiro Suzuki's 4,000th hit as a professional.
"He's still 600 hits away from catching Derek Jeter so how can he catch me?" said Rose to USA Today[2] , correctly pointing out that Ichiro's 1,278 hits in the Japanese League can't be added to his MLB total.
Rose went on to say he believes Ichiro is a Hall of Famer. So he's not being resentful and petty.
This time.
• D'Qwell Jackson called Greg Little's speeding issues -- including going 127 miles an hour in April -- an "honest mistake."
No argument there. As long as he was driving the Batmobile.
• Actually, Jackson's choice of words is an honest mistake. Little's driving record and that of Josh Gordon, who got caught going 98 in a 60, is simply reckless.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is quoted on the walls of Browns' headquarters in Berea, once said, "What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."
Especially over a revved-up engine turning RPMs equivalent to 127 miles an hour.
• Baltimore Ravens' quarterback Joe Flacco tells ESPN The Magazine that teammate Ray Lewis's pre-game speeches weren't exactly motivating factors[3] for him.
"I love Ray and I love how he always spoke from the heart but if you listened to the speeches a lot of them didn't even make sense," Flacco said. "I didn't know what he was talking about 90 percent of the time."
That's why when I deliver pre-column speeches to "You Said It'' contributors I stick with lines from "Braveheart" and "Animal House."
• The NFL fined Washington Redskins' quarterback Robert Griffin III $10,000 for warming up in a "Operation Patience" T-shirt. RGIII, who hasn't played yet this summer, chose the slogan to reflect the slow crawl back from a serious knee injury.
When the league begins fining players for what they wear to warm up for games that don't matter, it's time to take the next logical step and hire Nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as assistant commissioner.
• The NFL must believe that if you pretend August football is just like the regular season, you can justify charging fans full ticket prices for exhibition games.
And it'd be wrong.
• Tennis star Maria Sharapova contemplated changing her name to promote her personal candy line for next week's U.S. Open. She considered calling herself "Maria Sugarpova" but decided against it.
Metta World Peace thinks that sounds ridiculous.
• San Francisco head coach Jim Harbaugh picked up Seneca Wallace off the waiver wire this week after New Orleans waived the former Browns quarterback. Harbaugh said he plans to play all five quarterbacks in Sunday's dress rehearsal exhibition game: Colin Kaepernick, Colt McCoy, Scott Tolzien, B.J. Daniels and Wallace.
Again, full price? Really?
• Allen Iverson has apparently decided to officially hang up his basketball shoes. Think what you will about him. I think he was the toughest small guard in NBA history. Hopefully, though, we can agree on one thing.
That nobody suggest to him he should practice his retirement speech.
• A report by Fox Sports Ohio says two NFL scouts wearing blue at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center this month were told to change their shirts. Seems any resemblance to Michigan colors aren't welcome at Urban Meyer's practices. Another scout, who wasn't involved, called the incident "embarrassing."
Meanwhile, Meyer reminds his players to keep their focus on the important things.
HE SAID IT
"You'll see stars for a second and then you're back to normal in two, three seconds. That's just the way the game is." -- Former John Carroll star London Fletcher, making concussions in the NFL sound as benign as a bus tour of Hollywood celebrity homes.
YOU SAID IT
(The Expanded Sunday Edition)
Bud:
How would Ryan Braun fare as a 'You Said It' contributor? -- Zig
About the same. Just more reason for public shame.
Bud:
Do you think it would help entice a player to bat cleanup if he wore a furious scowl face mask like some new car buyers use? -- James Dee, Richmond Hts
Worked for Albert Belle.
Bud:
Have you seen any "Oompa Loompa" quotes on the walls of the Browns' facility? -- Jim Corrigan, Fairview Park
Joe Banner may be a Wonka fan but it's pretty clear Mike Holmgren was the one who had the golden ticket.
Bud,
Is the Indians' giveaway of Swisher's jersey to the first 10,000 fans to commemorate how much he earns every time he strikes out? -- Joe, Avon
Be nice, bro
Hey Bud:
When was the last time you used your status as a PD writer to get a police escort and where were you going? -- Doug, Westlake
Status as a PD writer? Good one.
Hey Bud:
I read where a guy was given a warning by park rangers for eating berries in the Cleveland Metroparks. The last time I was in the Metroparks, I swatted three mosquitoes. Should I turn myself in? -- Ed Stagl, Berea
Obviously you weren't using Mark Reynolds' bat.
Bud:
Did MLB ever investigate Duane Kuiper using PEDs in 1977 after he launched his 321-foot home run into the first row of seats at Municipal Stadium? -- Dan Hecht, Beachwood
First-time "You Said It" winners receive a T-shirt from the Mental Floss collection.
Hey Bud:
Fans in other cities get victory parades and "World Champions" t-shirts. Should we be planning a contention parade and "Meaningful Games" t-shirts? -- The Rajah
Repeat winners get jilted.
References
- ^ August 22, 2013 (twitter.com)
- ^ said Rose to USA Today (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ weren't exactly motivating factors (profootballtalk.nbcsports.com)
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