It’s Thursday morning, and it’s a whirlwind time in Cleveland sports, gang. The Tribe’s just underway, the Cavs are set to kick off the second season in just over a week, and we’ll have new Browns uniforms by this time next week. Spring is starting to, well, spring, and we’ve got a lot to work our way through. Let’s get started.
First, yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Frank Robinson’s Opening Day homer as the first African American player-manager in Major League Baseball. It’s one of those moments (whether a photo or video clip) that you see all the way growing up as a Tribe fan from Feller to Doby to Barker’s perfect game that just sticks with you as a tremendous part of Cleveland Indians history. And I’ve got a bit of a story to tell about that day.
My dad and his brothers were at school on that Opening Day in 1975. As a result, it was my grandma’s responsibility to record the game on the radio for them to listen to later when they got home. Being such a momentous call and moment, they held onto that recording. A number of years later, WTAM (3WE at the time) put out a request for a copy of Joe Tait’s call that day because they had somehow lost their copy. Grandma sent the cassette tape in, and some time later, she received it back with a nice note thanking her for doing so.
My uncle held onto the tape, and he had a friend digitize it for him. I listened to the Joe Tait and Herb Score call of the first inning last night, and it was great. Of course, it’s possible (and maybe even probable) that others heeded this call from 3WE and sent in their tapes of the Robinson homer. It’s also possible that my grandma helped preserve one of the monumental moments in Cleveland Indians history. The truth isn’t really all that important to me. What you can ascertain from this little story is that my Grandma Joyce was an avid baseball fan and just the best.
You can listen to said audio below, and the Frank Robinson home run takes place around the 13 minute mark.
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Sticking with baseball, my fantasy baseball draft is this weekend. My Dad and I, known to the NCRL (North Coast Rotisserie League) as the Alabama Slammers, have been in the same AL-only, 4×4, auction, keeper league since I could read. While we’re waxing nostalgic, I still remember in the days before everyone had a home computer driving up to one guy’s mailbox that did and taking out one copy of the weekly standings printed out, tabulated from the USA Today. A lot of things have changed in the league – everyone has a laptop with roto software loaded on it now rather than flipping through magazines – but it’s still an ultra-competitive league that allows Dad and I to put our heads together and strategize.
You guys know that I’m a hoops guy first and foremost, but I cannot for the life of me field a decent fantasy basketball squad. On three different occasions, I tried (both solo and with a partner) to play in a serious league, and each year I finished near the bottom. I’m by far the least knowledgeable when it comes to football, but I’ve been very successful in fantasy football, winning one of my two leagues the last two years. Baseball lies somewhere in the middle. I’m much more informed than I am about football, but Dad is the true brains of the operation.
I’d love to hear from the Blawg Pound about their fantasy sports experiences. Is there something that prevents me from taking my more analytical approach to basketball and baseball and distilling it down to a few categories? Have you been in a league of any sort for 20 years? Do you have any fun stories about how and where you started playing?
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The Indians unveiled their midnight navy uniforms for 2015 in Wednesday night’s victory1, which are noticeably darker than previous iterations of similar jerseys. We talked about this about six weeks ago, when the Indians somewhat silently made it public that they would be darkening their shade of blue for the upcoming season as they gradually phased it into their spring training look.
So, in the last few months, we have seen all of the overblown fanfare with the Browns logo and color scheme “change” along with the uniform unveiling scheduled for next week. We’ve seen the Cavaliers heavily market the shift toward the navy jerseys and use social media to give a hint towards a possible uniform overhaul next season. Then, there’s the Indians, who barely even put it on a footnote of a spring training article on the beat.
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With the Cavs wrapping up the Central Division and the No. 2 seed against Milwaukee on Wednesday night, rest is coming as it should. However, the Cavaliers are in fact playing for something: potential homecourt advantage against the 2-6 seeds in the West. They trail the Rockets and Grizzlies by two games, the Clippers and Spurs by one and a half, and are dead even with Portland. Granted, if the Cavaliers have to go through Atlanta and Golden State to get to the finish line, it’s not going to matter much. However, you just never want to count the Spurs out, and I would feel much better with a Game 7 in the Q.
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if you missed it, I returned from my read-and-retweet-only Lenten mode to active tweeting on Sunday morning. For a little over six weeks, I only had three “slip-ups” where my Twitter account didn’t post solely a retweet, favorite, or link to a WFNY article. One was to mark my late grandma’s birthday, another was to react to Kyrie’s 57-point game against San Antonio, and a third was to put my submission in for the Cavaliers’ playoff slogan.
I didn’t take my break for anyone but me. Frankly, I wouldn’t have said much of anything at all if not just to let people who I was and still do converse with on a daily basis know that everything was OK. There were moments of weakness, for sure, where I wanted to talk about the topic du jour, complain about the officiating in a game, or call someone on saying something incredibly stupid.
What the timeout allowed me to do was read more opinions and articles, save some of my thoughts for my articles here at WFNY, and build up a bit of a barrier from that instant urge to react (and sometimes overreact) to what somebody says. I hope it’s going to enhance my Twitter experience going forward2, and I hope it makes me a more enjoyable person to engage with for people.
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Sausages, watches, and While We’re Waiting… they all come with (or in) links! Here’s some of those.
What’s former Cleveland Brown Anthony Henry been up to? Pat McManamon explores that.
Doubling up on McManamon, he looks at assessing the value of draft picks with analytics.
You guys know I’m a big Eleven Warriors fan, but I’m probably an even bigger Ramzy Nasrallah fan specifically. Not only is he an All-Star, first-ballot Hall of Fame type tweeter, but he churns out bourbon-fueled articles like this one on Big Ten conference pride.
I really enjoyed this piece from Jason Linden at the Hardball Times, asking what do we want out of baseball?
Where do we go to compare the Kris Bryant situation in Chicago? Why, we go back to Mike Trout, of course! FanGraphs explores that with the help of some hindsight presented by Miles Wray.
That’s all I have. Enjoy the opener tomorrow if you’re heading down to the ballpark, and get ready for some postseason basketball at the Q! #LOBOB3 is coming!
Nice work, Cookie Carrasco!
Full disclosure: I also removed a lot of people from my timeline that wanted to be unreasonable, narcissistic, or just rude
Larry O’Brien or bust, and yes, I realize the irony in that after the “what do we want out of baseball?” article I shared.
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