How to talk like a blind homer

By Rick Morris

Are you sick of sounding like an intelligent sports fan with well-reasoned, intelligent takes? Do you want to simply repeat and regurgitate the ga-ga from your team, which demonstrably cares way more about saving money than winning a World Series? Well, then we've got the website for you. You can learn every infantile, suck-up-to-the-front-office, know-nothing propagandistic talking point necessary to become a Useful Idiot Par Excellence for the Front Office, such as:

^ "When we don't win championships, the real reason lies with that big ol' meanie Jim Thome, who admittedly left five full seasons ago. But he's just out to get paid. Players chase the last dollar out of Cleveland all the time. I bet that never happens in other cities. Man, our poor unlucky front office just can't catch a break!"

^ "Even if C.C. Sabathia leaves, it's still nothing but blue skies and palomino ponies! We're set up from here until the end of time with athletes even George Steinbrenner would saw off his left nard to have on his team! The only unfortunate thing about C.C. leaving would be those mean fans somehow blaming Larry Dolan for not signing him and Mark Shapiro for letting the situation fester to that point. The nerve of those peons! The Tribe front office is right, these uneducated ingrates don't know how good they've got it!"

^ "The Tribe will sign C.C. Past history regarding franchise players and the Dolan ownership is completely irrelevant! Those who try to learn from history are delusional and can't see what Our Great Benevolent Ownership is doing for us in the glorious struggle against the Infidels of the Central Division!"

^ "Offseason upgrades? Those are for mere mortals! We don't need no stinking offseason upgrades! I can't believe that these uneducated fans are impressed with the acquisition of Miguel Cabera. How many World Series titles has he won? Really? Ok, scratch that last point."

^ "The Indians' mediocre farm system of present is NOT the result of poor drafting! It's a combination, circumstances, bad luck, a lunar eclipse and a curse placed on the minor leaguers by that evil Jim Thome!"

The myth of CC Sabathia

By Rick Morris

Since the Cy Young Award is based purely on the regular season, it's defensible for the baseball writers to have given the American League honors to CC Sabathia. While I probably would have voted for Josh Beckett, it seems to me a very close call that could have gone either way.

But for the Sabathia homers who claim that he has grown up into an automatic shut-down ace and that the postseason represented an aberration from the level he has reached -- think again.

In response to the inane talking points about CC not winning 20 games SOLELY because of the admittedly poor run support he received, recently on SportsTalkNetwork.com, I cited from memory numerous examples of Sabathia having coughed up leads and costing the team games. Because I don't like to go purely on anecdotal evidence, I went to the trouble of substantiating these examples, courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

^ July 29: He gives up a 1-0 lead to Minnesota, team loses 4-1.
^ August 8: He gives up a 1-0 lead to Chicago, team loses 6-4.
^ August 14: He gives up a 2-0 first-inning lead to Detroit, team loses 6-2.
^ August 19: He gives up a 2-1 lead to Tampa Bay, team loses 4-3.

And all of these examples were within a month! It should be noted that none of the opposing lineups bore any resemblance to the '27 Yankees, either.

Now, not every ace wins every game. But pitchers with the assassin mentality win these games more often than not. Look no further than the same pitching staff. You'd have to manually disembowel Fausto Carmona to affect him mentally, and even then he'd keep coming back at you!

Just keep this in mind when CC's record gets whitewashed by the usual apologists in Cleveland.