I’d like to say the 2022 baseball season has me all excited, as amped up and thrilled as a front page Ukiah Daily Journal headline like “Women artists at local gallery.” Or golf on TV.
Alas, etc. Instead I will miss as much of the season as possible because after 68 years of faithful service and undying devotion to the Cleveland Indians, I’ve been put on waivers for the purpose of giving me my unconditional release.
If this seems surprising or tragic, it is neither. Cleveland’s baseball corporation has long made it clear I am not part of its customer demographics and that no further relationship with said corporation is desired. The current ownership group is obviously not made up of baseball fans. Its connections with the city and allegiance to its future are conditional. Mine never was.
I grew up with the Cleveland Indians, but there you go, and there I went.
It started when they knocked down the grand old ballpark on the shores of Lake Erie, a stately cathedral called Municipal Stadium, and replaced it with a shiny imitation replica designed to look kinda like an old ballpark.
Cleveland wound up with a ho-hum mallpark stuffed with shopping and dining and drinking venues, all expensive, with an optional baseball game somewhere over there. It looks just like every new park designed to look old, but all lack the magic and nostalgia of Tiger Stadium, Forbes Field, Crosley Field, Comiskey Park or Yankee Stadium. (We’ll concede Candlestick.)
Next the corporation, in hopes of appeasing critics of anything at some point, and everything at another, fired the team mascot. Chief Wahoo was hanged from the upper deck, his teepee burned, his image banned.
And, inevitably, the same twisted weirdies able to work up wild hatred for a cheerful, smiling cartoon emblem would next target the team name. And soon it came to pass that someone decided “Indians” is an offense to those more sensitive than me.
I suppose the ball club could have been renamed the Rocks (R&R Hall of Fame, get it?) or reach back in history to the old Cleveland Blues or Spiders. Or just changed the cartoon image to a smiling gent wearing a turban. But no.
They picked “Guardians” as the new team name, which conjures up nothing so much as adult diapers, the special heavy duty kind with extra layers of moisture absorbency, plus stretch-rite fabric for even the heaviest of loads. Team owners (or, more likely, consultants) next dreamed up a “legend”story for the new name, announcing it honored carved figures on a local bridge that no Clevelander I ever knew, then or now, knew of as “Guardians.”
Anyhoo, I’m delighted that in 2022 The Cleveland Baseball Co., Inc., will be represented by a team with the silliest name, wearing the ugliest uniforms, and the fewest fans in MLB.
So now I’m a diehard, longtime faithful Oakland Athletics fan. It’s not as uneasy a relationship as you might think. The A’s resemble Cleveland teams of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, run by cheap timid owners afraid to spend money.
The last few weeks we’ve watched Oakland dismantle an absolutely terrific, star-studded team poised to challenge the world, but management traded away All Stars and one of the best pitching rotations in the game in order to save money.
My kind of team! It’s 1975 all over again in Cleveland, when the Indians traded right-hander Jim Kern to Texas. Kern’s comment: “Every time the Indians get someone who knows how to play the game they hurry up and trade him for four guys who can’t.” Sound like the A’s?
Plus, like Cleveland, nobody loves Oakland. The A’s are perennial underdogs even when winning, because everyone’s a Giants fan no matter what. Plus, the A’s Coliseum is the oldest stadium in the league (!) and the target of the same kinds of dumb jokes shot at Municipal Stadium 40 years ago.
So I’m all in for a team that discarded Matt Olsen, Matt Chapman, Sean Manaea, Mark Canha, Starling Marte and who knows who else by the time I finish this paragraph? In their place: Skye Bolt, Seth Brown, Yo’ Mama, Arthur Godfrey, Tony Kemp, Fred Merkle and on bass guitar, please welcome Mr. Jack Bruce!
The MLB season opened this past weekend. I ignored every inch of it, but did keep a date with the Ukiah Wildcats who on Friday night hosted Montgomery High School over at cozy, comfy Anton Stadium.
(TWK gets the credit for these weekly columns, but the hard, sweaty labor comes from the ceaseless toil of author Tom Hine.)
The first guy I thought of when the Cleveland Indians changed their name was Tommy Wayne Kramer. This poor guy, who I know for a fact resents political correctness more then most, has been victimized by it in the worst way. Sorry Tommy. Your childhood heroes, guys like Johnny Romano and Woodie Held and Dick Howser ( as kids we’d reverse his name and howl with laughter) and Tito Francona have a strange new name across their chests. Your most famous player may be Tommy John , not for anything he accomplished on the field but for the career-saving surgery named after him once he joined the Dodgers and his career took off. But Mr. Kramer no one can take away 1965. You remember. The year the lowly Cleveland Indians finally overtook the mighty New York Yankees and finished ahead of them in the standings for the first time in 10 years. They can never take that away from you. No matter who is guarding the traffic across that bridge in Cleveland.