A Fine White Whine

Or “Hello, Mr. Gottlieb.”

Barb wrote yesterday in The Dan Patrick McEnroe Show:

Gottleib in for DP today…Click.

Oy.

I tried to hang in there — gave it the ol’ college try and all — but was forced to flee in horror. Right off the top he criticized Seattle fans for cheering for Ken Griffey, Jr. on his first trip back since leaving the Mariners. Doug, that’s called “class.” Yes, Junior left the Mariners but he gave them a lot of good years; he played his heart out. (Check out those defensive plays in that Mariners.com link. Holy smokes!) Real fans don’t forget stuff like that. After whining about it, Gottlieb had John Kruk on to talk baseball. He asked the Krukster what he thought about the welcome Junior got in Seattle and Kruk said he thought it was a good thing: Junior has always been a professional, his popularity did a lot to save baseball in the Pacific northwest, some people feel they never would have gotten a new stadium without him, he played the game the right way, etc., etc., etc. To which Gottlieb replied “Thanks, John. ‘Bye.” He didn’t even have the balls to argue his position with Kruk! OK, so maybe he was running out of time in the segment. Still. What a wuss. I listened off-and-on to the show — mostly off — and finally had to bail out before the final hour began.

Bring back Patrick McEnroe!

Oh. He’s in England covering Wimbledon.

Dang.

I’ve always been the sentimental type, and perhaps this is a reason I like baseball so much. Baseball appreciates its history more than football and basketball. Perhaps this is because it’s a slow game and there’s time between pitches, between batters, between innings to tell stories and talk about the past. And the season is very long — 162 games compared to the NFL’s 16 and the NBA’s 82 — there’s a lot of time to talk about stuff. One of my favorite features during Mets’ home games is when Ralph Kiner joins the guys in the television broadcast booth. I love listening to Gary, Ron, and Keith and learn a lot from them. But Ralph brings a certain je ne c’est quoi, an extra oomph that puts those broadcasts in the realm of the sublime. It’s like listening to your father or grandfather talk about the game.

If Dad or Grandpa was a Hall-of-Famer ….

Pedro Martinez got a nice ovation at Fenway Park when he pitched there last season for the Mets:

(Man, the fans were going nuts even in the pre-game.)

He didn’t pitch well; maybe the emotion got to him. Julio Franco always gets a nice ovation when the Mets play in Atlanta; hey, what’s not to like about the Methuselah of the MLB? Dave Roberts was greeted warmly at Fenway when the Giants played the Red Sox a couple of weeks ago; Roberts’ stolen base in the ALCS against the Yankees in 2004 kept Boston alive, and they went on to beat the Yanks and win the World Series. Johnny Damon got a rude welcome at Fenway when he returned after signing with the Yankees. Yes, he went over to the Dark Side, but he still helped Boston win the ‘04 Series. In this case I believe the proper etiquette is to cheer the first time he comes to the plate, then boo like hell afterwards.

Players in all sports get traded or sign with new teams all the time. But you never forget the guys who were on your team, especially when you’re a kid. Even players who were no more than journeymen: if they played for your childhood team they were your heroes.

Scoop comments in The Road to SuckVille:

I have to disagree with rrrgirl, Reills and you about the Cavs being like N’Sync. In fact, one of the most disappointing things about the finals was that they not only played down to the general public’s expectations of them, they even surpassed those expectations in terms of suckiness. (That is, Conventional Wisdom said their only good player was LeBron, and then, as it turned out, even LeBron didn’t play well.) That was not the way this team looked before the finals. It was the way people indeed thought they were, but it wasn’t how they really were before they got there.

The smarmy Cleveland jokes are indeed stale, however. It has been my experience that the vast majority of people making Cleveland jokes have never actually visited the city; they know it only by its (bad) reputation. So for them to put it down constitutes really lazy thinking. I was glad, however, that Dan seemed to set his criticisms aside for the week he was present. At least he enjoyed the Rock Hall and Pickwick & Frolic.

In order to fully understand the kind of pressure someone like LeBron James is under, though, or to understand how much The Road to Suckville truly sucks for a Cavs fan, what you have to understand is what it is like for Clevelanders in general to bear the burden of living in America’s Losingest Sports City. Other fans in other cities like to claim they have it worse, but the real truth is, they don’t. As long as Cubbies fans have been suffering without a World Series win, they cannot claim that Chicago as a city has not had any champions in anything during that entire interim (and the same thing could be said of White Sox fans even before they got their moment in the sun in 2005). Red Sox fans moaned and cried about how said their lot was, and then came 2004 at last…but even then, they could not say that they could not recall in their lifetimes what it was like for a Boston team to win something, anything.

When you look at the American cities with major sports teams, and look at how long it’s been since any of them have won anything, you have to give Cleveland the crown as losingest major league city. It doesn’t have an NHL team, the Cavs have never won, the last time the Browns won a title was before there was a Super Bowl so it doesn’t really “count” the way a Super Bowl would, and the Indians, despite coming close twice, have been dry since 1948.

Even worse is the litany–not only recalled all too well by the fans but repeated by sports journalists both inside and outside the city (like Dan) to remind everyone of all the painful moments by which Cleveland has lost titles in the past. Everyone knows them by heart–Red Right 88, The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, Joe Table…and now, The Sweep. Just add it to the list.

It would be nice to believe that this was just a warmup and that the Cavs just got their feet wet for may chances to come, and that LeBron will get some help to take them there. But it’s not like the Cavs have draft picks to help that happen, and LeBron only has so many years on his contract. After that, he can go where he pleases–and with the pressure on him as a major superstar to move on to a major market, he’s going to have to carefully weigh his options. Does he stay loyal to his home base and the city and the franchise that incubated him during his growing years? Or does he succumb to the siren song of more money and better teammates offered him by some other club in some bigger city that desperately needs him?

If he succumbs to the siren song, chances are it’ll be a good move for him. He’ll get way more money (and not just from the team he signs with, but from all his endorsement contracts); he’ll have an even higher profile than he does now; and chances are he’ll have the kind of help he needs to send him on the road to winning those championship rings that it is only fair and right for someone of his talents to win. For some other city and its fans, of course.

But if it happens, Cleveland and Clevelanders will be left with the oh-so-familiar feeling of their team having served as the farm club from which a major talent graduated to the big leagues. The guy who was once their hero will become, in a way, their enemy. And for their teams, the losing will go on. And as it does, that burden Clevelanders carry around with them–the one that tells them that if their sports teams lose, THEY are losers–will just get heavier and heavier.

I hope it doesn’t happen, but it’s hard not to see it all coming, and not in the too-far-off distance either.

I think Reilly was saying that Justin Timberlake and LeBron James are the superstars surrounded by a bunch of average guys. Reills may have been poking fun at the other guys, but I respect them. Not everyone is a star. It’s no sin to be role-player.

Being the sentimentalist, I hope LeBron stays in Cleveland. It’s not just his first team, the team that drafted him, but it’s practically his hometown team. Money-wise, I think he’s already set for life, but the chance for a championship may lead him elsewhere. So few athletes stay with one team their entire careers anymore. The open market gives players more opportunity. And their careers are so short you can’t blame players for trying to get what they feel they are worth. I always liked Tony Gwynn and Kirby Puckett for staying with one team, but you can’t hold it against someone for seeking greener (as in moolah) pastures.

It’s an easy schtick to make fun of Cleveland. I’m not interested when DP falls back on easy stories like:

• Make fun of Cleveland
• Drool over the Babe-of-the-Day (e.g., Jessica Alba in studio; was rather surprised that DP did not cover the Amanda Beard story — I think he was too busy making fun of Cleveland that week)
• Discuss the Maxim or FHM or other “gentleman’s” magazine list of Hot Chicks
• Once the NFL season starts I’m sure he’ll be back on the Terrell Owens beat, complaining about the mercurial receiver’s antics all the while covering said antics.

OK, so it’s a three-hour show and he has a lot of air-time to fill ….