Baseball

The past ten years of Cleveland Indians baseball has been a wild ride. As fans living in the present its hard to call upon some memories of the past to put the present into perspective.

Malcolm Schwartz and his friend, David Broman , lived in Flushing, Queens during the 1950s. Each attended his first baseball game on May 12, 1956.

Mal's father, who was born in Brooklyn, took him to Ebbets Field to see the Dodgers play the Giants. David's father was born in the Bronx, and they went to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees host the Baltimore Orioles.

May 12 was quite a day for someone to attend his first baseball game, as Malcolm Schwartz, who hated the Yankees, discovered.

Baseball to those who love the game is the purest of all sport.

A game of imperfection, where greatness is judged by obtaining three hits for every ten at bats.

But for those who follow every moment, every inning, of every game, because we never know when greatness will strike.

Not in just in terms of overall plays in this forum, but some of the players, a few with such limited overall skills, have moved on to other teams, not because of free agency's big dollars, but players seeking a job.

DeWayne Wise, shown above, and Eric Brunlett.

The Pittsburgh Pirates' Bobby Crosby made $5.3 million at shortstop this past year for the Oakland A's, but the Pirates have signed him for $1 million plus incentives. One of the reasons was that they let go of Jack Wilson last summer for two question marks, Ronny Cedeno and Jeff Clement.

And how much was Jack Wilson re-signed for by the Seattle Mariners? $10 million for two years, plus a $600,000 buyout of his $8.4 million club option for 2010, or an average of the same $5.3 million per year, for two years.

Last year, Edinson Volquez was one of the top pitching draft prospects, and with good cause. The season prior (2008), Volquez broke out of his mold as a rookie for the Cincinnati Reds , posting a 17-6 record with a 3.21 ERA and an explosive strikeout to ball ratio of 206/93.

His only knock was he beaned 14 batters.

Provided Jason Bay passes his physical, he will become a Met next week, and he will be their left fielder.

But where will he hit?

The most logical place for him is 5th, with David Wright hitting 3rd and Carlos Beltran hitting 4th, being that, as of right now, Carlos Delgado is not in the Mets picture for 2010.

Another right-handed bat does give David Wright some protection in the lineup. Hopefully Wright's power numbers will improve, but as long as he's productive in driving in runs, to me it doesn't matter how the runs score.

For a long time everyone looked at the Giants’ Matt Cain as a pitcher with all the potential in the world, though he was blessed with the worst luck in baseball.  How else could you explain win totals of seven in 2007 and eight in 2008 despite ERAs under 4.00? 

All that changed in 2009, when Cain seemingly put it all together to post the following line:

14 Wins
217.2 Innings
2.89 ERA
1.18 WHIP
171 Strikeouts (7.07 K/9)
73 Walks (3.02 BB/9)
.268 BABIP

After the markets best slugger was plucked off the table when the New York Mets signed Jason Bay to a five year contract, teams are now going to have to dive into the second tier of bats, (excluding Matt Holliday, whom I fully expect to re-up long term with the Cardinals), to fill their needs.

The best remaining bat on the market (excluding Russell Branyan, whom I expect to re-sign with the Seattle Mariners), appears to be former Atlanta first baseman Adam LaRoche.

It's unbelievable to me how quickly time flies.

I started writing here at Bleacher Report just before the 2008 MLB season started, in late March, and here we are, two days short of 2010.

A lot has happened in nearly two years. I wasn't even here for most of it--I was almost immediately hired by OaklandClubhouse.com (after 18 articles here) and took my work there, but decided to come back here when I was bored in July of 2009 after a 13-month layoff.