For those of you old enough to remember, I ask you to go back to 1984. The Guardians finished 75-87 and 1984 was sandwiched between 1983 (70-92) and 1985 (60-102).
On that team were the following guys:
- Mike Hargrove, 1B
- Julio Franco SS
- Brook Jacoby 3B
- Brett Butler CF
- Andre Thornton DH
- Pat Tabler - UT
- Joe Carter LF
- Bert Blyleven SP
- Rick Sutcliffe SP
- Ernie Camacho Closer
That was the season that we got Mel Hall and Joe Carter for Rick Sutcliffe, George Frazier and Ron Hassey. Five mostly pathetic seasons later, Carter was traded to San Diego for Sandy Alomar, Carlos Baerga and Chris James, starting the San Diego to Cleveland express train that has fueled a number of winning seasons in Cleveland...but I digress.
In 1986 was the start of Cory Snyder and Greg Swindell years and we finished 84-78...only to revert back to 61-101 the next year, followed by 6 more losing seasons that ended in the 1994...and the rest is mostly pleasant history.
The point of this history lesson is that, in the 80s, as a Cleveland fan you had to focus on the players more than the team result.
And so, I learned in the 1980s to disengage from the baseball season and how bad my team was finishing in the standings. There was no hint that we would ever make it to the World Series. How could that not drive you crazy? I mean, we traded Sutcliffe that year and he went 16-1 for the Cubs AFTER the trade. Today that would have driven us all crazy, considering I am losing my mind that Tampa has won 5 of the first 6 starts Civale has made for them after the trade. Even worse, if we all acted then like we are now as fans, we would have all lost our minds. I mean, we had Bert Blyleven going 19-7 and we ended up 75-87 with the lineup above. And the rest of the guys weren't really bad players, just not great ones, but each of them was better than Kole Calhoun, Ramon Laureano, Mike Zunino, Cam Gallagher and the current versions of Noah Syndergaard and Lucas Giolito. We had Joe Carter, Julio Franco and Cory Snyder and guys like Tabler and Hargrove and Bernazard and Jacoby and we were losing 100 games in a season. How could any of us have focused on what was going wrong WITHOUT losing our minds? So, at least for me, in the 80s I disconnected rooting for a win and cheering for our team.
There was just the game within the game within the season. Listening to my heroes and rooting for my team. Not to win a championship but to win each game they played...until they didn't...and then rooting for them to win the next one.
So, after tonight's game I officially disengaged from the standings, the season and the disappointment. I can tell the TV announcers have not gotten to that point yet, with the constant disappointment in Matt Underwood's voice about every thing each player did wrong to keep us from winning being as evident as the precise, crotchety old man comments from Rick Manning, each of which could begin with when I was playing..." but they don't. The silence and non-connected joking of Andre Knott as he dosen't know quite what to say as he watches this season go down the drain after getting so used to quality seasons, September comebacks and October magic happen year after year under Francona. But I can hear a twinkle in Manning's voice when one of the young guys does something good and I remember. He lived through those times, too. He knows. He knows it can happen again. If these guys just continue to learn and grow...and we disengage from the game results and focus on the individual results.
So, I am past all that disappointment of this season. I still think the FO has put us on a bad path that will impact this franchise for years. Bad trades, bad drafts, all those things that we will have to live with when we don't have enough good players in years to come. But I can root for my guys. I can hope against hope that they will dump the AAAA guys tomorrow and bring up some of my future heroes. I can hope that the younger players already in the majors will play well through the end of the season and when they get their chance next year will become the next Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga, Omar Vizquel, Manny Ramirez and Sandy Alomar.
Waiting for our new heroes to emerge. Let's hope they do and, until they do, I will cheer for each of them in each game hoping that they do become what I hope they can...without worrying that the scoreboard may have us behind, sometimes embarrassingly so, at the end of some of the games. Because, back in the 80s, if you lost 13-6 and 2 or 3 of your heroes had great offensive games, that was cause to celebrate.
That is what I am going to do now...and I think I will feel a lot better about rooting for my hometown team if I do. Heck, it worked before.
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