Cleveland has nothing to apoligize for
If you were to see the crowd at the Indians' game last night, you may have been a bit underwhelmed.
However, if you heard the crowd, felt the atmosphere and the intensity, you would have sworn the 21,000 at Jacobs Field last night was a much larger crowd.
It hadn't really hit me that the National Media had taken notice of the Tribe's sub-par attendance until a couple of months ago when Peter Gammons commented on it and somehow included the words "Bush Administration" into the sentence. Now ESPN Sportscenter anchors are taking aim at the fans in my city.
First of all, I am surprised they looked up from their Yankees-Red Sox fixation long enough to notice. But they did.
Scott Van Pelt and his co-anchor (I have long lost the ability to tell most of these anchors apart) seemed to scold Cleveland for not leaping out of its collective easy chair and heading to the Jake.
The line that sticks out to me is perhaps as annoying as any phrase I have heard from a sports anchor: "You're better than that, Cleveland."
I had two ideas on how to respond to this. The first was a two-word retort that probably would offend a majority of readers.
I have opted for the second, longer version.
I went to the Indians game last night with my brother and his girlfriend. We paid quite a sum to attend the game, but it was of little consequence. Our team has been playing well after all, and we wanted to be part of it.
Despite following the Indians since I was six and writing about them constantly in this space, this was just my third Indians game of the season. Yes, I live out of town now, but that's not the only reason. Like many, I don't make enough to go to every game. My mother, who loved the Indians so much as a child she named turtles after two of their players (Rocky for Rocky Colavito and Tito for Tito Francona), hasn't been to too many more, despite living closer than I do.
She wanted to go with us last night but couldn't because she had to get up at 5 a.m. and teach high school. My dad also had to get up early for work, so he was a late scratch.
Does this mean they are bad fans? Is it wrong to place certain priorities over baseball?
Everyone points to the six-year period where seats could not be had in Cleveland. But that was a different time. In those days I'd go to a game and constantly be annoyed by fans who didn't have any understanding of the game, and seemed only there because it was the place to be.
Yesterday, every conversation I heard was baseball-related.
So I won't apoligize to the anchors who make enough money to have season tickets and then complain to me about my lack of loyalty. Don't come around with that.
I had a blast with 21,000 of my peers last night. I would have liked it if 20,000 more showed up, but it didn't happen.
The point is I'm not going to complain because some in Cleveland haven't caught on. A number of fans have. Maybe I should tell the others to stop working on lesson plans, stop helping their kids with homework and to stop caring about their jobs. Don't these people know for $75 they can watch baseball?
But I'll leave that to the superiors over at ESPN.