Nurse the Hate: Hate the Indians

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I think it is time that the Indians seriously consider shutting down.  Someone needs to do something.  As a community it might be time to come together, have a meeting and strongly suggest that the team completely cease operations.  Why continue?  The Dolan led Indians have managed to take one of the nation’s most loyal fan bases and create total ambivalence.  It’s not that fans are angry.  No one cares enough anymore to get even mildly upset.  Fans aren’t outraged at the team’s failures.  They really don’t even notice.  That thing has no pulse.  Let’s just shut this down.  It’s over.

When your biggest headline of the year is dealing away two flailing veterans with big contracts, there might be an issue. "Team Dumps Stiffs"  It was their biggest victory of the year.  I also like that the ownership has so consistently drilled into the region that they are cash strapped so that reaction is “Hey, well at least they saved some money!” as if they are going paycheck to paycheck over there.  It’s just taken at face value that the team can’t afford to bring good players in.  It is a culture of expected mediocrity.  The Dolans, maybe the most vanilla ownership group of any sports team on the planet, took a team that sold out every single game and have turned that into a team ranked second to last in attendance.  The Oakland A’s comfortably outdraw the Indians, and they play in a men's room that decided to expand out and put in a field.  The only team that doesn’t outdraw Cleveland is Tampa, and that’s only because they play their games in an indoor amusement park instead of a real stadium. 

The Indians will now pretend that they are excited about these “stars of the future” they are calling up from Triple A.  This will be a difficult lie to sell because these players are generally role players and castoffs from the Indians recent fire sale trades.  There is no one on the way that is an impact player to get excited about.  Jerry Sands is Ryan Rayburn.  Lonnie Chisenhall didn’t suddenly figure out how to hit big league pitchers.   The scoreboard at the stadium will now have the players listed only as "Some Guy Playing Outfield" as no one will be interested in the specifics.  The Indians exist to be a team that the real teams play on their way to meaningful games with other real teams.  They have become the Washington Generals.  With a 162 game season, it is important for the Indians, Mariners, Marlins, Padres, and Rays to exist so teams like the Angels, Yankees, Cardinals, Giants and Dodgers have someone to play.  Some teams are usually good, some are usually bad. Unfortunately, Cleveland has been and looks to continue to be bad for the foreseeable future (i.e. as long as the Dolans own the team or the community doesn't walk over to forcibly shut it down).

The Indians in the last couple of weeks have traded away four of their five highest paid players.  Normally one would imagine that a team would be concerned about upsetting their customer base by getting rid of what were in theory the players that were the most identifiable and with the most upside.  This is not the case as the team probably doesn’t care that no one will go to the games the rest of the way.  No one went anyway.  The Indians make all their money on the already guaranteed TV contracts.  The "customer base" are really the television executives they need to keep on the hook writing checks.  With the Indians $200+ million in revenue and only $30 million of that in gate receipts, there is little reason to put a winner on the field.  Ticket sales are gravy.  Think of going to the games as this:  it’s a TV show being filmed in Cleveland that the area’s residents spent $30 million to watch in person.  It is a complete waste of time.  The Indians will never be good because the ownership has shown that they have neither the ability nor ambition to become a good team.  It appears they just want to make some money while not being a laughingstock. It's not a sports team.  It's a low budget media content provider.

I would suggest that the Indians take a radical new approach.  Stop pretending.  Openly tell the people of the region "We are here to make money.  If we win, that's great, but it's not that big of a deal."  Eliminate all the expense and hassle of operating a public stadium and play the games in a closed off sound stage environment in front of no one.  As the team would just be shooting a TV show, move it out of here so the community can get that downtown land back and turn it into a park.  The Dolans can move the team somewhere else even cheaper and get rid of that Wahoo logo they have been trying to sweep under the rug for years.  Go all the way.  "The Northeast Ohio Baseball Team".  Make a new logo of patently inoffensive clip art found online.  Build a set outside of New Philadelphia somewhere with sponsor logos on every surface.  Spend just enough money on players to win about 40% of the games, just enough to keep TV ratings alive.  Stop the current madness. 

Go Giants.