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| Source: CBS |
Corey Kluber took the mound Monday night for the Cleveland Indians in Houston and the 2015 marathon that is an MLB baseball season will be underway. The Indians did not win that night. They also didn't score any runs. Such is life in baseball and I am happy it is back for the next six months.
What has followed this loss was not only an off day (hate the off day after an opener) but a cavalcade of nonsense that goes along with the narrative that is a loss that represents such a small portion of the season.
Yesterday I was in a meeting where a large portion of leadership asked us a lot of questions about our days and our own management. I made several baseball analogies when I spoke but none was more relevant than this one. "I coach high school baseball locally, so I am used to dealing with people and motivating them. The only difference between high school athletes and adult co-workers is that we are just larger children."
So when I see such an overreaction to one flippin game in an MLB season it makes me laugh but right after it makes me disappointed in our larger children. There is an important number in baseball people need to start thinking about.
.62%
That is how much a game represents in the MLB. Then there is this...
.62% vs 6.25%
That is the difference between a baseball game and a football game. Stop letting fandom of the Browns awful organization influence your thinking about this Indians. It isn't the same thing. There is not a controversy built into a baseball team. Or at least not one that people can fabricate. The Indians are a good team. The Indians have been a good team for a few years now. The Indians will be a good team for the foreseeable future. There is no Tim Couch vs Kelly Holcomb on the Indians. No Derek Anderson vs Brady Quinn. Not even a Colt McCoy vs Brandon Weeden vs Brian Hoyer vs Johnny Manziel.
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| Source: Cleveland.com |
The point is just calm down. Actually, first, read Michael Hattery's article from yesterday. Secondly, learn who Dallas Keuchel is and then just chill out because that dude can throw the ball. If he played for a different team people may know a lot more about him. Sounds a helluva lot like a certain pitcher that won the Cy Young in 2014. I'm not saying that he's going to win a Cy Young this year but the point remains, dude is money in the bank.
So I have a colleague that will talk Indians with me who is a Browns fan first and really is not a knowledgeable baseball fan in general. He falls into the typical "Dolan is cheap/they trade everyone" crowd. We had a discussion the other day that was especially poignant. He said that the Indians better get off to a good start if they want people to care about them. I asked him what that means even? What is good? is .500 ball good through a month good? He said that they better be winning enough games, AND BE EXCITING or else people aren't going to care about them this year.
I actually believe him. And I really do not want him to be right. There is a reality to this though. 85-87 wins could take the Central Division. The Indians could be playing .500 ball all year and then go on a 12-2 tear at the end of the year. Sadly, I just don't think people are going to care. Not people love baseball and the Tribe, they'll certainly care. But Browns fan will not care. Cheap Dolan fan will not care. Neither will They Trade Everyone fan.
So it makes me ask the question of why will they not care. The only answer I can come up with is that sports fan in Cleveland has been conditioned to overreact. They cannot disconnect the difference between a baseball loss and a football loss. They view a loss as a loss. Loss bad, me mad!!
I know a lot about poker and poker strategy. Or at least I think I do, I guess that is up for debate. Anyway, I often think about poker when things like this come up. People will want to tell me about a hand that they played. It is never a hand that they won. Always one where they lost money and got "unlucky". Why? Because you always remember the times you got "unlucky" but you rarely remember the times that you made somebody else "unlucky". Probably because you're too busy stacking chips I suppose. So when I hear somebodys story I will usually just listen (And this has even gotten difficult to do now) and say something like, "man that sucks, you got unlucky." Even though they might not have really gotten unlucky, but more importantly they leave out massive chunks of the story that are valuable to how the hand played out. That just tells me that they don't care and they really just want me to feel bad for them.
This is like Browns fans. Lets just be mad that we lost. Lets completely gloss over the fact that Corey Kluber still looked like a stud on the mound. That not every left handed pitcher in the league will not be as good as Keuchel. And most importantly....
.62%
It is as foolhardy to get upset about the loss as it would be to declare them Central Division champs had they stomped the Astros Monday night. Nobody would be like that though, because it is easier to be mad. So going into the next game, lets just heed the advice of Jim Mora...
I just hope the Indians can win a game too. About 87 of them. Or maybe I should say that I hope they lose 75 of them this season to get the number 24 draft pick in the 2016 draft?
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