Yes I know, I reversed the lyric…

I was a Browns fan from ~ 1970 through 1994. While living in NYC from 1984-1994 I watched almost every game. This required spending a lot of time in the Sporting Club on Hudson Street and other sports bars with many like-minded folk. This took a lot of time and money (bar bills). I stopped being a Brown’s fan after the ’94 season for reasons of pure calculation. I knew the Modells and performed a cost benefit analysis weighing the amount of time and energy that I was investing in the Browns versus the odds of Art or especially David ever producing a winner. Though proven incorrect when the Modell-led Ravens won the Super Bowl, I still believe that the decision itself was soundly made. When the Browns left Cleveland a year later, I was thus insulated from the blow. I did, however, make the decision then to never come back. I haven’t gone back and you know something? I don’t miss it one little bit. I enjoy having 3-5 hours available to me on a Sunday that I otherwise would not have. I have friends that ask me to go all the time but I won’t until or unless a customer asks.

You might ask where am I going with this and why am I babbling on about it on an Indians’ blog? I am giving you this history because there is a faint wisp of an argument just now starting to percolate between my brain and my heart. The heart is kicking butt right now but the head has legitimacy on its side. The head is whispering that though I know and immensely respect the Dolans and Marc Shapiro, the system itself is too rigged for me to waste my time continuing to follow the team. Maybe I should spend that time doing charity work or learn how to basket weave because being a fan of a small market team in MLB’s current system is a fool’s errand. In order for the Indians to win a World Series, everything has to come together at the very same precise instant and then they will have to tear the team apart because they can’t afford to keep it together. Hell, Paul Dolan thinks that within the current framework that the 2004-2007 "era" was a success and he’s probably right. Am I completely wasting my time?

I have been a defender and am not one to hasten to blame the manager but believe that it is now time to turn the page.  Playing Garko in the outfield during Huff’s starts started the final souring process for me and the love affair with Giminez referenced here at the expense of finding out if Andy Marte is Agent M or well, Marte finished it.  Beyond logic and reason, I will admit that I’m kind of tired of his whole act and also believe that the team needs to do something from a PR standpoint to register at least some organizational displeasure.   The purpose of this post is to centrally compile the arguments for his departure.  I will start it off and look forward to the comments…

• We need to hire Pythagoras of Samos.  Wedge has consistently underperformed his Pythagorean win expectancy.  While some of this can be explained by lousy bullpens, this dog has to have some hunt.
• Brandon Phillips.  While Shapiro pulled the trigger, we all know that it was Wedges’s gun and bullets.  This was a classic ego-clash and even if Phillips hadn’t turned in to a star it still would have infuriated me.
• His love for, and overexposure of, under-performing role players.  This has been beat to death elsewhere…
• Garko in the outfield.  “Hey let’s bring up a rookie pitcher with fly-ball tendencies and give him the best possible platform to succeed”.  In David Huff’s first twelve starts, Garko logged significant time in the outfield in seven of them.  In addition, DeRosa was in right for three of them and Francisco in center for six…  This positional absurdity continued with Giminez at first for Laffey’s last outing.
• He is not a motivator of players who actually need motivation.  It has been said that his teams don’t quit on him.  As I believe Jay mentioned,  the players who don’t quit on him are the ones who wouldn’t dare quit on themselves…

If nothing else about our Wedgie is true, he does develop man crushes.on role-player grinders that he then overplays ad-absurdum. While none rise to the level of Casey "I can’t quit you" Blake, we have seen Francisco, Garko, Trot, Michaels and Carrol in this role. Who is the next one going to be? While my money is on Giminez, who is not a bad role player, there are other worthy pretenders to the throne.

Role change (again): Third baseman Lonnie Chisenhall is returning to Class A Kinston's every day lineup Wednesday. The Indians moved Chisenhall to the bullpen for two appearances because they felt they may need his help in Cleveland. Chisenhall, hitting .326/390/528 as a third baseman, had trouble adjusting to the pen. He still could hit his way to Cleveland this season because outside of Asdrubal Cabrera, nobody seems to be able to catch and hit at the same time.

This is an update from prior story.