How I Spent My Winter Vacation

Welcome back, boffins! I am totally stoked! Are you totally stoked? It's 2012, there are 162 games to go. One hundred sixty-two nights (and afternoons) of excitement. One hundred sixty-two more blog entries (er, give or take an entry or three).

How have you been holding up? Did you watch October baseball? The last day of the regular season was pretty amazeable. Then there was the World Series which included neither a Yankee, Red Sox OR an AL Central team. The Midwest represented and took it all. Then there was winter.

But it wasn't really a winter, at least not here in Cleveland. A few times I got a little crabby because the weather was better during "winter time" than it has been in most recent Aprils yet there was no baseball.

However, in January I made it to the Tribe On Tour event at Summit Mall in Fairlawn. I really wanted to go last year but couldn't make it. I'm really glad I made it this year and I highly recommend it for any fan. In theory there's some speaking and a Q&A by a panel but - at least in Fairlawn - unless you got there super early you couldn't hear any of the speaking. We got there a half hour before the event was to start and I think we stood in line for 2 hours. Not unbearable for a couple of adults but my friends' kids didn't make it.

Pro tip: If you don't mind missing the Q&A (that you can't hear anyway unless you show up hours early) and/or if you have little kids, show up about a half hour before the scheduled ending time. Take a few minutes to join the raffle, spin the wheel for leftover promotional junk, take a photo with Slider, meet John Adams and bang the drum, get a couple stickers and pop in the end of the autograph line just before it closes. Actually there are 3 lines, and it's near impossible to know which one you're in when you're at the end of one of them, so you don't know who you'll get to sign. But if you show up at the end you can scoot through all of the lines and end up with one bitchin' signed souvenir.

Super insider pro tip: Tom Hamilton and Jim Rosenhaus are at this event but not stuck behind a signing table. I think they might do a little broadcasting from the event but otherwise they're totally just STANDING AROUND. Right there in front of Macy's or whatever. I was hoping I'd meet them, as I'd brought my photo I'd taken with them last summer when I was in the Hargrove Suite so they could sign it. Imagine my surprise when I spotted them just hanging around. I got to talk to them and asked Rosie if he was nervous about the upcoming year since there'd be no Mike Hegan buffer. He said there was nothing to be nervous about. I totally should have rolled out a "Oh yeah you're a hall-of-famer" joke but I totally missed it (it was a "jerk store" moment for real). We did laugh about me going to North Carolina to find Hegan to complete the autograph. Har har. Tom Hamilton, by the way, does not sound half as loud in the mall as he does in a radio booth.

I had brought a ball - the foul ball I got from the Hargrove suite - for Shelley Duncan to sign (since he'd hit it). I lucked out and was in his line. He was seated with Jasons Donald and Kipnis, so I had them sign the ball too. I thought it'd be super jerkish to be all "no, not you clowns." I felt stupid enough admitting it was just a foul ball not a homer. I wish I had printed out a picture for Shelley to sign too but...well maybe next year.

I did ask Shelley if he's playing all season this year and he pointed at Manny Acta and said "Tell that guy." And I did. And look who's on the Opening Day lineup...

Anyway, I didn't get Jack, Vinnie and Tomlin's autographs nor Manny Acta's. Next time I'll be ready (see Pro Tips above). However, I DID meet John Adams and not only did I bang the drum I also had a "moment" with him. I said "I write a blog about positive things about the Indians, and I call you our patron saint." He smiled and sort of hugged me and said "I've been called a lot of things but never a saint." I said thanks and he said thanks too. Moment had.

I also got a "remember the Great Comeback Against Seattle" beer stein which uhm...all right. I wanted to trade someone for a Indians skateboard deck (really) but didn't bother.

On our way out of the mall, my friend and I stopped by the Indians Team Shop and I bought myself one of these Authentic Collection Titanium Bracelets for $25. From what I can tell it's like those rubber "Livestrong" bracelets but has the official MLB logo ($5), a raised Chief Wahoo ($5) and Micro Titanium Sphere Zones ($15). Not titanium like a golf club, mind you. Titanium Sphere Zones. Whatever - I've been wearing it 24/7 for 2 months and there's no sign of wear and no sign of allergic reaction so I'd say it was worth the bucks.

Manny Acta

Jack Hannahan, Vinnie Pestano & Josh Tomlin

Jason Donald, Jason Kipnis & Shelley Duncan

Shelley's autograph on the (foul) ball he hit!

Free junk!

So that was January and February was a bore. I just sat around and stared at my rubber titanium bracelet. But March was a good time with spring training games. I usually don't listen to ST games but I was chomping at the bit this year so I tried to catch them between 4 and 5 PM, then read highlights. Of course ST stats suck and that's why I didn't follow too closely. But you know who rocked?

CHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Dude is back from Army and is going to knock your socks off this summer, I guarantee it. Also lookin' good is Hafner. Man, would it be awesome or what to see him have a great year? Brantley is back to his old self. Duncan is not hitting but when he IS hitting he's hitting the home runs. They keep faltering on trusting Shelley as our every day LF but...I dunno, send him to the batting cages? Santana is homering. This new fella at second base, Lopez, he is exciting with the bat. Oh yeah and even LOUUUUUU is looking good, making a case for more Santana at first. Fine by me.

You got it!

Who is not blowing us away just yet is Asdrubal. But I mean he's still the best infielder in baseball (ok the AL. I am a Brandon Phillips liker) and I think he'll come around. They just today announced he's signed on for 2 more years, even though they whittled his 2012 salary down pretty low. So he's happy and the team is happy and I think as it stands Asdrubal is going to be the only guy we recognize in 2014. At least I'll get more mileage out of my sign!

Also in March it seems that The Indians hired a new Social Media Manager because they came out with a Tumblr page, a Wordpress blog and a page on Pinterest. My suggestions for those are bookmark it, subscribe to it and "what the hell is Pinterest for anyway?" it, respectively. I subscribed to the blog and it's pretty cool. I have the posts come to my inbox. They're a little over-excited thus far with the posting but oh well. I don't have to read if I don't want. I did ask a question in a comment and got an answer and that's the kind of stuff I like. So I'm a big fan now and you should all be fans too.

Jason Donald sat in on Twitter (on the Indians' account) one day and I asked him a question and he answered it 3 times because I rock.

@positivetribe @Indians Hi Jason. What is your intro music this year? (when you come to bat)

@Indians You locked me up @positivetribe, i need some music suggestions. Previous years i went 1980s metal/classic rock type stuff #tweetyourtribe

@Indians A follow up to the last one I really like Van Halen, havent got the new album yet

@Indians The intro music question was a great one, got me thinking and would love some suggestions. #TweetYourTribe #Indians

Right after that I got 5 new Twitter followers (who I am hoping will be blog readers because I don't say much of anything else on Twitter. Hi!) That means now I have to be more active on Twitter because people see me and want to know more. Sometimes I try to follow Twitter during a game but it's not all that fun. It's like watching six sports channels at once.

So what else? Oh yeah I bid in a charity auction for a Belle/Baerga signed ball and LOST (it went for surprisingly more than even the event organizers thought) but I did win 4 behind-the-plate tickets in June as well as a Bob Feller autographed photo so that was well fun. The day I chose to go to the game is Asdrubal Bobblehead day. I've already got one (duh) but this one features him fielding so of course I need the whole package!

I bought my 2012 Tribe Fan Club membership which isn't too bad of a deal. It's $20 and you get Gameday Audio included, and some other goodies. Being that I listen to probably 50 games a year on Gameday Audio and it costs $20 a year on its own, I'm already making money. Because I get some free tickets and some discounts at the Team Shops. This year maybe I'll check out the tailgate parties and Progressive Field tour and stuff.

I re-watched Ken Burns' Baseball over the winter, for about the 10th time. It's very New-York-centric but it is nice to get a reminder that the Red Sox were horrible and miserable for 100 years. Hooray!

That's enough babbling about what goes on when there's no baseball and how I tried to fill the void as best I could. My void will be voided tomorrow and I can't WAIT. Baseball is here and I'm ready.

Remember - whatever happens we're just happy to have BASEBALL and STAY POSITIVE! See you tomorrow!

When Pronk is Pronky...

And Santana is Supernatural, and Asdrubal is Drooby, and Choo is Choosy, and Grady is Speedy and our pitchers are on their games...well that is 2011 Indians Baseball and that is what we had tonight.

It probably also helps when 38,548 fans + Carlos Baerga are in the stands.

Josh Tomlin has given up 6 runs in each of his last 3 starts. Tonight? One. It was a legit run, after a double. No errors, no homers. Followed up with an inning-ending double play. He went 6.2 innings and struck out 5. Those are the stats he was throwing up all through April and May, before those last 3 starts. You like?

Pestano comes in to face 4, strikes out 2 and grounds out 2. Our man Sipp shows up in the 9th (no Rage?) and faces 3... "And that's your ballgame, folks!" says Jim Rosenhaus, who is filling in for the vacationing Tom Hamilton.

But, we weren't worried about our #BullpenMafia.

We HAVE been worried about Carlos Santana, who got bumped down to 8th tonight. Perhaps the presence of some other big-hitting occasional first-baseman lit a fire under his ass or something, because he got a solo homer. And then a single and another single, that time for an RBI.

That other big-hitting occasional first-baseman I mentioned is Travis Hafner who was batting DH in the 4-spot today for the first time in a month. His first 2 at-bats were ground outs. Sigh. Then a walk. Whee? Then there was this in the 8th which was awesome and looked like a home run, if nothing else his swing was classic Pronk so you should totally watch it.That scored one, then Cord Phelps showed up to pinch run, and he scored so that was just awesome.

I will not fail to mention Asdrubal, who got a double early on, then got a single in that awesome 8th and came around to score.

Choo walked twice - nice! And had an assist at 2nd, which is his 10th assist this season (14 last season) and he's 2 ahead of all other outfielders right now.

Grady looked good walking in the 1-spot, and even better out in centerfield. I hear he made a great Grady-ish catch in the 9th but MLB.com doesn't feel it clip-worthy, so I'll just have to take Rosenhaus's word for it. (Update: They posted a clip as I was finishing up writing. It WAS a great catch!)

Hannahan switch from 3rd to 1st after LaPorta got hurt (sprained ankle, no break, so far so good) and he did all right there. Not sure why they didn't bring in Sweet Lou and put Santana at 1st...but I'm sure Manny knows.

So we seemed to have all of our pieces and parts tonight. Pitching, batting, fielding, Baerga. Is this all due to Pronk's return? I guess I don't care what it's due to. LOVE IT! So nice to see the huge crowd there, which I hope is duplicated all weekend.

Oh yeah and beating Pittsburgh? Priceless (to which Pittsburghians say "Youns still follow baseball?")

Tomorrow night is our new favorite starter, Carlos "Cookie" Carrasco against a guy who's "record continues to be deceiving because of a lack of run support and blown saves." Hmm...so, we can pitch like that. Can we beat that?

See you then!

Radio Chatter:
"The Indians as a team hitting .500 with the bases loaded."
- Jim Rosenhaus

"I called it the Yake. Yacobs field, that's how I remember it."
- Carlos Baerga

"He has my name so that is why he had to hit a home run today."
- Carlos Baerga on Carlos Santana's home run

"Michael Brantley...stay with it! He's hitting it as hard as he can but has nothing to show for it so far."
- Jim Rosenhaus

"I used to have to write in 'Mike Hegan' 300 times each season."
"I got 301 votes. Three-hundred from you and one from my wife."
- Jim Rosenhaus and Mike Hegan on All-Star voting

"Wood putting the drama back in to the intentional walk."
- Jim Rosenhaus on Tim Wood's sort of wild intentional balls

"All the ingredients that made this team so successful earlier in the season were on display tonight."
- Jim Rosenhaus

Asdrubal Out-Omars Omar

Didja see his play? Here it is, I'll wait.

You know, I really feel sorry for people who haven't been paying attention the past few years or people who won't watch a game that "looks like" a loss. Because you miss amazing shit like that. Asdrubal's been doing amazing shit like that for a while now, you know. He's the unassisted triple play guy...and stuff.

So we had our skeleton crew in there today. Like, total bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. Orlando was out getting naturalized (really!), Grady's hurt, Hafner's hurt, even Travis Buck is hurt.

I don't know why people say the team has no depth (and by people I mean stupid greasy Mike Trivisano). Do they mean we don't have 10 super stars? Are we all of a sudden a fanwank city that neeeeeeeds a LeBron caliber player to adorn the field of play every night or else we'll shake our heads in shame?

Fuck that noise. The only one of our benchers who I do not really want to see in the lineup is Austin Kearns. I don't know what his deal is. But Kearns has proved himself already so he just needs a chance to get back into it.

Do I trust Duncan? Everett, Buck and Marson? Can any of those guys get a clutch double? Absolutely. In fact, those five guys have 15 doubles and one triple between them. Duncan has TEN RBI.

Anyway, they didn't get it done tonight but it's not solely because Grady and Hafner weren't there. The other guys who play every night weren't doing it either. Brantley didn't hit and neither did Santana.

Choo is silently and stoically coming back, getting one or two hits every night, slowly raising that AVG. He's up to .239 tonight, almost 20 points higher than last Thursday. If that's not progress, I don't know what is!

LaPorta was making up for being the lone guy with no hits last night, getting not only two hits tonight but one of them a solo home run! So, when I accused him of being hot at the plate the other day, I wasn't seeing things. Neener.

It's almost sort of comical how Fausto can't face the White Sox this year, huh? Like it doesn't matter to him that we came into this short series 10 games ahead of them in our division. The stripes must make his eyeballs hurt or something. Perhaps a bad childhood memory related to those uniforms. Perhaps Ozzie Guillén sends him nasty notes in Spanish before every game. I just don't know.

The good news is that we're not fighting for first place. We're there, baby. If our big boys need some time off to get healthy, it's cool. Let's give them that time now so that they are rock solid in later months and for the playoffs.

Hey here's a face that will make you smile:

(Mark Duncan/AP) via Indians.com

That's Carlos Baerga. He's going to represent the Indians in the draft on June 6. It's nice to see his name in Indians news, isn't it?

Here he is how you really remember him, with that mustache:

...And some chest hair. I've never seen that card before, I might actually need to seek it out.

Anyway he's a guy who loves baseball, and don't you forget to love baseball too! Here's a reminder.

I don't know if Hamilton called that play or not, as I missed most of the radio broadcast due to trivia night at Applebees (shut up, I live in the suburbs. We have no "pubs" for your fancy "pub trivia.") So of course we're low on Radio Chatter tonight too. Lame! I did go to the doctor today and am feeling better, thanks for asking.

Ok, "Battle of Ohio" starts tomorrow! Back at home, 7:05 PM, see you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Carmona was too amped up for his Opening Day assignment. Tried to throw the ball 200 miles per hour."
- Tom Hamilton

"Paul Konerko continues to terrorize Carmona."
- Tom Hamilton