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Do IT this week: Layering
Sports heroes are here today and gone tomorrow
By Sheldon Ocker
Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Sunday, Jul 13, 2008
The day after the Indians traded C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers, the visitors clubhouse at Comerica Park was as gloomy and as depressing as a typical sunless December afternoon in Cleveland.
We can all relate to that, and sports fans here can relate to what the players' feelings must have been in Detroit last Tuesday as they prepared to engage the Tigers without their best pitcher and friend, knowing the season was over but obligated by contract and an innate sense of competitiveness to carry on as if this were the most important game of their lives, like every other game they play.
A couple of hours before first pitch, manager Eric Wedge was asked whether he had a chance to talk to Sabathia after the deal became official.
''No, only on the plane back to Cleveland from Minnesota,'' Wedge said. ''The trade wasn't done, but we knew, and I wanted to say something. I told C.C. that it was an honor to manage him. I thanked him for everything he did for us.''
Wedge had a little trouble getting the words out. His voice cracked and he stopped talking. The reporters in the room let the subject drop. They knew exactly how he felt and didn't want to deal with the uneasiness any more than did the manager.
Baseball players are conditioned to avoid permanent relationships with their teammates. What could be more painful than watching a good friend get released, traded, sent back to the minors or flee elsewhere as a free agent? Over and over and over again, year after year.
So while someone is on your team, the idea is to develop a camaraderie, but seldom does being a good teammate grow into a lasting friendship because of the constant trafficking of bodies.
Fans would be wise to take the same approach to their sports heroes. They are here today and gone tomorrow. It doesn't pay to get too attached to them. But people do. I am guessing if someone could have measured the sadness quotient in Northeast Ohio the day Sabathia left, with the exception of Sept. 11, 2001, it would have set a local record for the decade.
General Manager Mark Shapiro and club President Paul Dolan, who also owns the team with his father, Larry, certainly expected outrage, resentment and frustration from the fans, not only because Sabathia was dealt but also because the team's high expectations disintegrated. That's why Dolan included a letter explaining and rationalizing the trade on the club's Web site.
Beyond the usual expressions of antipathy by the fans — small market Cleveland is doomed to rebuild constantly, the Dolans are cheap, the system doesn't allow star players to stay here, Wedge and Shapiro should be fired, how much money does a player need? — I'm not sure team executives understood the deep feelings of depression that were unleashed because of a simple baseball transaction.
Shapiro addressed a question about it during the news conference to announce the deal. He was genuinely sympathetic, but his answer basically was that you have to face reality. That's true, of course — particularly in his position — but it's also not the point.
There's really not much he can do to make people happy about the collapse of the Tribe and the discarding of a Cy Young Award winner. The GM is obligated to run the team, and he can't do that by permitting his emotions to overcome his good sense (I know, lots of you don't think he has good sense).
But many fans feel that not only have they lost another excellent player, their hopes and dreams have been punctured as well. This isn't the first time that has happened, but I can't remember another season when results were so disappointingly contrary to expectations.
Maybe Shapiro can't really get it, because he's not from around here. The Dolans are, and they probably feel your pain, if you are a fan who genuinely felt hurt by Sabathia's departure and the unexpected failure of the club to be competitive.
There is an avid baseball fan of my acquaintance — no, make that Indians fan — who on the day of the trade, angrily castigated everyone connected with the team and threatened to write scathing letters to the enablers of the deal. Then she stopped her harangue and dissolved into tears. ''They've ruined my season,'' she said. ''Nobody is going to want to go to the games with me.''
This was no expression of rage or resentment. It was sadness, sorrow, a kind of grieving. Of course, she has no intention of abandoning the Tribe. She will attend the games solo, if it comes to that.
As someone who writes about sports for a living, I find it's a little difficult for me to make this kind of connection with a team. I suppose I look at baseball with a harder edge, because I try to think like someone whose job is to manage, general manage or play. And it is part of a journalist's credo to keep his feelings out of it.
But there are times when I probably should step back and become more aware of the effect the Indians, or any team, have on people who have invested their emotions in every pitch of every inning of every game.
I hadn't considered that for a while. It reminded me of something else about the fan who cried when Sabathia was traded. The last time she shed tears over an athlete was November 1993, on the day Bernie Kosar was released by the Browns. She heard the shocking news from her brother, whom she phoned from the airport in Miami.
It was the last day of our honeymoon.
Sheldon Ocker can be reached at socker@thebeaconjournal.com.
The day after the Indians traded C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers, the visitors clubhouse at Comerica Park was as gloomy and as depressing as a typical sunless December afternoon in Cleveland.
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