Welcome To Tribe Fan In Yankeeland!

The year was 1984.

I was heading to the Big Apple in my overloaded Datsun 210.

Heading to New York, where my soon-to-be wife, a new job and a new baseball team awaited me. There were two baseball teams for me to choose from of course, the Yankees and the Mets.

Whichever I chose, I was determined to leave the Cleveland Indians – the Jamie Easterly, Carmen Castillo, Jerry Ujdur (yes, he is a real person) Cleveland Indians – in the rear-view mirror.

Twenty-three years later, the marriage thing has worked out extremely well and the career is still humming along. But that new baseball team thing never quite worked out.

I was pretty sure I would be unable to change my allegiance to the Yankees, though I thought if I exposed myself to them heavily they might grow on me. Didn’t work.

The Mets were another story. Dwight Gooden was in his rookie season, striking out the world on his way to a 17-9 season. Ron Darling and Sid Fernandez were tearing it up in their first seasons at Shea as well. And, in the outfield, an as-yet-untainted Darryl Strawberry was flashing five tools and Mookie Wilson was hitting his prime.

The Mets clearly would be the tonic to end the disease that had stricken me in early childhood. Indian fandomitis. And I would get to leave the AL and its bastardized brand of baseball behind as well. This was perfect!

But it wasn’t to be.

With the Mets game blasting on TV, I’d find myself with my Walkman in my ears, Three-W E crackling in, checking to see if Don Schulze would make it out of the fourth, or to see how many pitches it would take for Ernie Comacho to blow tonight’s lead. Could Junior Noboa make the diving stab that would bail out the Tribe’s pen. Mets or not, this all seemed more important. I was beginning to have my doubts that I’d ever be cured.

Then came the 1986 team, with its over-.500 record. And then the ‘90s, with Jacobs Field and a real team with real players. And then the Internet and satellite TV to keep me connected like never before.

I would never be able to leave the Indians behind.

And so I find myself in the country’s most cock-sure-of-itself city, with the game’s most obnoxious fans, rooting for the wrong team.

I am a Tribe Fan in Yankee Land.

On this blog I plan to follow the Indians as they make their way through the second half of what appears to be shaping up as quite a season (notice the qualifiers in that statement). I’ll be commenting on the Tribe and their day-to-play, the manager’s moves and the front office’s efforts to bolster the roster. But I also hope to add a different sort of perspective. One that I hope will speak not just to Tribe fans, but, in particular to those thousands of us spread throughout the country wishing we could be a little closer to the fun.

I hope you enjoy the blog and please let us know what you are thinking.