Bitter (sports) pills to swallow

As much as I love the Indians, Browns and Cavs, at times each organization does things that leave yours truly scratching his head. Well, okay, maybe the scratching is really from forgetting to put sunblock on my hair-challenged dome, but let’s not waste time, um, splitting hairs here, okay? The point is there are things the three organizations do – and I’m not even counting the performance on the field – which I must take issue with…

Indians: Yes, I get the concept of the periodic throwback jersey promotion; in fact I think it’s pretty cool when I see players of today waltzing around on the diamond in styles from 50 to 100 years ago. It gives the fans of today a realistic peek into baseball’s past. But if we’re all about realism, why not make ‘em play with the gloves that were used in the era, too? You know, I’m talking about gloves which were only slightly larger than your hand.

Catching the ball used to require some skill. Today’s gloves are so large, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen fishermen in the Rocky River leave their fishing nets home in deference to today’s baseball gloves for snagging largemouth bass. Heck, today’s gloves shouldn’t say Rawlings or Wilson, they should say Hoover.

Cavaliers: As we are all painfully aware, the Cavs have had the good (?) fortune of selecting high in the NBA draft for the last three years. Cavs GM Chris Grant appears to know his stuff when it comes to basketball talent, and I sure hope he does, for everyone’s sake. But it seems to me like he’s obsessed with drafting players the experts had rated considerably lower than the Cavs – as if he’s trying to show the world the Cavs are smarter than everyone else.

Two years ago, with the first pick in the draft, he took Kyrie Irving – the consensus number one pick – Grant pretty much had to draft him, or it very well could have been his only draft. Since the Irving pick, though, he’s stunned experts and Cavs fans alike by selecting Tristan Thompson three picks after Irving, Dion Waiters last year, and Anthony Bennett late last month.

Color me cynical, but at this juncture I would have hoped the Cavs would be progressing a bit quicker than they are, and that appears to be an indictment of the Cavs GM.  Don’t get me wrong: while perhaps not the best draft choices in the world, they weren’t Stepien-esque, either. I just need to feel like our GM is taking the team to the promised land, and I don’t have that vibe yet, unless the promised land is comprised of another five years of lottery picks.

Browns: How could everything that seemed so right only a few months ago now seem so terribly wrong?

Owner Jimmy Haslam and Pilot Flying J seem to be hit with a flurry of new lawsuits with a frequency exceeded only by Josh Gordon drug test failures, and the likelihood of him remaining as Browns owner for the long term appears remote at best. About a year ago,  Randy Lerner couldn’t give up the reins to the Browns fast enough in my opinion; now suddenly old Randy doesn’t seem so bad.

Only in Cleveland, folks, only in Cleveland.