19 Seasons and Counting

With their 63rd win on Friday night, the Indians assured they would not lose 100 games for the first time since 1991. The win also brought them within half a game of the Royals for fourth place in the Central, hopefully they can get that done. Jeanmar Gomez takes the hill tonight against the Royals to try and propel the Tribe out of the cellar.

I attended last night’s game, and the attendance was just over 25,000. This year, that’s a pretty good number at the Jake. In comparison, I was at the Browns game on Sunday and it was sold out with 73,200 people packed into Cleveland Browns Stadium. For one, I do realize that you can’t fit 70,000-plus people into the Jake. Also, it was the Browns home opener, which the Indians also sold out. My gripe is this: the Browns will either sell out or nearly sell out every game this year, despite the fact that they have only had two winning seasons since they returned in 1999 and this year’s team looks horrid. Meanwhile, if the Indians aren’t blowing the doors off of everyone, they’re lucky to make half-capacity.

The honeymoon period is over people.

It is really a shame that the people of Northeast Ohio would rather watch a piss-poor football team get smacked around year after year than support the only Cleveland team who has actually been inches away from a title in the past 20 years. I know that they’re not very good right now, but that just means they need the fans more than ever. Walking up to the plate or taking the mound and seeing all those empty seats doesn’t give a player a lot of motivation. Also, the absences give the front office reason to not spend money. The season is almost over now, I know. It is just a little disheartening to see that so many Clevelanders appear to be bandwagon jumpers when it comes to baseball, yet blindly loyal when it comes to backing the pigskin.

All that being said, I do understand that people have their reasons for not going. The losing is even getting under the skin of some of the die hards, Ed and myself included. But I think that this awful baseball team deserves the same support as the awful football team and soon-to-be-awful basketball team. The Indians have a brighter future than any other Cleveland team, but they can’t do it without the people of Northeast Ohio behind them. That means you!