To the Grand Poo-Bahs of Baseball TV:

We, the Cleveland Indians, apparently did something totally unnecessary and dastardly on Monday: We swept the Red Sox and ruined David Ortiz’ infinite lovefest.

So sorry. We’ll try to be easier roadblocks next time.

Forget that the Red Sox were totally overmatched by us: A supposedly dead-on-arrival team, whose rotation was held together by grit and were bolstered by an overwhelming bullpen and our manager Tito Francona’s bottomless bucket of gum. We are lame and boring and rather nondescript. We know that you expected us to capitulate to, and to be the perfect foil for Ortiz to #BostonStrong his way all the way to a storybook championship as the epilogue of his career.

And if we didn’t know any better, we could’ve swore that’s exactly what happened. But apparently, TBS and the other various networks would like us to believe otherwise, despite evidence to the contrary.

And poor TBS, the red-haired step-child of baseball coverage, having to resort to cheap laughs and archaic Cleveland-centric stereotypes on top of their wholly sub-par production, felt like giving a collective slap in the face by, believe it or not, not even using the same country to troll with a joke that wasn’t at all funny in the first place.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. The city’s best known columnist even wrote us off, and then recanted. We’ve forgiven Hoynsie, of course, but who knows about angry mob outside of our clubhouse.

Surely the legions of disbelievers would have a tough time wrapping their heads around what was “supposed to happen” not happening at all. It’s been met with what Boston didn’t do, still discrediting the fact that we are a better team then most apparently know.

To that, we say, keep it coming, baseball.

Keep the spotlight on the Cubs. Keep the spotlight on the Jays. Keep the spotlight on the Dodgers and Nationals. Please continue to be oblivious to our chances. House money is so much better than having expectations. We are free and clear of expectations; allowing us to be the stealthy boogeymen that no one sees coming or gave even the slightest bit of credence to.

We love it. We, and our fans, revel in it. We don’t want any late ticketholders for the ride. We were were written off and left for dead. Please keep ignoring us. Please keep underestimating us. It’s working just the way that only we could want. Focus elsewhere. Guarantee elsewhere. Never change, media.

After all, there’s nothing flashy about us. We don’t have an exorbitant payroll. We’re not even at $100 million! Perish the thought! We’re nobodies! We’re just here because we had our best hitter for just 11 games of the season and we still won 94 games. We know that doesn’t mean a whole lot, because, y’know, it was all a fluke. We will let you on a little secret, too. We cheated. We just rubbed a genie bottle to grant us a few lucky breaks after suffering some unlucky breaks with the injuries to Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco. So, we’re just happy to be standing here with our heads bowed in reverence to these other baseball monoliths.

We’re just the afterthought of a baseball team with a logo that people like to call attention to and a name that an announcer inexplicably won’t say. You could say that we are the team that no one wants. To play, or to talk about.

That’s just fine by us, because the we have every intention of making you have to talk about us when the time is right.

See you at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario for the World Series. Whether you want to or not.

The Cleveland Indians

PS: Slider says hi. He thinks the Blue Jays mascot is boring.

3 Comments

  • Peter says:

    great article! TBS was so biased towards Boston, I couldn’t listen. It was as if they had a pre-planned script that they stuck to even though the game didn’t support it. It was so obvious that they expected Boston to win. That’s why they had ex-Boston players as commentators. They assumed this would be popular with the winning team. Oops, sorry, that’s why they play the game.

    And their in game graphics were awful. Who doesn’t put the pitch count on the screen in this day and age? And this is the playoffs!

  • Jon says:

    Agreed great article. Was feeling the same way towards all of this and was shocked nobody was really writing about it. Great way to put all of that.

  • Derek says:

    Loved the ending of this, nice work.