It’s Pronounced Lajaway was founded in April of 2011 by Stephanie Liscio and Susan Petrone.  We strive to take a thoughtful approach to the Indians, involving sabermetrics and analysis, as well as some pieces that tend to be a bit more off the beaten path.  You can like It’s Pronounced Lajaway on Facebook and Twitter. Many of our writers have their own personal Twitter accounts, as you can see from individual bios below.

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Co-Owners

Stephanie Liscio is the author of Integrating Cleveland Baseball: Media Activism, the Integration of the Indians, and the Demise of the Negro League Buckeyes; the book won first place in non-fiction history from the Ohio Professional Writers and second place nationally in the National Federation of Press Women’s annual competition in 2011.  A Ph.D. candidate in history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Stephanie is also the president of the Cleveland chapter of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) and is on the board of SABR’s Negro League research committee.  She’s also on the board of the Lake County Historical Society, and is secretary on the board of the Baseball Heritage Museum.  She received her B.A. in history and English writing/journalism from the University of Pittsburgh in 2001 and an M.A. in applied history from Shippensburg University in 2007.  A life-long, die-hard Indians fan, Stephanie lives in the Cleveland area with her husband John and shih tzu Torrey.  She’s also on Twitter and Facebook, and sometimes even remembers to update both!

Susan Petrone formerly worked as the Publicity Manager for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). She has been obsessed with the Indians since she was nine and once spent a summer hawking beer and hot dogs at the old Municipal Stadium just so she could see games for free. When she isn’t writing about baseball, she is a frequent contributor to CoolCleveland.com and writes fiction. Her novel, Throw Like a Woman, came out in Spring 2015. It’s about baseball. If you follow her on Twitter, she might say something amusing.

At right are Stephanie (left) holding Buddy (aka Budcalf Grant) and Susan holding Chocolate Moo (aka Moo Boudreau) in front of Nap Lajoie’s Hall of Fame plaque at Progressive Field’s Heritage Park.

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Authors

Chris Burnham is likely the only Indians fan who lives in the General Toronto Area. Born and raised in Alliance, Ohio, he’s lived the bad years, the glory years, the occasionally good years, and the usually disappointing years that don’t necessarily have anything to do with players leaving. He still blames Eric Gregg for having a strike zone wider than his waist in the 1995 World Series. He also blames Tony Fernandez and Jose Mesa for whatever it was that made them melt down in ’97. He struck Joel Skinner off of the Christmas Card list with an equally curious brain cramp that involved holding Kenny Lofton at third base for no good reason other than “it’s just the way things go in Cleveland.”

He is also a avowed general sports fan that might annoy you, because he’s a nerd who doesn’t realize that there are other things that go on in this world. He listens to music that may cause you to question his sanity, but he likes it that way. He lives with his wife who has just taken a liking to Shin-Soo Choo, only to likely see him leave in a trade. It took him only 12 years to finally get her to enjoy baseball. He hopes Jason Kipnis can hold her interest.

Above all, he’s just a guy waiting and hoping that the Indians win a pennant before the Cubs do.

Stanford Crissey

 

Stanford Crissey has been an Indians fan since before he knew how baseball even worked. He’s been with them from the dominant days of the ’90s, to the decidedly less dominant days when their best hitter was Ellis Burks. And loved every minute of it.

Stanford is a journalist with a degree from Loyola University Chicago, and you can see his work over on Fansided.com.

 

Noah Gross

Noah Gross has always been a huge baseball guy.  From a young age, he knew baseball would be the sport for him when he learned how to say “This ball is gone!” from Tom Hamilton.  He plays baseball year round, and follows it religiously.  Noah is a rising senior at Kenston High School.  He also helps Empower Sports, a group that assists special-needs athletes through sports.  In addition to writing and doing podcasts here, he writes about Cleveland and Ohio State sports for the Spirit of Bainbridge newspaper. Noah is very excited to help out with IPL and talk about his true passion, the Tribe.

 

Adam Hintz grew up in the shadow of Jacobs– err, Progressive Field in the old Slavic Village of Cleveland, OH. Since then he’s lived in Marietta, OH (for college) and Tallahassee, FL (for more college). Throughout all this southward migration, Adam has maintained a passion for all things Indians-related, and brings that Hintz_photoenthusiasm to his writing about the team.

During High School, Adam worked as an usher at Ja— Progressive Field, and so there’s a decent chance if you went to a game in 2005 or 2006 that you were yelled at by him.

Currently, Adam is attending graduate school at Florida State University, though he hopes to be finished by August, 2013. You can find him on Twitter (@palagoon) where he will be live-tweeting most Indians games.

 

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Alex Kaufman is the first ever IPL intern and helped create the It’s Pronounced Podcast. Due during the 1995 World Series, Alex was born a few weeks premature so he could watch the Indians play in the postseason for the first time in four decades. Currently, Alex attends Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where he is majoring in Spanish and communication and minoring in vocal performance. On campus, Alex is the tech director and host of Big Red Sports Talk on 91.1 FM WDUB, works for Denison Sports Information, and sings in the Denison Chamber Singers. After his internship, Alex continues to write for IPL in his free time. You can subscribe to his podcasts on iTunes and Stitcher.

 

Stan Massey started going to Indians games at old Municipal Stadium a-w-a-a-a-a-y back in the 1960’s, fueled by fistfuls of free tickets from the now defunct Cleveland Press Stan's Head Shotfor getting straight A’s on his report cards. Players such as Rocky Colavito and “Sudden” Sam McDowell ignited Stan’s passion for his hometown team, and he’s been a rabid Tribe fan ever since.

He has participated in Cleveland Indians Fantasy Camp multiple times, where he experienced batting against Bob Feller, Len Barker and Jason Stanford in various Campers vs. Pros games (“Barker and Stanford can still bring it!” Stan says).

When he’s not watching a Tribe game or reading about the team’s inner workings, Stan is a writer and Chief Branding Officer for a marketing public relations firm in Northwest Ohio.  He is also a film buff, loves rock ‘n’ roll and hacks around on the guitar (when he says he “plays Centerfield,” he means the John Fogerty song, not the position).

A graduate of the also now defunct Midpark High School, Stan has lived in the Toledo area since 1983 but often makes the trek back to Cleveland to visit family and see the Tribe at Progressive Field. His wife – a South Carolina native – has been duly converted to Tribe fandom.

 

Ryan McCrystal (pictured at age 7 or 8, dressed as Brook Jacoby for Halloween) has been an Indians fan since birth. Previously employed by the Worldwide Leader from 2007 through 2010, Ryan worked on various shows, including Baseball Tonight, while stationed in beautiful Bristol, Connecticut. Ryan is currently teaching and coaching baseball and basketball in Cincinnati. Also an avid college football fan, more of Ryan’s work can be found on DraftAce.com and ESPN Insider. You can follow Ryan on twitter at @TribeFanMcC or follow his college football thoughts at @Ryan_McCrystal.

 

Vern Morrison has been a fan of the Cleveland Indians since John F. Kennedy was president. He has been to some memorable Indians games over the years, including Opening Day, 1975, when Frank Robinson homered in his first at-bat as player/manager of the Tribe. He’s also seen many games he’d just as soon forget. In the accompanying photo, Vern displays the physique and baseball aptitude that caused him to go hitless for an entire season of Little League in 1967. Vern works for the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

 

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Mike Schreiner is an avid Cleveland sports fan who was born and raised roughly ten minutes from Old Municipal Stadium. You could say that the Cleveland Indians have been a part of Mike’s life since before he was born as his father taking his very pregnant mother to a Tribe game and having her walk the ramps at Municipal Stadium one night in June of 1978 may have caused Mike to arrive in this world a week early. Mike is a graduate of Wilmington College and Ohio Dominican University, and spends his free time spending time with family, reading, exercising, watching sports, and writing about the Indians and Cavaliers. Mike still resides in the Cleveland area with his wife Jessica and their two children.

 

Dave Scott (not pictured) was born in Cleveland but his family quickly moved to the Midwest. He considers Wisconsin his childhood home.

It was during the kerfuffle involving the Braves’ move from Milwaukee that he decided on a career in journalism.

His family moved to Ashtabula in 1969 and he graduated with a bachelor of science at Ohio University in 1974. Those were turbulent times and he decided to concentrate on straight news rather than sports. The exception was an eight-year stint on the Akron Beacon Journal’s sports desk copy editing and designing pages.

In 40 years of journalism he did a variety of jobs but always preferred reporting.

He started playing Strat-O-Matic around 1962 and continues to play to this day. At one time, he wrote website articles for Strat-O-Matic and wrote and designed pages for STRAT FAN, a fanzine.

His idea of a great vacation usually includes baseball.

 

Rob Vaughan photoRob Vaughan is a lifelong Clevelander and avid Tribe fan and season ticket holder with fond memories of attending playoff and World Series games throughout the 1990s.  Rob lived in Madrid, Spain for two years and did undergraduate and graduate studies in linguistics and education.  He has an immense passion for baseball history and is a nut for trivia, statistics, box scores, all-time records, and the game within the game.

Rob played baseball in high school and—as a pitcher with the last name Vaughan—carried the nickname “Wild Thing” throughout his playing days.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t throw 101 MPH like the real Wild Thing Rick Vaughn, so his 65 MHP fastball wasn’t enough for his career as a crafty pitcher to continue beyond high school.  Rob did baseball, football, and basketball radio broadcasts throughout college and afterward, and his dream is to join Tom Hamilton in the radio booth as a broadcaster for the Cleveland Indians.

His 2015 wish is for the Cleveland Indians to win the World Series and throw confetti onto the parade from the window of his downtown home

 

Joe Werner (not pictured) continues to provide further evidence that Jim Bouton was right when he wrote, “You spend your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

As a lifelong Indians fan, Werner’s lived and died multiple times over. First with the original revival of Cleveland baseball in the mid 90s, then languishing through the lean years before having his hopes dashed again in recent seasons.

All along the way, though, he’s heard two of the greatest radio voices in the game: Herb Score and Tom Hamilton. Despite his youth at the time, he proudly — and somewhat embarrassingly — remembers falling asleep with his arms clutched around a portable radio as Score made his last radio call during Game 7 of 1997 World Series.

Werner continues to submerse himself in the game he passionately loves; be it on the playing field, in the dugout coaching the next generation, or writing about it.

After serving as a video scout/analyst for Baseball Info Solutions, he began writing at his original site, ReleasePoints.com. He’s since transitioned into his current niche, prospect analysis, at ProspectDigest.com. But the lure of Cleveland baseball, as it always does, brought him back to ItsPronouncedLajaway.com, an opportunity he’s incredibly thankful for.

Werner has been fortunate — and incredibly blessed — to have some of his work published and mentioned by several major media outlets, including: ESPN, Cleveland.com and the Baseball Research Journal.

On a more personal note, he enjoys the finest craft beers (and some of the not so finest), reading, working out, and donating his time with children from less than ideal backgrounds.

He can be reached at: JosephMWerner@yahoo.com.

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Contributors

Justin Lada: For better or worse, Justin was born a Cleveland Indians fan, graduating from Wickliffe High School in 2007.

His first experience in baseball at the age of five consisted of blowing dandelions in the outfield and asking the coach if he could go home, if he got hurt.

Somehow he went on to play 1st base for the next 13 years and has attended countless Indians games, which explains so many things about his life.

Now a Senior at the University of Akron, Justin has been following the Indians minor leagues for the past 5 years with a thick microscope, as well as the rest of the baseball world.

Ryan Pinheiro has been an avid Tribe fan since first being introduced to baseball during the 1998 MLB Postseason.  He graduated from Green High School in 2009, and currently is a graduate student at the University of Akron.  He has a double major in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and is currently pursuing his Master’s in Applied Mathematics.  Ryan is extremely interested in sabermetrics and baseball analytics, and is currently working on doing research in these areas for his thesis.  Ryan also writes a fantasy baseball blog for the website midwestsportsfans.com.

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Former Writers

Sam Butts

Matt Hutton

Brenden Lowery

Will McIlroy

David White