LeBron James: Cover of GQ’s February Edition
January 13, 2009Buckethead Shreads to LeBron James
January 13, 2009In joining the WFNY team yesterday, I had no idea just how everything comes together on this site. Like all of you, I was a reader, a fan, and I just assumed guys like Scott, Rock, Craig, etc, just wrote pieces and posted them, just like I do on my site The World According to TD. Well yesterday, I learned it was quite the contrary.
I am a gmail guy. If you are familiar with gmail, their format is in what they call “conversations.” A normal conversation between two or more people may be five emails or so, maybe. Well yesterday, the WFNY crew had one ongoing conversation which was 98 emails long. Not kidding. And you thought it was just this simple? I mean, how do we keep our day jobs?
I think it was Craig who said one of these sidebars would make for a great piece. Well, this morning, we got sucked into the Casey Blake vortex over email. We thought it would be funny for all of our loyal followers to see this classic back and forth:
Rick: Nice job on the Tribe podcast guys…
Craig: Thanks Rick, and thanks for picking it up and posting it Rock.
DP: Honestly, I was just glad to know there was someone else out there that understood my “DeRosa is just like Casey Blake, except that he’s not actually Blake, which makes me happy” thing.
TD: i told you last night on the podcast, it was like we were separated at birth….my thoughts exactly.
Craig: You are lucky I put up with your bashing of casey blake at all… I am looking for the “Casey Blake WITNESS” t-shirts that we had made for my other website ClevelandSportsCurse.com. Honestly.
TD: That is scary.
Rock: I’m with Craig on this one. I will never publicly say anything bad about Casey Blake. When I was in the privacy of my own home and watching him play, yes, I would cuss up a storm when he would without fail come up with a guy on 2nd or 3rd and 2 outs and he would be an easy out, but I’m a Casey Blake guy. I loved everything he brought to the team.
DP: I am speechless, Craig. Absolutely speechless. I can’t even print the nickname a good friend of mine (commenter “Lars”) and I came up with for him. Suffice it to say that it is not nice. His GIDP followed by booting a ball at 3B in Game 7 of the ’07 ALCS almost caused me to black out. Literally.
TD: so are you telling me I was wrong for having a blog titled “Dump Casey Blake” last year? All I can say to you Rock, as a Blake guy, is 5-4-3 in game seven against the Red Sox.
DP: Even my wife, who will admit to you that she never even WATCHED baseball before she met doesn’t like Blake! He had a sweet mountain-man beard. I’ll give him that much! I can applaud his willingness to move all over the field, but his RISP numbers just took years off of my life
Craig: I don’t deny any of this, but if you think that series came down to Casey Blake then you also think Steve Bartman caused the Cubs their chances. Blame Mark Shapiro for not having Casey Blake being used appropriately as the utility player he should have been. Casey Blake was meant to be a utility guy and he was FORCED into service time and again, and for the most part did a serviceable job. If you prop up a table all the time, and occasionally the leg falls out, you don’t blame the temporary leg.
Now, I can’t tell you why I don’t mind CB and I hate David Dellucci. It is just the way it is with me. Blake is a great team guy with reasonable skills. He put up decent HR and RBI numbers despite the GIDP’s, etc. I am consistently inconsistent.
TD: they should both have never been regulars on this team. I know that 5-4-3 wasn’t the reason we lost, but seriously, when he stepped to the plate, you just knew it was coming. Then he made the error that opened the flood gates. Quite a two minutes for him. Erased every good thing he had done in September 07. The good news is that we never have to see him in a Tribe uniform again.
p.s. After August 1st, he hit .211 in LA. Do you believe that jamoke rooked the Dodgers into a three-year deal?
DP: I don’t pin the series loss on him. CC and Fausto certainly peed down their collective leg more than their fair share. To me, the GIDP and following error were just microcosms of Blake’s incredibly bad timing.
As I said in my other e-mail, I applaud his willingness to be moved around the field, and it certainly isn’t his fault Marte eats goats. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do backflips when they traded him, though, especially for what they got for him. As long as the minor league catcher doesn’t start cutting records with Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20…
Craig: So basically, we feel the same way about Casey Blake except you guys and DP’s wife are just mean people. I can live with that. 🙂
DP: This is kind of like Munch. People either love or hate Casey Blake. I don’t know many–if any–Tribe fans without a strong opinion of him.
Rock: Not necessarily. I’m just saying I didn’t have too much of a problem with him. I mean, he wasn’t the only guy to hit into a double play in the ALCS. And if I recall, I’m pretty sure Blake was the Indians best hitter in the ALCS. Not in run production, but you can’t score runs unless you have people getting on base, and Blake led the Indians regulars in BA and OBP in that series.
I wouldn’t say I have a “strong” opinion of him. I just always liked him and appreciated having him on the team. I had no problem with the Indians trading him, though.
DP: Also, is this one of those “lively e-mail discussions” we were talking about posting more of, Craig?
Craig: Honestly, I thought of that… the post would be called… “Casey Blake: Solid Role Player or Scourge of the Earth” and we could let the fans decide whether they give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to Casey Blake’s career in an Indians uniform.
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So we leave it to you, friends of WFNY. Casey Blake – definitely a good guy, but do you give him a thumbs up, or a thumbs down for his career in the Red, White, and Blue? Let us know what you think.
[poll id=”45″]
33 Comments
Blake was better than we ever expected him to be. It’s not his fault that the Indians refused to find someone better.
And don’t forget Joel Skinner when you’re handing out blame about Game 7….
I was never a huge, huge fan of the guy. I think I would’ve liked him less if there weren’t other guys on the team that I despised. He can thank Aaron Boone, Delucci, and Jason Michaels for that…
Love Casey Blake.
He was never going to be an MVP-caliber player, but I love his attitude and like Rock says, appreciated what he brought to the team.
Also loved that the Tribe was able to get a sweet prospect for a guy who’s basically a spare part.
I’ll continue to root for Blake and wish him luck… but kudos to Shapiro for taking the Dodgers to the cleaners in that trade, and DeRosa is just fine with me for 2009.
great value for our dollar. He would play anywhere you wanted, and never complained once.
The only value Casey Blake added to the Indians was the ability to hit a solo homer when the team was either up big or down big.
Leo – you nailed it! not since Brook Jacoby (32 HR’s, 68 RBI) have we seen a guy come through when the Indians were down 10-2 more.
You’re right. Andy Marte, and Aaron F’n Boone would have been better. Boy, if we could have gone back and given Lou Merloni a long term deal, he definitely would have outperformed Blake.
Gimme a break.
Skinner is to blame for Game 7, because he never should have put up the STOP sign for Kenny knowing full-well that the automatic out was coming up next!
Casey Blake walks into a bar…. the bartender looks at him and says: “Why the long face”?
Casey Blake is an above average baseball player.. End of story. Whether or not he was clutch is all null and void, when you consider he was just a journeyman minor leaguer before we stumbled upon him. I hope he has a great rest of his career on the West Coast.
#s 1 and 8:
Yes, Skinner blew it, but remember that run only would have tied the game. And, since Blake GIDP in the next AB, the inning would have ended. And his error opened the flood gates in the very next inning to allow the Sox to run away with it.
Yes, Skinner biffed, but Blake was INFINITELY more responsible for the loss after that moment than Skinner’s one stop sign was.
No matter how I feel about Blake’s skills, I gotta respect his BGID (Beard Getting It Done).
DMCF… see if you can figure it out
@ Lars – I have a few, none are appropriate for the site though.
Nice guy, but Casey Blake frustrated the bejeebus out of me when he played here. Probably has something to do with the fact that he’s a career .233 hitter with RISP (including that especially brutal .190 in 2007)…it just never seemed like he could get a hit when we needed a hit.
I had a chance to meet Casey Blake face-to-face at Beef O’Bradys during Spring Training one year. Couldn’t have been a nicer man. Smiled, shook hands, signed an autograph, made some small talk, etc. I was the last autograph he signed before walking out the door, and some guy turned to me and asked “Hey, who was that?”
My reply? “It was Casey Blake…couldn’t you tell? He stranded guys on 2nd and 3rd when he walked out the door.”
I came up with the comparison. Casey Blake is like a solid movie. It isn’t worthy of being purchased, but you rented it a couple times. Critics pan it because it isn’t “The Godfather” or “Citizen Kane” but it serves its purpose.
I am going to say it is like one of the better Jason Statham action flicks because he sometimes sports the beard.
If Casey Blake was a movie, what movie would you say he is? (I think that was about as easy a setup as some of you could ask for. Here come the punchlines.)
did we actually get a player for blake or a bag a balls?
i bet jim thome is a “nice guy”. but as a fan i don’t really care about that. (i mention thome because until the day i die i will boo him and dislike him, and he was a great player for us.) i want a guy out there that get’s the job done. and the majority of the time, blake didn’t. whoever the person above was that said he was an “above avg” player is dead wrong. he is avg at best and should only be utility guy. and yes i agree that in a way we need to blame shapiro and maybe wedge for putting the team in a situation where they were forced to use blake, but i still do not and will never like blake. good luck in dodger land, u will not be missed.
i’d say it was napolean dynamite…the movie (his career) was horrible, but man was it funny (sometimes) to watch.
Horrible? Really? I mean, c’mon…HORRIBLE? Do you even watch baseball, or understand it? Or know how to read an end of year statistics sheet? Sometimes I wonder…
There’s one of my Casey Blake fan brothers… The Bambino, Kiddicus Maximus… Deezo… I love it.
Anyway, Andy Marte is/was horrible. Casey Blake is/was not.
Lou Merloni would have outperformed Blake? Lou Merloni? Wait, the guy who ISN’T EVEN IN BASEBALL ANYMORE? Wow, this just keeps getting better.
I’m not here to say that Casey Blake was an amazing ball player. He wasn’t. What Casey Blake represents is an average baseball player with below average skill, but above average effort. That is all. No more, no less.
I loved Casey when he was here. He wasn’t the best player ever, but at least he played hard and seemed like a team player.
If you’re relying on Casey Blake to put you over the top, you have bigger problems than just a 3B that can’t hit in clutch situations. If you recognize Casey Blake for what he is, just a solid role player, your unrealistic expectations disappear and you realize that hey, it could be Andy Marte playing 3B
no whats baseball? do they score goals in baseball by putting the football in the hole?
Rock is right – Casey Blake actually had the HIGHEST batting average in that Red Sox series.
Agree with Ricky @24.
I didn’t used to like Blake. He was pretty bad when we first got him. But the last couple years he grew on me. He was only supposed to be a role player and turned into a decent starter. He wasn’t anything special as a talent. But he was able to play wherever we needed him and, for the most part, did decently.
I have said on this site many a time that I love (or at least loved, when he was ours) Casey Blake. I’m just happy we got ahold of what appears to be a similar and solid replacement, rather than giving Andy Marte yet another chance or moving Peralta to a position he has made clear he doesn’t want to play.
I like Casey Blake but I had a lot of trouble with him wearing #1….
a little late, but [ahem]
CASEY BLAKE WITNESS!
yea, i have the shirt. Its been downgraded to “wear under the Boudreau jersey” status, but every time I’m at a game its on. And when Casey comes through with yet another clutch hit, I find myself unbuttoning the jersey to proudly show my admiration for one of the most underrated guys to play the game.
but seriously, 98 emails? Don’t you guys have jobs?
98 emails? Little League
Let’s talk when it’s 200+ in the span of four hours…now THAT is a chain. lol
do you guys have any more Casey Blake witness shirts? I am a huge Casey Blake fan and I’d love to have one
[…] Blake has always been a polarizing figure with Tribe fans. I’ve always been in the “hater” camp, though I tip my cap to Blake for always being willing […]