Windhorst: Before it’s All Over, LeBron Will Play for Cleveland
January 24, 2012Cavaliers Taking Their Struggles To South Beach to Face the Heat
January 24, 2012Not long after catching wind that they will be without catcher/first baseman Victor Martinez thanks to a torn anterior cruciate ligament, the Detroit Tigers opted to add highly-coveted first baseman Prince Fielder for the reported cost of $214 million over the course of nine seasons.
Originally reported by Yahoo! Sports’ Tim Brown, the Tigers apparently jumped into the bidding war for the slugging 27-year-old and immediately came out the victors – no pun intended. The Washington Nationals and Texas Rangers were also rumored to be in the mix.
In 2011, Fielder hit .299/.415/.566 with 38 home runs and 120 RBI in 162 games last year for the Milwaukee Brewers. In 998 career games, Fielder has amassed a .282 career batting average, 230 home runs and 656 runs batted in.
Miguel Cabrera, the team’s first baseman last season – hitting .344 with 30 home runs and 105 runs batted in – is expected to slide over to designated hitter. The two men will likely provide the biggest one-two punch in the American League Central.
The Cleveland Indians are rumored to be looking for an upgrade at first base. It is largely anticipated that, with the most-coveted free agent now signed, the rest of the chips are will to fall into place.
[Related: Pena to the Rays: So Now What, Tribe Fans?]
(Source: Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports)
69 Comments
Have the Gladiators started playing yet? They’re totally due for a championship!
wayne garland
Fly you fools!
That “baseball town” was just in the NFL playoffs…
Not a small market. And he is rich. And the Red Wings are subsidizing this deal.
Detroit has twice the population of Cleveland and an average income a tick higher. Inner-city Detroit is depressed, but there’s still plenty of money in the area.
Occupy the Jake!
These aren’t the championships you’re looking for.
Agree, but it is one of those things that if he had the choice between CLE and DET, even for a couple M more, he probably would have chose DET because of his dad. Now if they would have signed a Pujols, I would have been livid. Det has always been spending money on FA in the offseason.
Gilbert needs to buy them, although I think owning a baseball team is like owning 2-3 basketball teams
You can be “level headed” because sports aren’t as important to you, it’s called priorities and unfortunately those don’t apply to the real hardcore fan nut. Sad to say in a great sports town, as many people refer to Cleveland as on this web site, people don’t attend games unless the team is doing well. Kind of ironic huh? The Indians need an owner with deep pockets who can run them as a hobby or toy not a business. Until then to many things will have to go right in order for them to just contend. Meanwhile teams like Detroit will simply spend and most likely win.
Love that guy. He is the source of my favorite Cleveland sports memory.
Wow. That’s sad. Can’t believe I said that.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing fans can reasonably do to actually impact the level of play for any of these teams – but particularly the Indians – is to, as you said, throw more money and attendance at the games until the increased financial situation of the owners compels them to take huge risks and make substantial investment in acquiring the big name players that will bring them wins and championships. The problem is that this is understandably counterintuitive to fans (“fanatics”) who prize mindless fanaticism over level-headedness. We get angry and hurt that our teams’ owners lose games and don’t pursue the big names to win championships, so we stop financially supporting the teams, whose owners then have less incentive (or capital) to pursue the big names in order to acquire championships. It’s an ugly circle, but I have soundly concluded that my being hurt and angry and loudly voicing my severe displeasure does nothing to help.
now there’s an idea to give the Tribe some revenue!
left eye torching his house?
it’s more a downward spiral than a circle. coincidentally, NiN has a song about being an Indians fan called “Hurt” on that album (yeah, a cover).
that song is about being an Indians fan, right?
No, him giving me and my buddy the finger when we yelled encouragement to him as he was being wheeled across the Muny concourse on a stretcher.
Unfortunately, it’s not. But the Johnny Cash cover of the cover most certainly is.
Downward spiral, indeed. Much better description.
How on earth would you guage that sports “aren’t as important” to me as they are to you? I live and die with the Cleveland trio, I scream and shout during the games, and feel crappy afterwards. I just draw the line at mindlessly screaming about things that are beyond my control. I find the near rage expressed about our teams to be ridiculous, and if the owners of our teams followed the knee jerk asinine advice doled out here and on other sites the teams would probably cease to exist. Doesn’t make me any less “hardcore” than you or others, just more realistic with a better set of priorites.