Eighty-Seven Pounds, and This All Bears Repeating
May 14, 2010Indians 4, Royals 6: Brooms Not Necessary
May 14, 2010I am sure a lot of Cleveland fans will be angry with me for even putting LeBron James and Manny Ramirez in the same sentence considering Manny ended up leaving Cleveland for Boston. If you give me the latitude, I think it will be an interesting comparison. Manny Ramirez and his agent Jeff Moorad were living in the summer of A-Rod. A week after Alex Rodriguez signed his quarter of a billion dollar contract with the Texas Rangers, Manny Ramirez left the Cleveland Indians for the Boston Red Sox and $160 million over eight years. The reason that I bring that up today is because the way Manny Ramirez and his agent Jeff Moorad went about it. They created a “free agency event” by opening up the back room doors to ESPN to document the whole process.
Phone calls from Brian Cashman, John Hart, and Pat Gillick will seem like small potatoes once the LeBron James free agency comes across our computers, radios and televisions this summer. LeBron will be courted by at least three teams, and who knows how many at the upper end of that spectrum. There have been whispers of billionaires inviting LeBron to take private jets to Europe for lunch. This isn’t going to be about Philly making sure LeBron knows how good a cheesesteak tastes, or New York and Chicago fighting about whether pizza should be eaten deep dish style or foldover style. The money spent on attempting to woo LeBron James could be enough to pay the payroll of at least one NBA team on next year’s salary cap if the number of pursuing teams reaches its maximum.
There are giant differences between what happened with Manny Ramirez and what will happen with LeBron James. During Manny’s whole process there was an elephant in the room. The Indians were never going to give the top financial package to Manny Ramirez. No matter what happened with Manny, the Indians would always be chasing just to get close. Some would even accuse the Indians of chasing just enough so as not to get acceptance from Moorad and Ramirez, while also being able to look their fanbase in the faces and say they gave it a respectable effort. That will not be the case with LeBron James and Dan Gilbert with the way the NBA is structured. Dan Gilbert will offer LeBron James a max deal that is richer than anything else that any other team will be allowed to offer.
Make no mistake though, this will be a media circus of LeBron’s making just like Manny Ramirez’ circus was of Jeff Moorad’s making. LeBron’s inner circle will undoubtedly get each and every one of their fifteen minutes of fame over the next few months as LeBron parades around making constant comments about all the teams that he will be dangling by his own personal puppet strings.
It will be an incestuous parade too if you think about it. LeBron James is a great basketball player, but he is at least partially the product of ESPN, Sports Illustrated and about a million other media outlets. The same media members that have used stories about him to pump up the LeBron brand, will now be using the King that they helped crown to sell papers, magazines and draw eyeballs and ears. It is like the media were all investors in the latest James Cameron blockbuster movie. They all helped promote it and now that it is released they get to sell tickets to the show in each and every one of the theaters they operate, with ESPN having the biggest screen and the latest, greatest in 3D technology.
Beneath it all will be a scorched earth attitude in Cleveland as the memories of attempting everything possible under the sun to win in the Q will get further and further in the rear view mirror of the greatest player in Cleveland Cavaliers history. There is no telling which position the Cavaliers will get to make their pitch to LeBron. Will they get to go first? Will they get to go last? Will they have a chance to go first and then last after everyone else’s wares have been peddled?
Jeff Moorad would eventually leave the agency game, and was said to have regretted the way he handled Manny Ramirez’ situation. Manny never wanted to leave Cleveland, but the way the game played out, that decision eventually came down to his agent, the player’s union and money. How could Jeff Moorad as an agent with what amounted to an infomercial for his services on ESPN possibly take less money from the hometown team with everyone watching?
We gave Manny standing ovations up until the last possible second in hopes that he wouldn’t want to leave the city that created the phrase “Manny being Manny” so lovingly. In the end, as we would find out later, it worked, but to no avail. Manny didn’t want to leave Cleveland, but the external financial pressures were imposed on him. Isn’t it ironic that now with LeBron James and his upcoming parade in front of the media, we will be able to deliver both the adulation that we gave to Manny Ramirez and the money, and it still allegedly might not be good enough?
So it goes as a Cleveland sports fan. It is officially time to get in your bunkers people. Nothing good can come of watching this show. It isn’t being put on for you. Consider it like niche programming on some cable channel that you don’t even know the name of yet. During commercial breaks they are advertising products that seem so foreign to you that you know they aren’t broadcasting this program for you. In the end, LeBron could very well still come back to Cleveland. Remember that this parade around the NBA isn’t going to be about making it seem that way, but it doesn’t make it any less likely. No matter what the TV says, it is possible. But there is no story in that. Just know that.
18 Comments
At least we won’t have to worry about LBJ going to Boston.
Mike Brown has been fired
I like where you talk about how this show isn’t for us. It’s almost as if it’s in spite of us, as staying with the Cavs is always presented as the least desirable afterthought. This is also juxtaposed with the multiple viewings of the “Cleveland sucking” montage, rendering it impossible to think that they aren’t slighting us
First off, let me say I’m a big fan of LBJ, the Cavs, and Cleveland sports in general. I hope LeBron stays in Cleveland.
However… he’s gone. When asked about his free agency his response is always the same: “I haven’t thought about it yet.” I call BS. His contract is expiring, the media asks him about it at every turn, and it’s all over the news. Haven’t thought about it yet? Yeah right.
Let’s face facts. I have yet to see any player in any professional sport dodge questions about where they’ll be next year, only to resign with their current team. Not once. Anytime a player deflects that question, they are moving on. LeBron will be no different.
No championship for the Cavs, but we’ve been able to watch some great basketball the last several years. Thanks for your efforts, LeBron. I wish you the best with your new team next year.
It has been speculated that Mike Brown has been fired, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Well, if that rumor is correct, Dan Gilbert’s wasting NO time. OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!
Please come home Manny!
I wish I could cut myself off from all sports news, and just news in general, until football season starts up, but then I might miss some great Indians baseball. Wait…did I really just type that?!?
We begged Manny to stay and we begged Thome to stay, and they both gave us the finger. I truly don’t care anymore if anybody stays or goes.
At the risk of raising the ire of all-round Cleveland sports fans, is it a stretch to suggest that since the Cavs without James will stink and the Browns don’t seem to be achieving anything soon, that the city might once again get behind a Tribe squad with promising talent on the way? Could these conditions create a mini-late90s-style Indian boom? An outsider just wonders….
Marc
PS. I’m neither a basketball nor a football fan.
Thank goodness for the MLB network so i can catch baseball news and highlights without all the garbage on espn this summer
Dan Gilbert presser at 2:30 on ESPN.
I remember liking sports.
@ Matt#2 – I’ve got a piece for you tomorrow that might help you like them again.
Is Buttermaker in it?
The worst thing will be that every team and their local media trying to lure him will take shots at Cleveland.as we are their competition. We will be an incessant punch line. This will be beyond ugly.
The funny thing is that Ramirez, Thome and Vasquel will all be available next year and all would be happy to come back to Cleveland to finish their careers.
No kidding.
The prancing and parading by LBJ and ‘team’ while being wooed by all interested teams and parties won’t be a surprise. But it will be a kick in the teeth after all the prancing and parading he goes off to some other team cause all that showboating will be sticking it to the Cleveland fans.