Ball Played: Kluber outdueled by Keuchel as Indians lose on Opening Day
April 7, 2015Joe Haden asks a girl to prom on behalf of a fan
April 7, 2015The 2015 Major League Baseball season has officially begun with the Cleveland Indians playing a series in Houston and, at some point during the 162-game season, someone will emerge who will play an unexpectedly significant role in the team’s success. It happens virtually every year in every sport. But baseball’s long and winding road offers more opportunities than any other sport for pausing to enjoy tangential stories off the beaten path of “crucial matchup” mania. And so we look forward to watching for some player we’ve barely heard of, or whose name we’re not sure how to pronounce, who before was invisible, becoming visible, beginning to sparkle. He may not be an MVP candidate or even a star but he’ll shine, if only for one season. Maybe he’ll continue to grow and develop but, more often than not, he’ll drift back into the middle of the pack and a few years later we’ll think of him and ask, “Whatever happened to …” which will cause us to say for the millionth time, what a funny game this is.
There isn’t much point trying to predict who that next guy will be. No matter the sport, it’s totally unpredictable. Joshua Flash Gordon may turn out to be just a flash in the pan but his sudden emergence as one of the top receivers in the NFL in 2013 was pretty stunning.
You could make a pretty good argument that the linchpin acquisition for the Cavs this year was Timofey Mozgov. But who could possibly have seen that coming?
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The Cleveland Indians have had a decent share of pleasant surprises over the years.
When it comes to out-of-nowhere surprises for the Indians, a good portion of the 1995 roster might qualify. Whether it was the genius of their talent evaluation or just dumb luck, John Hart and company oversaw the blossoming of one of the most impressive rosters in Cleveland baseball history. They went 100-44 in 1995. Did anyone see it coming, the dramatic emergence of Kenny Lofton, the basketball player who also happened to play baseball? Or Omar Vizquel? Good glove/weak bat. Would he be any better than the guy they traded to get him, Felix Fermin? Even Albert Belle, Cleveland’s baseball version of the Steelers’ Mean Joe Green, was a surprise. Not that he had a sudden breakthrough. He came to Cleveland in 1989 but just kept getting better and better until Cleveland fans woke up one day in 1995 to realize they just might be watching the best cleanup hitter in the game. Players like Paul Assenmacher and Paul Sorrento might have been the new butterflies on the block in ’95 except that almost everyone else was too.
For me, one of the more memorable comets among the shooting stars was Yankee killer, Jerry Kindall in 1961. He was a light hitting second baseman (make that very light) but in every series against the Yankees he hit like Ted Williams. The season may have been otherwise forgettable but to sweep the mighty Yankees in a Sunday double header in front of a Browns-type 70,000-plus crowd was thrilling and memorable.
Then there was outfielder, Chuck Essegian. He didn’t have a very long or productive career and he was gone before a lot of fans learned how to pronounce his name. But in 1962 he had the best batting average among the starters and hit 21 HRs. Pretty remarkable for an unknown. In 1980 Joe Charboneau became a local folk hero and won Rookie of the Year honors, but a back injury sustained in spring training the following year led to a rapid decline for the fan favorite, whose nickname was Super Joe but whose middle name was “trouble.” And speaking of first-round picks, the Yankees drafted Pat Tabler number one in 1976 but he didn’t do much until he came to Cleveland in 1983. Here, he became a solid hitter but his claim to fame was his clutch hitting, especially with the bases loaded: 43 for 88 for his career. He was definitely the major pleasant surprise of 1983.
The 2012-2014 seasons might be shaping up as a harbinger of good things to come because of the multiple unforeseen success stories in those seasons. Yan Gomes is first among them, because it looks like his out-of-nowhere success might very well be sustained. The Indians’ front office apparently couldn’t believe their luck with Scott Kazmir in 2013 so they didn’t try very hard to retain him. Ryan Raburn was a pleasant surprise for 2013, but 2014? Well, let’s hope 2015 is his comeback year. Young Cody Allen was a bit of a surprise in 2012 but a bigger one in 2013, which led to Cleveland, in 2014, departing from the older, more experienced formula guys as closers who could never seem to go three and out in the ninth. Then there’s TJ House. Where did that come from?
Unlike a highly touted prospect such as CC Sabathia, who was drafted by the Indians in the first round, Cliff Lee and Corey Kluber overcame long odds against their even making it to the big leagues. Both were drafted in the fourth round, Lee by Montreal, Kluber by San Diego. Cliff Lee in 2008 and Corey Kluber in 2014 were two of the biggest surprises in baseball in a generation.
My favorite memory of this sort, however, goes back to a previous generation, to 1959, when Cleveland Indians’ general manager, Frank Lane, traded future hall of famer, Larry Doby (who was nearing the end of his career) for a young player we in Cleveland didn’t know, although he wasn’t a complete unknown in the baseball world. In fact, in 1956, playing for Baltimore, he tied for second place in the Rookie of the Year balloting with Indians rookie, Rocky Colavito. But in 1959 John Patsy “Tito” Francona was quite the shooting star and, teamed up with the popular Colavito, he was a great story to follow after he became a regular in June. Young fans imitated the left-handed, bat-held-high stance of Francona with a pocket of air in the cheek where Tito held his chaw. And then there was Rocky’s bat-behind-the-back stretch followed by his aiming the bat like a rifle at the pitcher. Francona went on to have such a successful breakout season it must have convinced Frank Lane of his own infallibility. Francona batted .363 that year but ended up thirty-four plate appearances shy of the number needed to qualify for the batting title. Harvey Kuenn won it that year with a .353 average. But best of all, the Indians were actually in a pennant race that year, losing out finally to a White Sox team that included shortstop Luis Aparicio, the guy who came in first in the 1956 Rookie of the Year balloting. At the end of the season Tito Francona actually got some votes for MVP.
So, even though the Tribe didn’t win the pennant in 1959, “waiting for next year” was a time of hopeful anticipation. That is, until just days before the start of the 1960 season, when Frank Lane traded Rocky Colavito to the Tigers for Harvey Kuenn. And that, my friends, was not a pleasant surprise.
4 Comments
Lee was pretty well regarded before his ’08 breakout. Baseball America ranked him the 30th prospect in baseball in 2003. He had a really strong 2005 campaign as well. I think the narrative with him was less about being a surprise and more about living up to earlier expectations.
Yeah, people forget that he was a Cy Young candidate in 2005, but I think the main surprise had to do with the 2007 season fallout. He fell apart in ’06 and then moreso in ’07 and was not a part of the postseason roster. He entered the 2008 season with many/most people expecting him to have his final shot to remain a starter and a backend guy at best with expectations he was the new Jaret Wright (though he had more sustained success in ’05 than Jaret ever did for the Tribe).
Ah, I agree that there is no point to trying to guess except that it can be so much fun even as we guess wrong nearly every time.
Why do I suddenly hear….”Mabel, Black Label…..Carling’s Black Label beer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUd6lYNc_EE