Brad VanFossan's Cleveland Indians fan blog

State of the (Cleveland Sports) Union Address

Cleveland Indians Edition

By Brad VanFossan

Dear Cleveland Indians,

I have assessed the performance of your ball club both on and off the field over the past few years. You seemed to have your stuff together for awhile there, but even being the Indians in name, it is not ok for your ownership and front office to continue to blow smoke up your fans hind ends.

Your acts of frugalness are similar to those of other elder statesmen who have held this office. They took a little extra cash to their grave, but not a World Series ring. I think you get my drift Mr. Dolan. Your continued signings of stiffs, oops, no disrespect to said elder statesmen, but your continued signings of the likes of Jason Johnson, David Dellucci, Trot Nixon, Jake Westbrook, and Travis Hafner show a sign of fiscal irresponsibility that only the national debt could also stake claim to. The monies saved from making smarter business decisions could all have been put in a kitty to help fairly compensate the likes of Carsten Charles Sabathia, Clifton Lee, and Victor Martinez.

Continue reading "State of the (Cleveland Sports) Union Address"

Please disregard the website title as this is not Indians related, thanks.

This could be Turner’s Tourney

By Brad VanFossan

Work hard, play smart, play tough, keep your mouth shut, and let things fall into place. There aren’t too many young athletes who heed this advice, but that’s exactly what Ohio State’s Junior leader Evan Turner did. Amazingly, Turner arrived at Ohio State somewhat under the radar.

In 2007-08 Evan Turner came onto the scene in Columbus as a freshman in the shadows of fellow freshman and highly touted recruits Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr., and Dequan Cook. Those three highly touted recruits ended up leaving after one season at Ohio State to become first round draft picks in the NBA, with Oden being the first pick overall.

Continue reading "This could be Turner's Tourney"

A Golden Effort Falls Just Short By Brad VanFossan I know it’s more than just a hockey game when my 63 year old father is looking forward to watching, and has been watching most of the hockey games during this Olympics. I know it’s more than just a game when patrons at bars ask to turn the hockey game on, both the men’s and women’s games, as I have seen happen over the last couple weeks. This is about reliving nostalgia for those who were around for the 1980 Gold Medal team‘s “Miracle“ run. And it’s about wanting to experience that same feeling for those of us who were too young or weren’t around then. This is the kind of thing the brings generations of sons and fathers together creating memories that become part of family lor

Continue reading "Golden Effort Falls Just Short"

Off to the battle of Ohi-low, no added commentary today.

Week 4:

Bengals over Browns

New England over Baltimore

Washington over Tampa Bay

Tennessee over Jacksonville

Houston over Oakland

Chicago over Detroit

Indianapolis over Seattle

NYG over KC

New Orleans over NYJ

Miami over Buffalo

Dallas over Denver

SF over St. Louis

Pittsburgh over SD

Minnesota over Green Bay

Continue reading "Week 4 Hurried Predictions"

Welcome back fellow degenerates, here are my Week 2 NFL predictions:

 New England over New York

New Orleans over Philadelphia

St. Louis over Washington

Jacksonville over Arizona

Atlanta over Carolina

Minnesota over Detroit

Green Bay over Cincinnati

Tennessee over Houston

Oakland over Kansas City

Buffalo over Tampa Bay

San Francisco over Seattle

San Diego over Baltimore

Chicago over Pittsburgh

Denver over Cleveland

Dallas over NY Giants

Miami over Indianapolis

There are some tough ones this week. 

Last week - 12-3

Season 12-3

Continue reading "Week 2 NFL Predictions sure to go right."

I'm going to predict every NFL game this year and keep track of my record, maybe I can help some of you gambling junkies win some money.  I'm going to shoot for a winning percentage of .700.  Here goes:

 Pittsburgh over Tennessee

Atlanta over Miami

Philadelphia over Carolina

Cincinnati over Denver

Baltimore over Kansas City

Cleveland over Minnesota

Indianapolis over Jacksonville

Dallas over Tampa Bay

New Orleans over Detroit

Houston over NY Jets

S.F. over Arizona

Seattle over St. Louis

NY Giants over Washington

New England over Buffalo

Green Bay over Chicago

Continue reading "Week 1 NFL Predictions"

...this offseason:

-The Indians have already traded better players so why not?

-The Indians are not going to contend next year (repeat in 2011, 12, 13, 14....etc.)

-You can't build your team around a guy who strikes out too much and hits .260 when he's healthy.

-Trade him while other GM's still feel he has a tremendous upside and before they have a few more years to see his batting average and extra base hits decline as they have since 2006.

-Grady's Ladies have got to go.

-There would never be a chance of another Surfing Sizemore bobblehead.  Hard to imagine a kid who grew up in Washington state did much surfing.

-There would never be a chance of another Sizemore fleece blanket, paving the way for just a plain Snuggie giveaway, which is all we've really ever wanted as fans.

Continue reading "The Case for Trading Grady Sizemore"

and possibly in all of sports radio and media.

-He doesn't care if you like him or not.

-He doesn't take too many phone calls.  Yes, even your calls "Mr. Intellectual, Soccer guy" usually are uncessary.  Too many calls from mouth breathing booger eaters can only bring the show down.

 -He doesn't conduct too many interviews, and the ones he does, the people will at least talk and have something interesting to say.  Too many interviews to me is lazy and no one wants to hear cliches everyday, and for the most part, a lot of coaches and athletes are boring.

-His stock is rising.  Like all good, sucessful and ambitious people in life, he has branched out into bigger things.  His show SportsNation is an example of that.  I think alot of listeners are taken aback by his brash tell it like it is style because they feel insecure about the boring and ambition-less lives they lead.  Life's true 'playas' get it.

Continue reading "Why Colin Cowherd is the best thing going on ESPN radio..."

But I haven’t wrote in awhile and I’m bored, so I figured why the hell not? Today is that 20% chance the Indians have at winning one out of every five games they play. That means Cliff Lee is on the hill. Tonight he opposes Blue Jays rookie lefthander Brett Cecil. I’m not sure what the Indians record is right now, but I can assure you I’m doing them a service by not mentioning it.

Some things that caught my script “I”:

-I had to catch the first inning in the car and thought it was interesting that Tom Hamilton said one thing that’s certain is Marco Scutaro will have a big series since he is a former Indian farmhand, referencing the big series had by Franklin Gutierrez and Russell Branyan in the Seattle series. I thought it was a nice little jab at the Indians inept front office.

Continue reading "I really don’t even like this team anymore…"

I'm sorry to say it, but that's the reality of things.  Even if the Indians are able to resign Victor.  At this point I'm already thinking of Cliff Lee in terms of being on another team, whether it's before July 31, 2009 or by July 31, 2010 is the only uncertainty as far as he goes.  And as far as Victor, I highly doubt he'll be around either.  Sure, he's saying all the right things, but the guy wants to win, and money wins over sentiment always, at least in sports, and sadly, in real life for the most part.  Plus, remember Jim Thome, and CC, where as CC never did say he wanted to stay, he pretty much said the right things without flat out saying he was leaving.  Victor is doing the same thing, just in broken English.  The guy deserves better than to stay on this grease fire of a team anyway.  He deserves a shot to win while he's still in his prime.  I wouldn't blame him one bit if he left.

Continue reading "Enjoy Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez while you can, as the ever unpopular rebuild looms."