The Sports Mixer: Where are the Indians fans; LeBron not only issue in Miami

Last night at Progressive Field, it was Puppypalooza, an event that allows you to bring your dog to the game.

It felt like there were almost as many dogs as there were actual fans, and given the 12,000+ attendance number, it wasn't as far from the truth as you might think.

The thing that I find interesting is the Indians are claiming there's a 4.5% increase in attendance this year, which isn't that impressive when you realize that they fail to draw 20,000 most nights even with that increase.  The other sad part to this equation is that this is the second straight year they've had a reasonably strong start to the season.

No, it's not the 30-15 start they had last year, but 21-16 and first place is nothing to sneeze at either.  The team plays hard, plays together, and has been in most ballgames even when they have lost.

In short, it's a good product to watch.

Last night against the Seattle Mariners, you had the pleasure of watching Carlos Santana score from second base on a pair of throwing errors, going airborne as he slid in safely ahead of the throw to Felix Hernandez.

Speaking of Hernandez, in his previous 10 starts against the Indians, he had gone at least 6 innings and allowed 3 runs or less each time.  In his only prior start this year, he went 8 dominant innings in a no decision.

Needless to say, it was grim news learning he was pitching.  Adding to the pot the news that it was Ubaldo Jimenez pitching for the Indians, and you didn't know what you were going to get.  Was it going to be good Ubaldo, who shut out the Texas Rangers? Or bad Ubaldo, who was rocked by the Boston Red Sox?

In the first inning, Ubaldo allowed consecutive singles to start, threw a wild pitch, and allowed a run on a groundout.  Then he shut the door on the inning, and in fact pitched a perfect second inning.  Meanwhile, the Indians picked up 4 runs thanks in part to the Mariners deciding that they wanted to throw the ball everywhere except where it needed to be.

Then in the third inning, Jimenez reverted back to bad Ubaldo, allowing a two-run homerun.  Luckily for Indians fans, that was the last run Jimenez, and the Indians for that matter, would allow.  He ended up pitching six very good innings while the bullpen cleaned up after him.

In the meantime, the Indians offense cranked it up a notch in the fourth inning.  Shin-Soo Choo singled, Jason Kipnis doubled, Travis Hafner doubled, Carlos Santana doubled, and Michael Brantley singled.  In the end, four runs scored and the Indians had knocked Hernandez out of the game.

Hafner added a solo homerun later to give the Indians the final margin of victory at 9-3 as fans and dogs went home happy.

Which brings me to the main point of contention.

What is everyone's problem with the Indians?  Why is a first place team (for the second year in a row) only drawing 14,000 fans on average?

Most use the cop-out that as long as the Dolans own the team, they won't show up because of the preconceived conception that the owners are too cheap and don't want to win.  They feel by not showing up (and instead watching the Indians-owned STO to watch the game), they send the message they aren't going to take this anymore.

Some claim it's too expensive, which is a reasonable argument in some cases.  Yes, baseball is much, much cheaper than going to a Browns or Cavaliers game, but the concessions are still expensive and that can add up quickly.  Even so, you can get a good seat for under $30 so ticket prices being too high is a poor argument.

Granted, Cleveland has always been a football town first; how else does a team that perpetually loses in grandiose style sometimes still manage to sell-out year after year?  The Cavs generated some excitement with the play of Kyrie Irving, so I can understand how they were able to draw decent crowds still, but people have always been lukewarm towards the Indians.

In 2005 and 2007, it took until after the All-Star break for fans to catch on. I remember this particularly well in 2007 as I had purchased a big bundle of tickets early in the year.  For the first several games, attendance was in the 15,000-20,000 range, but by the end of the season, the games were nearly sold-out.  Of course, having bought the tickets early on, I had good seats, but if I could tell the difference between a half-empty ballpark and a full one, you can bet the players can tell too.

It's just sad that fans fail to embrace the Indians when they're playing well.

Rachel and I aren't rolling in the money, but we still have managed to find our way to a few games last season and last night.  How many we go to depends on how things play out, but for now, we're enjoying the early success of the team and hoping it stays that way through the summer.

LeBron not only reason for Heat struggles

I'm going to say something now that some might not like.

LeBron James is a great basketball player.  He won a third MVP trophy this past season for a reason after all.

That said, he's still a despicable person for how he left Cleveland and how he's carried himself since.  He has often disappeared at the end of close games going back the last few years, thus giving him the label of being a player that shrinks in the moment.  He has certainly earned much of the criticism that he's received over the last two seasons for his play late in the game, but there's a part of me that feels it's just easy to dump on him when the Heat lose.

In game two against the Indiana Pacers, the Miami Heat were down two with James on the free throw line.  He promptly missed both free throws, a problem he's had since he was a rookie in the NBA.  He wasn't the only player to miss a free throw in that fourth quarter, nor was he the worst player on his team.  In fact, he played better than his partner, Dwayne Wade, and the Heat bench didn't do the team any favors either, yet headlines in Cleveland were only mentioning LeBron failing in crunch time again.

Now, I'm not a fan of him anymore.  But I'm not going to pile on a guy just because he's there, especially since he wasn't the only reason the Heat lost (perhaps the Pacers just played better this time?), and as one national writer pointed out, he isn't the only reason the Heat win or lose a game.  Keep in mind, Chris Bosh is out indefinitely with an injury, which put even more of a burden on James and Wade.

So while some of the criticism is fair, some of it isn't.

That all said, go Pacers!

Randomocity

I have been a horrible blogger this year.

I came into the new year with the idea that I would blog more this year.  Then I decided once Rachel, Payton, and I were living together, I'd start blogging more.  Then I decided once everything was settled in the new apartment I'd start blogging more.

Yeah, see what happened was, I didn't.

Yes, things have been busy.  We had to decide where we were going to leave.  Then we decided to get a puppy and name her Shenzie.  That took time as we had to get her to stop peeing and pooping in the apartment (which has become infinitely easier now that we're on ground floor).

In short, it's been kind of hectic, but not too terribly bad either.

If I wanted to cover everything that's gone on since January, it would take several posts.

I would like to cover it all and get into a regular writing routine (complete with themes for different days like I originally wanted to do), but I'm not going to promise anything.  Yes, Rachel has a laptop that I can use, but I don't like sitting on it and using it a lot since it's not mine, and lord knows when I start writing, I can get carried away in a hurry sometimes.

I've had a couple ideas for blogs too recently, so I would like to put those thoughts into words.  One was going to be about LeBron James (I know, but I wanted to try to put it all into perspective and not just bash the guy again), another about how animals can bring both joy and heartbreak, and a few other ideas that have popped in my head.

There are of course things to talk about with the sports teams.  The Browns just drafted 11 guys and a few are going to be expected to make immediate impacts.  The Cavs just finished a difficult, but easier to watch season with Kyrie Irving leading the way (and winning rookie of the year; the way he handled himself this year itself is an entry itself), and the Indians again competing for the division with a good start to the season.

I could write about Minecraft, which I just got into and am admittedly addicted to.  It's like playing SimCity and Zelda at the same time.  That and watching the Rooster Teeth guys make a hysterical video about it shows how incredible this game can be.

**Intermission**

The video shows what happens when four guys who have never played the game try to take on a guy who has played it and knows what he's doing.  In the end, the house the four of them built gets burned down after Gavin decides he's heard enough of their trash talk, gathers some lava, and dumps it on their house while they're not looking.

**End Intermission**

The thing that's scary about Minecraft is I haven't really done much in it, yet I've played for several hours now.  In fact, it took forever for me to build my shelter because I kept changing how I wanted it to look, plus it took a minute for me to figure out what to build it with.

Yes, I know.  I should be able to figure it out quickly.

But I don't play games a lot anymore, so when I do play, I don't typically have a ton of time to figure things out.  I play by the seat of my pants so to speak, which means I died a few times because I didn't understand how the monster system worked, or how to sleep through the night to avoid getting massacred.  In fact, it took a while for me to figure out how to make a bed in the first place.

Now I'm fairly deep into the crafting system and have dug a substantial tunnel under my shelter.  I intend to keep on digging down until I can't anymore, hit a dungeon, or die.

All in all, things have come together pretty well.  Shenzie is now like a normal dog, not completely timid and unsure of what's going on.  We did attempt to rescue a puppy that was born unexpectedly at Rachel's work, but sadly, the pups we took did not make it, nor did the other two that were born the same day.

Rachel has been much happier since switching to a new job where the stress level is nothing like the previous job.  My mom is much happier since she removed the leech from her home.

As I said, I do want to write more when I get the chance.  There are always things going on to talk about and I've always been less stressed (not that I am now mind you) when I'm consistently writing about the things going on through my head.

It's just a matter of writing them out.