One of the pleasures of being semi-retired is that I've been able to enjoy the MLB playoffs. It's not so much that I have a team that I'm rooting for, but I enjoy rooting against the Yankees and the Mets. I've also been enjoying Bill Simmons's running diaries of the first four games. Simmons repeatedly mentions all the former Red Sox involved in the playoffs, which got me noticing all of the former Cleveland Indians involved in the playoffs. As near as I can tell, here is a list of all the former members of the Tribe whose current teams are still active in the postseason:
NY Mets: Ricky Ledee, Julio Franco
LA Dodgers: Kenny Lofton, Grady Little, Jeff Kent, Sandy Alomar (!), Einar Diaz, Guillermo Mota
SD Padres: Dave Roberts, Brian Giles, Josh Bard, Russell Branyan (God, that guy was terrible with Cleveland), Alan Embree, Rudy Seanez
St. Louis Cardinals: Ronnie Belliard, Jose Vizcaino, Ricardo Rincon
Detroit Tigers: Sean Casey, Chad Durbin
Minnesota Twins: None, but the Twins lineup does feature Rondell White and Ruben Sierra, who have played for 12 different teams between them (16 teams total, but both have played for Detroit, Minnesota, NYY and Oakland). So that's something.
NY Yankees: Jaret Wright, Ron Villone (not much Indians free-agent talent for the Yankees to overpay for, evidently)
Oakland A's: Milton Bradley, Scott Sauerbeck, Steve Karsay.
That's 24 guys who, at one time or another, wore Chief Wahoo in the majors. With the exception of Brian Giles and Milton Bradley, there's not a single guy on that list who I was sorry to see go. Cleveland had Kenny Lofton, Jaret Wright, Steve Karsay and Sandy Alomar when they were good.
Little did I know that my complaint had already been answered...
So true about the ex-Indians. In the 80's and 90's it seemed like every team that won was stocked with guys the Indians had cast off in order to obtain and overpay for the likes a 50 year old Steve Carlton. (That guy played for us? Um, yes he did.)
Now, however, the only guy I wish Cleveland had back is Franco. That guy is a living legend.
Posted by: steve | October 11, 2006 at 09:59 AM
Man, good to have you back. The Summer of Robb rolls on.
Posted by: adam h | October 06, 2006 at 01:09 AM