In the past two days, mini-controversies had popped up in Cleveland. LeBron James expressed his displeasure with Mike Brown’s decision not to play Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and Grady Sizemore was “showing off” for his girlfriend.
The Sizemore thing is no big deal. If it were not for all the publicity about it, very few people would have seen the Tribe’s centerfielder in various states of undress. Does it hurt Sizemore? No way, it’s publicity he would never have received by playing baseball.
Outside of last year’s injury plagued season, Sizemore is a perennial all-star player, but he’s known more both locally and nationally for being a good-looking guy. If people are learning more about him (no pun intended) because of these photos, and they see he’s a very good ballplayer (again, no pun intended), then good for him.
The only negative to the whole situation, beside the invasion of privacy, will be the taunts he will get when playing in places like New York, where they will probably make posters of the pictures and hold them up while he’s at the plate or out in the field. Otherwise, it’s a non-issue, except for the embarrassment to Sizemore.
The Tribe also avoided non-tendering Kelly Shoppach by dealing him to Tampa for…a player to be named later.
This move is one year too late. After Shoppach’s very good 2008 season, GM Mark Shapiro should have looked to move the catcher because that season was likely as good as it was going to get for Shoppach. His value never will be higher. The amount of times he strikes out, and the fact he isn’t an extremely young player (he’ll be 30 in April) played against him.
This is a salary dump, plain and simple. The Tribe didn’t want Shoppach to go to arbitration and possibly make $3 million dollars for 2010. If they didn’t make this deal, they likely would have non-tendered him, thus making him a free agent.
Based on his production, or lack of it last season, and add in that The Tribe best prospect is also a catcher in Carlos Santana, and it’s a decision the Indians had to make.
As for the Cavs, basically, the coach made a mistake. If this were just another game, it would have been no big deal. However, Brown decided to make Ilgauskas a DNP-CD on the night he was to break the franchise record for games played. Since Z has been a class act since his rookie season in Cleveland, 13 years ago, it lacked class.
Which is out of character for the coach, so he gets the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Ilgauskas’ difficulties with injuries to his feet over the years are well documented, but it should be said that he could have taken the money and ran. Instead he worked hard rehabilitating, and has become a durable player, as he got older. He deserved better from his coach.
It speaks to Z’s character than James felt the need to come out and say Brown made a mistake. Remember, the first person LBJ ran to on the night the Cavs advanced to The Finals in 2007 was Ilgauskas. The big man has seen the darkest days of this franchise and deserved to take the floor Saturday night.
Besides, he’s still an effective player. The wine and gold went 5-1 while Ilgauskas was back in the starting lineup while Shaquille O’Neal was nursing an injured shoulder.
Brown will make amends when Phoenix comes to town tonight. Even though the Suns up and down style makes Ilgauskas a poor fit in the lineup, he will get in the game and get the standing ovation he richly deserves. In fact, it might be louder because of what happened on Saturday.
The surprising thing is that Brown didn’t understand how important an occasion this was for the big man.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 