On a recent telecast of “More Sports and Les Levine”, the host referred to a radio interview with MLB Networks’ Peter Gammons, in which Gammons said the commissioner’s office is very concerned about the franchises in Tampa, Oakland, and Cleveland.
Levine said Gammons continued that MLB has started putting pressure on Indians’ owner Larry Dolan to move the franchise out of Cleveland. (I am paraphrasing Levine because I didn’t hear the interview, although I trust the credibility of both Levine and Gammons, and in fact, I am a great admirer of their work).
If what the highly respected Gammons said is true, then more than ever, Bud Selig should be replaced as commissioner, and sooner rather than later, because he is an idiot.
Yes, the situations in Tampa and Oakland are dire. The Rays might just be the best team in baseball this season, and yet their attendance is poor. Tropicana Field is not in Tampa; it’s in St. Petersburg, and despite their newness as a franchise, the building is old and not state of the art.
Oakland has had problems getting a new stadium and currently plays in a park that has been ruined in order to accommodate the Raiders. Plus, the A’s have had problems drawing fans even when they were one of the dominant teams in the game in the early 1970’s and late 1980’s.
Cleveland is a different situation.
First, if the Indians were winning, people would come to the ballpark. In fact, it has been less than ten years since the end of a consecutive sellout streak at Jacobs Field, which reached 455 games. Remember that, Mr. Selig?
The honchos in the MLB office cite the decreasing population of Cleveland as the biggest reason for the declining attendance, but that doesn’t seem to hurt the Cavaliers, which regularly play to sell out crowd at Quicken Loans Arena.
Yes, the city’s population is dropping, but the metropolitan area is still ranked as the 26th largest in the US, with more people in the area than Kansas City, and Selig’s hometown of Milwaukee. Why aren’t those cities mentioned as problems?
The problem with the attendance in Cleveland has nothing to do with declining population or a poor stadium; they have to do with the lack of confidence in team’s ownership, the Dolan family.
This team won 65 games last season, and did nothing in the off-season outside of minor moves. Why would fans get excited?
Most of the communication from the ownership to the fans is based on complaints about how tough it is for smaller market teams, and how the best the Indians can hope for is to contend once every few years.
And the commissioner’s office wants to know why no one goes to games?
If MLB baseball wants to turn things around with this franchise, then instead of telling the Dolan family to move the team, they should instruct them to sell it. Sell it to someone who will make a commitment to winning, or at least show people they are trying to win.
At one point, the Dolan ownership was considered successful. Through 2007, the family owned the team for eight years, made it to the post-season twice (2001 and 2007), and went to the final day of the season with a chance to make the playoffs in 2005. Since ’07, the success of the team has steadily gone downhill, and it appears it will be a few more seasons before they will make the post-season again.
You can change the uniforms, bring in aging superstar players, and have the greatest sales people in the world, but in this city, only one thing brings fans into a sports venue. That is winning. Nothing else really matters. Dan Gilbert understands this, and Larry and Paul Dolan don’t.
The place the Indians play isn’t the problem; it’s the people running the franchise.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 