This is a Tough World Series for Cleveland Indians Fans
The World Series begins tonight, and game one starters C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee have a unique connection: both are former Cy Young winners and both are former Cleveland Indians:
Perhaps most of all, there is anger at the sports gods who ordered up another kind of special humiliation for Cleveland fans. Two true aces emerge, after dozens of seasons without any aces. Our boys bring home the Cy Young Award in consecutive seasons — which never happens! — only to be traded away in consecutive seasons. Yes, this outrage, it's juicy. Much worse than that 43-0 homecoming drubbing the Steelers gave the Browns in 1999, far more inexplicable than the Indians' three-game collapse to lose the 2007 ALCS. This one, it's special. Just like blowing the World Series with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in 1997's Game 7, it's a screwing that's been saved just for Cleveland fans and nobody else. And don't think we're not pissed about it.
Lee won 83 games in Cleveland. Sabathia won 106, while also playing a big role down the stretch in two straight pennant races, last season helping Milwaukee get to the playoffs and this year leading the Yankees. Lee was also great down the stretch for Philadelphia, much needed since the Phillies pitching staff was a mess earlier this year
This the haul Cleveland got in those deals: Carlos Carrasco, Jason Knapp, catcher Lou Marson, Jason Donal, Matt LaPorta, Zach Jackson, Rob Bryson and Taylor Green. Not that that helps Cleveland fans watch tonight's game any less bitterly.
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