Red Right 88

Life as a Cleveland Sports Fan

22 May 2013

Cavs win top pick in NBA draft lottery

gilbert-son-2013-lottery-apjpg-20e7458a49d7fcffThe balls bounced the right way Tuesday night and the Cleveland Cavaliers gained the No. 1 overall pick in June’s NBA Draft for the second time in three years.

Now it is up to general manager Chris Grant to not screw this up. This is allegedly a “weak draft,” but the experts said the same thing in 2011 and the Cavs walked away with Kyrie Irving, so all the Cavs need to do is find the one player that can make a difference and then it doesn’t matter what happens with the rest of the draft.

The Cavs also control their own destiny as now they don’t have to worry about anyone jumping in front of them or hoping that a particular players falls to them later in the draft.

Grant is also open to using the No. 1 overall pick to its full advantage.

“You want to look at all your options and make the best decision for your team,” he told ESPN. “This is a valuable asset that we can add to the group, whether it’s in trade or keep it and add a player. For us, it’s wide open. A number of these guys are injured, so there’s still an enormous amount of due diligence that’s got to be done.

One word of advice to Grant: if the phone rings and his caller ID shows “Mike Lombardi” he should probably not pick up. Don’t want to get any crazy ideas about trading away this year’s draft picks for a supposedly better furture down the road.

(Photo by The Associated Press)

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21 May 2013

Do the Cavs have any luck left?

nerlens noel draft lotteryWhile there is no one “correct” way to build a championship-caliber team in the NBA, there is one element that all title-winning teams have in common: the element of luck.

If Portland had drafted Michael Jordan instead of Sam Bowie, the Chicago Bulls would not have won six titles. If Jordan hadn’t been suspended (oops, “decided to play baseball”), Houston would not have two championship banners hanging in their arena. If David Robinson doesn’t miss all but six games in the 1996-97 season, the San Antonio Spurs are probably not in a position to draft Tim Duncan in the 1997 NBA Draft.

Well, you get the point. And that brings us to the Cleveland Cavaliers and tonight’s NBA Draft lottery.

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20 May 2013

Tribe keeps holding out for a hero

yan gomes indians homerI need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong, he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero

Another day, another improbable win from the Cleveland Indians, who apparently don’t remember what it’s like to lose a game.

On Monday it was Yan Gomes, who hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the 10th (yeah, like everyone saw that one coming) to lift the Tribe over Seattle. It was the Indians 18th win in their last 22 games, their fifth consecutive victory, their first four-game sweep of Seattle since 1981 and the third time in the four-game series that they beat the Mariners in their final at-bat.

According to ESPN Stats & Information, the last time the Tribe had three walk-off wins in a four-day span was 1992 against Kansas City. In that series against the Royals, Carlos Baerga had a 14th-inning sacrifice fly, Junior Ortiz had a game-winning single and Baerga had a walk-off home run.

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19 May 2013

Where does Liverpool go from here?

jamiecarragheracknowledgescrowd_640x360Liverpool ended the Premier League season on Sunday with a 1-0 win over relegated Queens Park Rangers.

The Reds close out Brendan Rodgers’ first season in charge in seventh place in the league table with 61 points. That represents a nine-point improvement over last year’s finish and the club’s highest point total in three years.

With the season now in the books, the fourth consecutive year without a spot in the Champions League, the question becomes what will the squad look like when they return in August for the new campaign.

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15 May 2013

Would dropping Chief Wahoo hurt the Tribe in the wallet?

neon wahooAs the debate ebbs and flows over whether or not the Cleveland Indians should drop Chief Wahoo as their logo, a look at what has happened when other teams have made the decision reveals an interesting fact: teams that make the switch may not see a negative impact on their financial bottom line.

The Emory Sports Marketing Analytics project analyzed the impact on universities that changed their American Indian name or mascot and found that, for the most part, the switch away from an American Indian mascot results in positive financial returns over the long run. The switch also has no long-term impact on a team’s brand equity.

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14 May 2013

Blondes vs. Brunettes unite to help battle Alzheimer’s

teamimg_blondesThe second annual Blondes vs. Brunettes flag football game will take place on June 15 at 2 p.m. at Cleveland State University’s Krenzler Field.

The event helps raise money to benefit the care, support and research by the Alzheimer’s Association, with last year’s inaugural Cleveland game raising $41,253. Nationally, the organization has raised more than $1.5 million since it started in 2005 with events held in the spring, summer and fall with the support of local chapters of the Alzheimer’s Association.

The flag football game works to draw a younger generation into the fight against the disease, which affects an estimated 56,000 people in Northeast Ohio.

Candice Vlcek of Cleveland will be appearing in her second Cleveland Blondes vs. Brunettes game in June and she was kind enough to sit down for a virtual Q&A about the event.

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13 May 2013

Masteron, Bauer distract from Tribe’s anemic offense

masterson double headerLost in the fan euphoria over the Cleveland Indians splitting a doubleheader with the New York Yankees on Monday is the fact that the Tribe offense was embarrassingly bad.

One run over 18 innings of play? That’s all they can get with New York starting David Phelps and Vidal Nuno? And fans are supposed to be happy that the Tribe earned a split against a Yankee team that is playing without Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira?

Wow, talk about low expectations. (Or maybe we are just not being realistic in our expectations.)

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11 May 2013

Browns remain undefeated in rookie minicamps

mingo browns rookie campFor the 15th consecutive year the Cleveland Browns simply owned their rookie minicamp.

From Barkevious Mingo’s sleek frame, to Leon McFadden doing things, to the impressive performances by Jamoris Slaughter and Chris Faulk on the stationary bikes, it was all sunshine and rainbows for the guys in Orange and Brown.

“It’s really nice to get a chance to see them, get out with them for the first time and actually see them on the field and see what they can do and have our coaches around to get to know them,” coach Rob Chudzinski said after Friday’s opening session.

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09 May 2013

Browns draft room, Haslam’s woes, defense and UDFAs

2013_03_browns_lombardi_talkGrantland published an interesting article today about Chuck Klosterman’s visit to Berea to get a look inside the Cleveland Browns draft room during last month’s NFL Draft.

It is a good but not very revealing read, primarily because of the absurd level of secrecy that envelopes Browns headquarters. The new brain trust has apparently determined that operatives from Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cincinnati are working overtime to steal the secrets of a perennial 5-11 team. (Mike Lombardi went as far as erasing Barkevious Mingo’s name from a white board before a member of the Browns IT department was allowed to enter the room.)

Other tidbits included Lombardi questioning Klosterman about which font would be used for the story, telling an inane story about the kind of typewriter author Robert Caro uses, and going on about “the candle problem.”

Read more…

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08 May 2013

We’ve seen this Tribe movie before – or have we?

-2f6bf56aafbf5174The Cleveland Indians are just a little more than one month into the 2013 season and at times it feels as if we’ve seen this movie before.

But is this the third film in a trilogy of disappointment or the film that reboots a once successful franchise?

The Tribe has played entertaining baseball through the first month of the season, and while it feels like they are a better team this year, a quick check of the standings tells a slightly different story. The Indians are 16-14 heading into tonight’s game against Oakland and riding a streak that has seen them win eight out of nine. They are currently in third place, 3 games out of first.

At this time last year the Indians were in first place with a 17-12 record and 2 games up on Detroit; in 2011 they were 22-11 and in first place by 4.5 games.

And we all know how those seasons came to an end.

So what is going to keep the bottom from falling out on the Tribe for the third consecutive year?

To find out, head over to The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo by The Associated Press)

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