Red Right 88

22 Feb 2011

Browns decide to do right by Phil Dawson

The Browns reportedly placed the franchise tag on kicker Phil Dawson on Tuesday, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

The move to bring back Dawson, who’s been on the team since the Browns returned in 1999, always seemed like a no brainer to us, but media reports at the end of the season made us worried.

Dawson passed Hall of Fame kicker Lou Groza last season as the Browns all-time leader in field goals. He’s the ninth-most accurate kicker in NFL history at 83.1 percent, which is even more impressive when you consider the conditions he has to kick in at Cleveland Browns Stadium.

The fact that the Browns may have entertained the thought of parting ways with a kicker who can produce in conditions like this gave us pause. But the fact that team president Mike Holmgren and general manager Tom Heckert understand Dawson’s value makes us feel better.

But we do have to wonder: is the move to retain Dawson a sign that the new coaching regime is thinking field goals rather than touchdowns? Because we all know how well that worked out for the last coach.

***

Seneca Wallace is reportedly looking for a starting role next season as he ponders his future as a free agent.

“If I do go back (to Cleveland), hopefully it’s a chance to compete for the starting position,” he told Pro Football Weekly.

We like the thought of Wallace being on the Browns next year in a mentor role to Colt McCoy as he learns the West Coast offense. And Wallace is fine as a fill-in in case of injury. But as a starter? Not so much.

We understand that Wallace would want to be a starter, but after eight years of not being a starter in the league, we really don’t see the need for the Browns to be the test case.

***

Maybe there is something to the “Dolans are cheap” talk.

According to UniWatch, the Indians have scaled back the Bob Feller memorial patch they will wear this season from this to this.

Why? Because the photo the original patch is based on is owned by Photo File and the Indians won’t reach a deal on the licensing fees to use the image.

Unbelievable, and sad, that a team as cash-strapped as the Indians may in fact be, can’t find the dough to honor the greatest picture in baseball history.

Posted in bad ideas, Bob Feller, Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Phil Dawson, Seneca Wallace | Leave a comment

21 Feb 2011

Life Before Sports Video Games

EPL Talk had a short post today about Subbuteo Table Soccer, a game that was popular in the late ’70s and early ’80s. The post is worth checking out to see brief clips of commercials for the game.

While we never played Subbuteo growing up, reading about it made us think about the tabletop games we played in the dark ages before video games took over.

First up was All-Star Baseball, where historic players were represented by circular discs. Each disc was divided into a pie chart, with each slice numbered to represent a particular outcome. If you were a homerun hitter, the slice corresponding to homeruns was large; and the rest of a player’s abilities was parceled out on the disc accordingly.

When the player batted, his disc was placed in a spinner, which the manager spun. When the spinner stopped, it pointed to a numerically coded play result. To find the result, the manager looked the number up on a chart that indicated the play (e.g. single, walk, or strikeout).

That was fun for a while, but the game was limited to the player discs that came with the game and there was no pitching option. So we eventually moved to Strat-O-Matic baseball, simply the greatest tabletop baseball game ever invented. How great was it? Pete Franklin used to advertise it on his SportsLine show, so you know it was good.

Strat-O-Matic offered all the major league teams, was much more statistically accurate than All-Star Baseball and, like the Madden video games, put out new rosters each spring for the Major League teams. We can still remember when the new cards would arrive every spring having to pull the perforated cards apart before we could start playing.

In addition to hitters, there were pitching cards as well, which could impact the outcome of a particular at bat (like J.R. Richards’ 313 strikeouts in 1979).

We played countless four-team, 50-game seasons during out childhood, with the Indians always being one of the A.L. And no, the Indians never won a World Series, no matter how hard we tried.

A side benefit was our math skills improved dramatically from calculating batting average and ERA for each player.

We also branched out into Strat-O-Matic’s football and basketball games, but they never really lent themselves to solitary play and we never really got into them as much.

Mattell’s Electronic Football caught out attention when it was released in the late ’70s and that turned into our gateway into video games. Starting with Tecmo Bowl, we ran the gamut of sports video games, from Punch Out to Blades of Steel to the various EA Sports franchises.

And while we still enjoy a good game of Madden or FIFA Soccer, we’ll always be glad we had the opportunity to experience the fun of tabletop sports games.

Posted in baseball, sports games, Strat-O-Matic, Subbuteo | Leave a comment

19 Feb 2011

3 Comments

Browns need to pass on Sanders

Before the hoople heads start getting riled up, we need to put the kibosh on any talk of the Browns signing safety Bob Sanders, who was released Friday by the Colts.

Fans are going to see Sanders’ name on the transaction list and some will immediately want the Browns to pursue him simply because they’ve heard of him. But the team needs to stay far, far away from him.

Injuries have limited Sanders to just nine games over the past three years. He played six games in 2008; missed the first five games in 2009 then, in his second game back, tore his left biceps and missed the rest of the season; last year he tore his right bicep on the first defensive series of the season and missed the rest of the year.

With that kind of injury history, why would anyone think Sanders would be able to stay on the field for any significant amount of time?

***

Is former coach Eric Mangini heading back to the sidelines?

The UFL’s Hartford Colonials are “interested” in Mangini to replace another former Browns coach, Chris Palmer. Palmer recently became offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans.

“He is one of the people we would hope to talk to,” Colonials owner Bill Mayer said of Mangini this week, according to ESPN. “What comes out of that, I don’t know. I’ve been looking at our Facebook site, and it certainly has generated a lot of conversation. He’s a Connecticut native and he’s had experience. Whether we end up doing anything with him or not, we haven’t sat down yet, so it’s not at all clear whether this timing would work for him.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re in negotiations or that he’s going to be the next coach, but he’s certainly on the list.”

Well, it’s not as if Mangini is on the list for any NFL jobs.

***

As spring training gets underway for the Indians, manager Manny Acta expects the bullpen to be one of the strongest parts of the team – if not the strongest.

”It was last year, and there’s a very good chance it will be very good again,” Acta told The Beacon Journal.

The bullpen struggled early in the season, putting up a 4.69 ERA, but after the All Star break the relievers posted a 2.95 ERA, second best in the American League. Closer Chris Perez led the way, as he posted a 0.53 ERA after June 18 and converted 18 of his final 19 saves on the season.

If the bullpen can turn into a reliable asset for the Tribe, that will make Acta’s job a lot easier, take some of the pressure off the team’s young starters – who can’t be expected to go very deep into games – and maybe give the team a chance to surprise some people this season.

***

Finally, check out the latest from Uni Watch for something on the birth of the Browns facemask.

The story behind the development of the facemask is well known to longtime Browns fans: a late hit on quarterback Otto Graham in 1953 led to the first protective Lucite mask on the Browns helmets.

But it’s definitely worth reading about again, especially for the photos.

Posted in Bob Sanders, Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, hoople heads

17 Feb 2011

Spanning the globe

Oh sure, now the NBA may want to add a franchise tag for players.

According to The Sporting News:

“The franchise tag is something the owners will bring up in the collective bargaining agreement, but now you’re going to have to get that by the players’ association, get them to buy into it,” said NBA TV analyst and former Timberwolves GM Kevin McHale. “It is an interesting concept – there is something to that. It would give the team that drafts a guy, develops a guy, more of an opportunity to hold on to the player. … Having the talent distributed all throughout the NBA is much better for the NBA, and the health of the game depends on having competitive teams in all different types of markets.”

Great. They couldn’t have figured that out before LeBron left town?

***

Too bad Liverpool couldn’t give Kenny Daglish a win in his first match in Europe as Liverpool manager, as the Reds drew 0-0 with Sparta Prague in the Europa League.

“It is special but every time you go into the dugout for this club it is special,” Daglish said in published reports. “It is a club with fantastic tradition and pride and to get a first opportunity to take the club that I served as player and manager before into Europe was fantastic.

“It was an honour for me because of the history this club has in Europe. Tonight was a bit of a milestone for myself because it was the first game in Europe I’d been in charge of the club.

“It was a difficult game for us. We would rather have been more offensive but circumstances dictated the way we played with the players we had available. Nil-nil is not the best result we could have got but it is not the worst either. Next week you can anticipate it being a different game.”

The return leg at Anfield certainly will be a different story as the Reds should advance. And this year’s experience will pay off in the team’s inevitable return to Champions League play.

***

We guess, when it comes to Alabama, it’s true that “stupid is as stupid does.“

***

Finally, a home-schooled Iowa high school wrestler defaulted on his first-round state tournament match rather than face one of the first girls to ever qualify for the event.

Because rolling around on a sweat-stained, germ-infested mat is OK when it’s with another guy, but girls are icky or something.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, King Kenny, Liverpool, NBA, stupid people | Leave a comment

16 Feb 2011

It’s right vs. wrong, not new vs. old

Dan Le Batard at The Miami Herald apparently doesn’t get it.

In his latest column, he cries that “new” journalism is ruining it for everyone else.

He takes Deadspin to task for its recent story on Mark Sanchez, but somehow lets The New York Post off the hook for doing something far worse (bolding is us):

“What Deadspin.com did this week was wrong by all the previous measurements, although those measurements mummify more every day. It wasn’t news to report that a 17-year-old girl had maybe slept with Sanchez. That age is legal in New York. It wasn’t news that she had photographed proof of Sanchez’s bedroom. (This is what The Kardashian Generation has wrought; the famous get screwed, and the screwed get famous.)

“The girl wanted it published, then didn’t, but Deadspin published it anyway — and traffic soared. And you know what happened next, right? The New York Post followed by publishing the girl’s name and picture for her high school classmates — something even Deadspin avoided. This is how it happened with Favre and Rex Ryan’s wife, too — old media deciding to follow what everyone was talking about because that’s where the money, eyes and marketplace were.”

You can argue how close Deadspin got to crossing the mythical ethical line that journalists and newspapers deal with on a daily basis, but how can you even try to defend what the Post did? You just don’t publish the name of a minor, especially one who didn’t do anything wrong. That’s sleazy, no matter where you fall on the journalism age line.

But apparently that’s OK because the Post is “old” journalism and they are just trying to keep up. So rather than take the high road and do the right thing, it’s OK for the Post to trash a high school girl because Deadspin opened the door, the Post had no choice in the matter, they just had to follow.

Le Batard also misses the point in regard to Tiger Woods:

“There appears to be a fascinating sexual tension growing between old journalism and new journalism. A startled and exposed Tiger Woods discovered this the hard way, when both journalisms barged into his bedroom together with a kind of zeal that had no precedent in American sports.

“There is the feeling that a divorced and broken Tiger Woods should have been more discrete, should have known better. But he couldn’t have. The rules changed on him, and for all sports figures, while he was getting undressed.”

The only thing that Tiger Woods discovered is that he can’t do anything he wants without repercussions.

If you’re married you don’t cheat on your spouse.

We’re pretty sure that rule predates the creation of both “new” and “old” journalism.

***

From UniWatch comes this link to Hoopism, a site with several sophisticated and interactive NBA-centric infographics.

The best one shows word clouds for every NBA team based on who played the most minutes for each team. The one for the Cavs is pretty sweet.

***

Sure, when the Indians lost Albert Belle and Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome and C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee and on and on that’s just the way it goes.

But now that Albert Pujols might leave St. Louis, suddenly it’s a problem?

Please.

***

Would the Browns consider bringing Braylon Edwards back in free agency?

Someone at Bleacher Report thinks it’s a good idea:

“Bringing Edwards back might allow him to mentor younger receivers such as Mohamed Massaquoi and Brian Robiskie, both of whom struggled in only their second seasons. It would also give Colt McCoy a legitimate No. 1 receiver.

“Fans need to forgive and forget when it comes to Braylon Edwards. Sure, he dropped passes, but there is not a receiver in the league worth his salt who hasn’t.

“The only thing Cleveland fans need to worry about is whether adding Braylon Edwards will make the team significantly better.

“And the obvious answer is yes, it will.”

We’re going to go out on a limb and say that’s never going to happen.

Posted in bad reporting, Cleveland Browns, media hypocrisy, NBA, right vs. wrong | Leave a comment

15 Feb 2011

2 Comments

How the business world can fix Cleveland sports

A few weeks ago, Forbes ran an article highlighting the most annoying business jargon flowing through American workplaces on a daily basis.

According to the article:

“For people bent on achieving superstar status in the business world, knowing one language is often not enough. Unfortunately the second tongue most popular to many American corporate types isn’t Spanish, German, French, Italian or Chinese. It’s jargon, a heinous amalgamation of terms with unknown origins and delivered with no explanation, irony or even a crumb of guilt. Business clichés have long been allowed to proliferate, multiply and slink around like evil gremlins within the American business establishment.”

After wading into this swamp of nothingness, we found answers to what’s been going on with the local sports teams.

Clearly, the Cavs need to drill down to find more talent.

Mike Holmgren has all his ducks in a row now that he has Pat Shurmur on board as coach.

The Dolans unfortunately put a hard stop on payroll growth as they have reached their predetermined price point.

Browns coach Pat Shurmur is thinking outside the box with his decision to act as his own offensive coordinator.

While the scoreboard may not reflect it, we hope the Browns, Cavs and Indians are all giving 110 percent.

If they are going to turn the Indians around, GM Chris Antonetti and manager Manny Acta need to synergize. (although we’re still not sure how well that worked for Mark Shapiro and Eric Wedge).

There’s a whole list of players – Grady Sizemore, Matt LaPorta, Travis Hafner, Mo Williams, JJ Hickson and Colt McCoy, among others, who clearly need to move the needle during the season.

No doubt Dan Gilbert is wondering how long the Cavs plan to boil the ocean before they start winning again.

Cavs coach Byron Scott is praying that the team’s season-long struggles have provided a critical learning for the young players on the roster.

Browns general manager Tom Heckert hopes the upcoming NFL Draft will impact the team’s fortunes in the AFC North.

Randy Lerner is routinely out of pocket when he’s watching Aston Villa play.

It would be nice if Mohamed Massaquoi and Brian Robiskie would take it to the next level in 2011.

The Browns have a very hard time managing expectations among the fan base.

The Cavs should strive to grab the low-hanging fruit and string two wins together.

By replacing Eric Mangini as coach with Pat Shurmur, Mike Holmgren continues to break down silos in Berea.

Sadly, no matter what they do, the current state of Cleveland sports is what it is.

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians

13 Feb 2011

Shedding some light on the Mangini Era

Starting with the release of six veterans this week – five of which were former coach Eric Mangini’s “guys” – the curtain has been pulled back a little bit on Mangini’s failed tenure as Browns coach.

General manager Tom Heckert explained that one the team decided to give Mangini a second year in 2010 the team owed it to him to give him the players he wanted – including Kenyon Coleman, Eric Barton, David Bowens, Robert Royal and John St. Clair

“Once we decided Eric was going to be the guy (and return), we knew that was going to be the case,” Heckert told The Plain Dealer. “And we were fine with that. We were trying to do everything we could to win and help Eric. And Eric wanted these guys, and that’s fine. We understood that. So there’s no sour grapes.

“If Eric was going to be the coach (in 2010), we weren’t going to say, ‘You’re the coach and we’re getting rid of these five guys.’ That’s not a good thing, either.”

It’s a very good sign that management is willing to give the coach what he needs and take a hands-off approach to let the coach do what he thinks best. But we’re left to wonder, in the wake of another 5-11 season, if Heckert and team president Mike Holmgren shouldn’t have taken a firmer hand in shaping the roster this past season.

Take, for example, running back Jerome Harrison, who the Browns traded to the Eagles in October. We didn’t mind the trade as it was obvious Harrison wasn’t going to receive playing time in Cleveland. But Mangini wanted Harrison gone, and Heckert gave in.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t have (traded him) because Jerome … he wasn’t begging to get out of here, but he was acting like he wanted to get out of here,” Heckert told The PD. “It wasn’t going to do us a whole lot of good to keep him here. Jerome was kind of going through the motions. I think he thought he should have been playing more.

“I think (the RB depth) was good for a while. When we had Peyton (Hillis), Jerome and a couple of other guys here, we were OK. But once Eric wanted us to get rid of Jerome, that’s when it started (going bad). Once you get rid of that guy then it’s just tough to find guys.”

We all saw how that played out as Hillis wore down by the end of the season because the Browns had no viable alternative in the running game.

And even when the coach signed off on the Browns picking someone up, that still didn’t mean the player would see any game action. Take defensive lineman Jayme Mitchell for example, who never played a down after the Browns traded for him on Oct. 6.

“He was by far our best pass rusher and never got on the field, so I can’t answer that one,” Heckert told The PD. “Eric watched him (on tape prior to the trade) and Eric liked him. So I don’t know what happened after that. He’s a nickel pass rusher on third down. We thought he could really rush the passer.”

So on a team that only recorded 29 sacks on the season, the player who was “by far our best pass rusher” couldn’t get on the field?

Heckert’s latest comments help crystallize the comments he made at new coach Pat Shurmur’s introductory press conference:

“Like Pat said, from the day he walked in the door, we were on the same page,” Heckert said at the time. “Everybody says they want the character and hard work and stuff, but we’ve been through it together and we’ve done it with getting those players. I think we are on the same page when it comes to players and what we are looking for, and we’ve done it together before. That can’t be a negative.”

So now, in theory at least, the Browns have a trio all working together with the general manager getting the players that the coach wants and – presumably – the coach will actually put those players on the field on Sundays.

And as Heckert said, if that happens it can’t be a negative, right?

Of course, with the way things have been going around here lately, who really knows?

***

For more on this, check out:

Tom Heckert Gets Loose at Waiting for Next Year

And Cleveland Frowns touches on it in When Eric met Tony

Posted in Cleveland Browns, NFL, Tom Heckert | Leave a comment

13 Feb 2011

Cavs break streak, lose identity?

The Cavs finally broke their historic losing streak with an overtime win over the Clippers on Friday night.

The Clippers should have known better as the Cavs are at their most dangerous in overtime – their last win prior to Friday game against the Knicks in OT on Dec. 18.

Now that the Cavs have finally won again and are no longer the team with the losing streak, they can go about their business like just another NBA team.

Of course, your average NBA team isn’t 9-45, but nobody ever said rebuilding was going to be easy or quick.

As Clay Davis explained it to Stringer Bell on The Wire: crawl, walk, then run.

***

Wayne Rooney’s goal Saturday against Manchester City was sick.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, NBA, Wayne Rooney | Leave a comment

11 Feb 2011

Are the Browns about to get offensive?

Browns coach Pat Shurmur hinted at it during his introductory press conference and he made it official yesterday: he’s also going to be calling the plays on offensive on game days.

When Shurmur first talked about it, we were a little uncomfortable. Now that he’s made it official, we’re starting to worry that the offense could turn into a big enough mess on Sundays that we will actually miss Brian Daboll.

In his book, Take Your Eye off the Ball, author Pat Kirwin highlights how an offensive game plan evolves throughout the course of a game, writing that:

Game day is when the plan becomes practical, where a game plan gives way to the strategy of play-calling. And, as you might imagine, game plans change over the course of the game.

Coaches who run the West Coast offense like to script the first 15 plays. The players know what’s coming, they’re familiar with the plays and ready for them to be called, and they are going to run those 15 plays come hell or high water.

The part about scripting the opening plays is something we actually like, especially with a second-year quarterback in Colt McCoy running the offense. Having practiced those plays and knowing they are coming should help McCoy find his comfort level early on.

But what happens after those first 15 plays are exhausted? The game plan needs to evolve as the game goes based on what’s happening on the field. For example, if it’s 2nd-and-5, the offensive coordinator needs to consider:

We’ve run the ball at this down and distance, but we haven’t thrown it yet, should we mix it up?
The first two times we faced this down and distance, the defense blitzed. Which of the plays might work best against a blitz?
Most of our plays for this down and distance avoid the defense’s best pass rusher, who’s now on the sidelines. Should we expand our plays to take advantage of that?
Is the weather an issue?
How much time is left in the half/game?

Those are just some possibilities for one play during a game. Then come the halftime adjustments:

(In the locker room the coaches go over) enough material to determine what adjustments are necessary and also lecture the players about what’s working and what isn’t. … Most coaches aren’t going to have emptied the bucket in the first half. There should always be a few plays … that will get unveiled in the second half.

The coordinators write up new play-call sheets. The key is to not rewrite the entire game plan. A coaching staff may be able to identify three new things to roll out; any more than that and they run the risk of confusing too many players. … All this happens in about four minutes.

The team that had the best game plan going into the game – and the team that makes the best adjustments in the locker room – is usually the one that comes out on top.

That’s a lot – and that’s just on the offensive side. The defense is doing the same and Shurmur has to make sure they are on top of things as well. Plus keep track of injuries, clock management, challenges and everything else that goes on during a game.

Is he going to be up to that – especially in his first year? We’re starting to have our doubts, but we’re willing to see how this plays out (not that we have much choice in the matter).

Shurmur said the team tried to hire an offensive coordinator – ”[We] made an effort to hire the very best guys we could, and I think that’s the way it shaped up this year,” he told the Beacon Journal. But we have to wonder how well that search went when it became clear the offensive coordinator role would not necessarily come with the play calling responsibilities.

Hopefully team president Mike Holmgren and special adviser Gil Haskell can school Shumur quickly on everything he needs to know before the season starts.

Because if not, things could get down right offensive when the Browns have the ball.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

10 Feb 2011

Cavs on the brink of history

The Cavs can claim their place in the history books Friday night against the Clippers.

If they lose, the Cavs will stand alone among American sports teams with a 27-game losing streak, surpassing the NFL’s Tampa Bay Bucaneers, losers of 26 consecutive games in 1976-77.

While things are rough now for the Cavs, what with injuries and a roster of mostly not ready for the NBA players, coach Byron Scott is not worried for his job.

“I just have a lot of confidence in what I do,” Scott told The Plain Dealer. “I know I’m the right man for the job. We obviously need to keep improving as a basketball team, but I know I’m the right guy for the job.”We’re all unhappy when it comes to winning and losing, we’re all unhappy with the way things are going, but [there has been] no indication about job being in jeopardy or anything like that.”

It seems like an odd thing to even bring up to Scott. He’s halfway through his first season with a team that most people expected to be in a major rebuilding mode. If he was the right guy when he was hired six months ago, why would owner Dan Gilbert change his mind now?

Veteran Antawn Jamison knows where to lay the blame.

“I have no problems with what our coaching staff has been doing,” Jamison told The PD. “I think they’re going over and beyond. It’s hard now with certain guys injured and you’ve got a lot of young guys out there getting the opportunity to play. But our coaching staff has been phenomenal. They bring it every day, they expect us to do it and we’ve been doing it. They pick the right coverages, they talk about things we need to do. Sometimes it takes a while for us as a group and a unit to get to that point, but we get to it.”

The Cavs are going to get through this. Making a change at coach certainly isn’t going to accelerate the process.

No word on if members of that Buccaneers team will gather Friday night with bottles of champagne to celebrate if the Cavs lose.

***

While it seems as if NFL owners and players could figure out a way to split the $9 billion annual pie in a way that would leave both sides rolling on giant piles of money, that apparently may not be the case.

According to Dan Graziano, senior NFL writer at Fanhouse:

The likelihood that the NFL will lock out its players on March 4 now stands at an all-time high after Thursday’s scheduled negotiating session between the league and the players’ union was canceled. Multiple sources familiar with the talks said the owners’ side walked out of Wednesday’s meeting due to a disagreement over the talks’ most fundamental issue — the manner in which the players and owners will split the NFL’s approximately $9 billion revenue pie.

Having some kind of work stoppage obviously won’t be so bad in March and April, but if the labor problems carried over into the summer and the start of training camp, it will be a different story.

With the economy the way it still is in this country, we have to wonder how fans will react to a prolonged battle between millionaires and billionaires.

There’s still time to go and both sides have options to avoid a work stoppage. The owners can impose their “last, best offer” rather than lock the players out, as expected. According to The Huffington Post (h/t to Waiting for Next Year) that means:

After bargaining to impasse, labor law permits employers to unilaterally implement changes to the terms of the previous collective bargaining agreement. These changes must be “reasonably comprehended” within the employer’s pre-impasse proposals – in essence, this means that, after the impasse, the owners can implement their last, best offer as the new set of rules to govern the NFL and its relationship with the players. By implementing their last, best offer instead of locking the players out, it would force the players to either accept the terms while continuing to negotiate, strike, or decertify.

So while things may appear bleak right now, we’re going to remain optimistic.

Because the alternative, a year without Browns football, is just too depressing to even think about.

***

Speaking of big money, Saturday’s Manchester Derby between Manchester United and Manchester City will be the most expensive game – in terms of player salaries – in sports history.

According to The Wall Street Journal, based on analyst estimates, team statements and media reports, the players on the field and on the two benches in the Manchester Derby will have cost their teams roughly $850 million to acquire.

That top mark will fall next month when Manchester City and Chelsea meet – their combined salaries are about $900 million.

Now if we could just get a Russian oligarch to buy the Indians from the Dolans, we’d be all set. Unfortunately, we’ll have to settle for the Tribe signing 36-year-old Orlando Cabrera to play second base this year.

Posted in big money, Cleveland Cavaliers, Manchester Derby, NFL | Leave a comment