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In Cleveland, hope dies last

10 Jun 2014

Lonnie Chisenhall has a night to remember in Texas

Raise your hand if you saw this coming from Lonnie Chisenhall.

Chisenhall entered the season with a lifetime batting average of just .194 against left-handed pitching (and a pedestrian .254 against righties) but something has clicked for the Cleveland Indians’ third baseman this year – in a major way.

Chisenhall has seen his average go up each month of the season, and since he hit .362 in April, that’s saying something. He batted .373 in May and through the first nine days of June he is hitting .452. More importantly, he is ripping left-handed pitching, batting .520 on the season. He may only have 25 at bats against lefties, but that’s still impressive.

His season may have reached its high point Monday night in Texas, as Chisenhall had what may have been the best offensive night in the history of baseball. It was certainly the best in Tribe history.

09 Jun 2014

1 Comment

Spanning the AFC North

We hardly knew you, Jamoris Slaughter.

As the Cleveland Browns prepare for their three-day mandatory minicamp this week – the final time the team will be together before the start of training camp in July, the team continues to tweak the roster and purge it of marginal players signed by Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi.

Last week it was the release of outside linebacker Quentin Groves, brought it last year because he knew Ray Horton’s defense. With Horton now in Tennessee and Groves limited last season due to injuries, there was no longer a spot on the roster for him.

On Monday, it was safety Jamoris Slaughter, who the Browns drafted in the sixth round of the 2013 NFL Draft after Slaughter missed all but three games of his senior season at Notre Dame. Slaughter spent all of last season in injured reserve as he tried to come back from an Achilles tendon tear.

The move leaves just four players from the 2013 draft: linebacker Barkevious Mingo, cornerback Leon McFaddene (who may not have a spot on the roster come September), seventh-round defensive lineman Armonty Bryant and seventh-round offensive lineman Garrett Gilkey.

Quite an impressive haul from the first (and only) draft from Banner and Lombardi in Cleveland.

Posted in AFC North, Cleveland Browns and tagged AFC North, Cleveland Browns

08 Jun 2014

3 Comments

5 Questions – World Cup edition

The World Cup kicks off on Thursday with the host country, Brazil, taking on Croatia.

Over the ensuing month, 32 teams will compete in 64 matches across 12 venues in Brazil. The U.S. team will travel almost 8,900 miles all together, as they move from their training camp in São Paulo to Natal for the match against Ghana, to Recife to take on Germany, and to Manaus to face Portugal.

Spain enters the tournament as the defending champion and No. 1 ranked team in the world, looking to be the first repeat winner since Brazil turned the trick in 1958 and 1962. Other favorites include Germany, Brazil and Argentina.

Sometime in the early evening of July 13, one team will lift the World Cup trophy.

We’ve gathered a panel of soccer enthusiasts to talk about which games and players to keep an eye on, and try to figure out who will walk away with the sport’s ultimate prize.

Murray Alexander is an Arsenal fan living in Glasgow, Scotland. Follow him on Twitter @SadFactory.

Dr. Ralf Borrmann is a native of Mainz, Germany, a longtime soccer coach and chair of the Modern & Classical Languages Department at Western Reserve Academy.

Ash Day is a London-based Arsenal fan. He can be found on Twitter @AshDay29.

Craig Lyndall is one of the founders of Waiting For Next Year. Find him on Twitter @WFNYCraig.

Tom Moore is a Liverpool fan (and proprietor of this site) who realized what all the fuss was about after watching the U.S. draw with Italy in the 2006 World Cup.

Adam Yankay is a longtime soccer fan, a founding member of the soccer program at the University of Texas-Dallas, and a member of the Mathematics Department at Western Reserve Academy

Posted in World Cup and tagged World Cup

07 Jun 2014

Q&A with Chris Morris from American Outlaws Cleveland

The American Outlaws are a group of dedicated supporters of the U.S. Men’s National Team. The group’s mission is to “unite and strengthen” a group of fans who are described as “loud, passionate, organized and dedicated.”

The organization was established in 2007 in Nebraska to bring fans together to watch matches and travel to games. They adopted the name American Outlaws because they saw themselves as outliers in a sports landscape in America that focused more on American football, baseball and other sports.

Since then, the organization has grown to include 135 chapters across the country.

Chris Morris is president of the Cleveland chapter and he was gracious enough to sit down for a virtual Q&A about the chapter and the prospects of the U.S. team this summer at the World Cup in Brazil.

Head on over to World Soccer Talk for the rest of the story.

(Photo courtesy of American Outlaws Cleveland chapter)

Posted in Cleveland, US soccer and tagged Cleveland, Cleveland Outlaws, US Soccer | Leave a comment

05 Jun 2014

1 Comment

From the editor’s notebook …

Liverpool continued its summer makeover with the news on Thursday that they have agreed on a transfer deal for Emre Can from the German club Bayer Leverkusen.

The 20-year-old Can for four goals in 39 games with Leverkusen last season after joining the club from Bayern Munich. He was a key figure as Leverkusen finished in fourth place in the Bundesliga.

“Emre Can has developed very quickly at Bayer 04 Leverkusen over the past 12 months,” Michael Schade, the club’s chief executive, said in a statement. “We wanted to keep Emre at Leverkusen but the release clause is part of his contract. So we wish him all the best and lots of success in his time in the Premier League.”

Posted in Cleveland Indians, Liverpool and tagged Cleveland Indians, Liverpool

04 Jun 2014

5 things to like about Liverpool’s signing of Rickie Lambert

The more we look at it, the more we like the move by Liverpool to acquire striker Rickie Lambert from Southampton.

“I’ve seen Rickie Lambert over the years and he’s one of those players that probably never got the recognition for what a really good footballer he is,” Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers told Sky Sports News. “It’s only late on in his career … that people are really starting to focus on his qualities. He was probably seen as the traditional big number nine, a British striker that is good in the air. But he’s one of the most accomplished footballers I’ve seen.”

We look at five reasons to like the signing in our latest post at World Soccer Talk.

Posted in Liverpool and tagged Liverpool | Leave a comment

02 Jun 2014

Thumbs up, thumbs down as we try to get a handle on the Tribe

With a little more than a third of the Major League Baseball season now in the books, it is still hard to get a handle on the current edition of the Cleveland Indians.

Are they the team that was swept at home by Oakland, being outscored 30-6 in the three games? Or the one that followed that series by winning five-of-six, including a three-game sweep of Detroit?

Did we see the true Tribe during last week’s sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox? Or was it this past weekend when they swept the Colorado Rockies?

Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle, which would explain the Tribe’s current record of 27-30, which leaves the Indians a (somewhat) manageable six games out of first place in the A.L. Central Division and three games out of the Wild Card (although their are six teams ahead of them).

As the Indians host Boston before heading out on a 1o-game road trip – just in time for school to let out and the weather to warm up – that will take them to Texas, Kansas City and Boston, let’s look at what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong so far this season.

Posted in Cleveland Indians | Leave a comment

28 May 2014

We’ve been doing the fan thing wrong all these years

We have been a Cleveland sports fan our entire life. And while there have been more disappointments than triumphs, we’ve never thought about being anything other than a Cleveland sports fan.

It hasn’t been easy, of course. And looking back over the decades, the level of sub-par play from the local sports teams has, if we’re being honest, rather depressing more often than not.

27 May 2014

3 Comments

From the editor’s notebook …

“There is something un-American about a young man not wanting to spend time with the ladies.” – Joe Namath

When the Cleveland Browns selected quarterback Johnny Manziel in the NFL Draft a few weeks ago the team knew what it was getting itself into with Manziel, who is a modern-day Joe Namath in terms of publicity.

Last week it was Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback report that Manziel “never had a playbook” while at Texas A&M. Of course, the Aggies had a weekly game plan with actual plays that Manziel was expected to learn and execute, which, as Eric Davis pointed out one morning on the NFL Network, is the same as having an actual playbook! (That is one of the reasons we enjoy the NFL Network over ESPN; instead of trying to be the loudest (and stupidest) person in the conversation, Davis, Steve Wyche, Terrell Davis and the rest of the rotating panel on NFL A.M. actually talk to one another in an effort to make sense.)

Then, over the weekend, came the news that Manziel spent his holiday in Las Vegas; hanging out with New England’s Rob Gronkowski, attending a UFC fight, joining in at a pool party and generally doing the kinds of things that people do when they visit Las Vegas.

Manziel also did one more thing over the weekend (at least according to him) – he studied his playbook as he prepares for the next round of OTAs with the Browns.

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Kent State, Liverpool and tagged Brendan Rodgers, Cleveland Browns, Johnny Manziel, Kent State, Liverpool

22 May 2014

Klinsmann makes tough, but right, call on Landon Donovan

Jurgen Klinsmann made the final cuts on Thursday to the U.S. Men’s National Team roster that he will take to Brazil this summer for the World Cup and, in a bit of a small surprise, Landon Donovan will not be making the trip.

“This is certainly one of the toughest decisions – the toughest decision in my coaching career – to tell a player like him with everything he’s done and what he represents, to tell him that you’re not part of those 23 right now,” Klinsmann said of the decision Thursday night. “I just see some other players slightly ahead of him.

“The last 10 days he did everything right. He was always positive, he took it the best way possible. So his disappointment is huge. I totally understand that. He took it very professional, because he’s an outstanding professional player and he knows that I have the highest respect for him.

“But I have to make the decisions as of today. I have to make the decisions what is good today for this group going into Brazil and I just think that the other guys right now are a little bit ahead of him and I told him that. And he understands it, but obviously he’s very disappointed.”

While the decision is a bit controversial, Klinsmann made the right call.

Posted in US soccer and tagged Jurgen Klinsmann, Landon Donovan, U.S. Soccer | Leave a comment

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