Cleveland Sports Forum

Many more photos here:

http://tribevibe.mlblogs.com/tag/spring ... ng-photos/

Some funny ones here:
http://tribevibe.mlblogs.com/2014/02/24 ... 4_19067444

Hoynes:



A sneak peek at the Cleveland Indians: AL Central preview 2014
Five things to watch as Cleveland Indians hit second gear in spring training


GOODYEAR, Ariz. – Five things to look forward to this week as the Indians open the Cactus League season Wednesday against the Reds at Goodyear Ballpark.

1. Picking up speed: Spring training is about to shift into second gear. First gear is all about teams gathering in Arizona and Florida, getting their arbitration players signed and picking a stray free agent here or there.

Second gear starts when the first Cactus League season begins. You can’t totally buy into what you see in the Arizona desert or the Florida sunshine, but it all counts in some way, shape or form to each team’s decision makers.

Spring training slips into third gear about March 20th when players get sick of playing games that don’t count and can’t wait to leave the pleasant conditions of Arizona and Florida for the cold realities of the real season.

2. Who’s in the pen? Manager Terry Francona has already said that new closer John Axford and main set-up men Cody Allen and Bryan Shaw won’t be over pitched this spring because they’re already on the team. It still leaves about 17 relievers to sort through, although something would have to go awfully wrong for lefties Marc Rzepczynski and Josh Outman not to make the club.

But what about Vinnie Pestano, Nick Hagadone, Chen-Chang Lee, Blake Wood, Bryan Price, Colt Hynes, Frank Herrmann, Preston Guilmet, Scott Barnes, Austin Adams, David Aardsma, Scott Atchison, J.C. Ramirez and Mike Zagurski? Matt Capps would be in that group, but he’s nursing a strained right shoulder.

Those are the guys who are going to have to make a big splash in 30-plus Cactus League games to come.

3. Hot corner debate: The first two weeks of spring training have proven that Carlos Santana looks smooth and natural fielding ground balls at third base and has a strong throwing arm. Ditto for Lonnie Chisenhall.

The Cactus League schedule will be the next test. It’s going to be interesting to see how Francona works the hot corner. Much will be read into who’s the starting third baseman on Wednesday, but don’t jump to any conclusions. Position players play only about three to five innings per game in the first week to 10 days of the exhibition schedule with the players they’re competing with replacing them.

In the end, Santana and Chisenhall will probably get a similar number of innings and at bats at third. The raw numbers from that playing time won’t determine who wins the job, but it will certainly be taken into consideration.

While playing winter ball in the Dominican, Santana said he expected to be the starting third baseman. He’s taken a more politically correct stance since coming to camp.

Chisenhall said early in camp that he believes the Indians are a better team with him at third base. Let the competition begin.

4. What’s up with Danny Salazar? If you saw Danny Salazar pitch last season, you understood why the Indians were so protective of his right arm with pitch counts.

They removed the pitch count late last season and said Salazar would have no restrictions this year. This spring, however, the Indians are still “slow-playing’ him with extra time between bullpen sessions. As of Monday, Salazar still hadn’t thrown batting practice to hitters.

Salazar, Francona and GM Chris Antonetti say he’s healthy.

“I’m on a program,” said Salazar.

Antonetti said Salazar is not competing for a job this spring and is being prepared to go wire-to-wire during the regular season. OK, but the last time I checked a starting pitcher still needs between 20 and 30 innings in spring training to get ready and that doesn’t include the bullpen and BP work before that.

At least a week ago, Francona was talking about giving Salazar extra rest in April if needed.

Maybe the Indians are trying to reinvent the pitching wheel. Whatever the case, the next 34 days should tell us a lot about Salazar’s status for 2014.

5. Good vibrations: This has been a fun, loose camp so far. Players are working hard, but they’re enjoying themselves. There’s lots of laughter, kidding and joking and everyone has a target on their back.

From the outside looking in, it feels like this team believes it’s good and that last year’s 92 wins were just the start. Let’s see what the vibrations say at the end of March.

Still more photos:

http://tribevibe.mlblogs.com/2014/02/24 ... 4_19075214

Indians Notebook: Spring games begin this week

Question marks surround Indians as Spring Training games get set to begin

By Steve Orbanek

February 24, 2014

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The Cleveland Indians' spring season officially begins this week as the Tribe will face off against the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Both Wednesday's and Thursday's contests will air on either SportsTime Ohio or MLB Network, so this will be the fans' first chance to get a look at what might be ahead this season.

There are still a handful of question marks heading into this season, but the exciting thing is that these questions will start to be answered after this week. Knowing that, here are some of the things that Tribe fans should be paying close attention to this week as Spring Training games begin:

— One of the interesting storylines of the offseason has been how the Indians have handled right-hander Carlos Carrasco. From the start, the Indians have basically made it clear that the fifth starter's spot is Carrasco's to lose. Initially, it seemed as if the Indians were just saying all of the right things in case they were unable to re-sign Ubaldo Jimenez or one of the other starting pitching arms in free agency. However, it now appears as if we probably should have taken their words at face value as it does appear as if they never had any plans to re-sign Jimenez or any other arm for that matter. It appears as if they are putting their faith in Carrasco as well as the other fifth starter options, but it does appears as if Carrasco has a strong leg up on the competition. This seems somewhat questionable, especially considering that Carrasco has never really been much of a performer in the Major Leagues. Since getting his first start with the Indians in 2009, Carrasco owns a 5.29 ERA in 238 1/3 innings of work across parts of four Major League seasons. His stuff has also never had the swing-and-miss ability as it had in the minors as his K/9 rate in the majors is just 6.2. Yet, because of his deep pitch arsenal and plus stuff, Carrasco may be the most appealing of all of the fifth starter options, so you have to hope that the Indians may actually have reason to believe that he can turn it around. He certainly would not be the first former top prospect to become a late bloomer, but it's hard to be overly optimistic when he really only has a track record of one strong month in his entire Major League career. Needless to say, he will be one of the more intriguing players to watch beginning this week.

— While Carrasco's appearances in Spring Training games will definitely be interesting, the same can be said forCarlos Santana and any time that he spends at third base. The third-base experiment with Santana seemed to start as nothing more than wishful thinking, but after his performance in the Dominican Winter League, it has become a distinct possibility. After Lonnie Chisenhall's underwhelming performance over the past few seasons, more than a few Indians fans are hoping that Santana might be able to bring some stability to the position. The same can likely be said for the Indians front office, or they never would have had Santana experiment with the position change in the first place. It will be interesting to see what happens with Chisenhall should Santana prove this spring that he would be capable of handing the position on an everyday basis. With Mike Aviles in the fold as a utility man, it would appear as if the Indians would already have a player capable of filling in for Santana, so where would that leave Chisenhall? Could it be that he might once again have to go back to toil at Triple-A Columbus? The Indians have been unwilling to trade Chisenhall in the past, which seems to suggest that they still have some level of commitment to him as a third baseman of the future. Yet, if that were really the case, then why would Santana be attempting to make a position change in the first place? For different reasons, both Santana and Chisenhall will be interesting follows this spring. One player seems poised to take the next step in his career while another may be forced to take a step back.

— Sticking with the theme established so far, let's move on to another big question mark for this season: Vinnie Pestano. Back in 2011, Pestano established himself as one of the premiere setup men in the game after he posted a 2.32 ERA in 62 innings of work. That theme continued in 2012 when Pestano posted a 2.57 ERA in 70 innings. Of course, 2013 was not nearly as kind to Pestano. The right-hander struggled with elbow pain, loss of velocity and his performance thus suffered. The Indians seem to believe that Pestano can make a full recovery and return to his old ways in 2014, but it may not be that simple. We all know how fickle relievers can be in the Major Leagues, and it's impossible to really know what to expect from Pestano. If he's throwing in the lower-to-mid 90s once again, that will obviously be a good sign, so that will definitely be something to look for this spring. Perhaps one of the best things with Pestano is that he should be able to at least relax a bit now and take things at his own pace. In other words, the Indians already have viable setup options in Cody Allen and Bryan Shaw, so Pestano no longer needs to bear the burden of that role. Really, whatever the Indians get from Pestano at this point has to be considered a bonus. They made it through the 2013 season without having to rely on him in high-pressure situations, so they could probably do the same in 2013. However, just imagine how much more dangerous this team suddenly becomes if Pestano does indeed return to his old form. He could really prove to be a major asset this season.

— The Indians have always had a great amount of success with some of their lower-profile trades, and that was definitely the case last offseason when the team was able to turn Esmil Rogers into Mike Aviles and Yan Gomes. From the start, the trade looked like a beneficial one for the Indians, but it's hard to believe that anyone really knew exactly what they were getting in Gomes. Yes, he did have a solid track record of minor league success, but can you really say that his .294 batting average and OPS of .826 did not come at all as a surprise? It was perhaps equally surprising that Gomes did such a masterful job of calling games and gunned down so many players that attempted to run on him. For his 2013 efforts, Gomes has essentially been ensured the everyday catcher's role on the 2014 team, and it's certainly well deserved. While his batting average will likely fall a bit, his ISO of .188 is welcome in any lineup, especially from the catcher position. Gomes will now be tasked with trying to replicate his 2013 success, and that is unfortunately something that's easier said than done. Pitchers will now have a better feel for his hitting tendencies, and base runners will also probably be better at picking their spots against Gomes. However, if Gomes is able to go out and prove that 2013 was not a fluke, then that has to be considered a colossal victory for the Indians. Good defensive catchers are very hard to come by, and they become even more valuable if they're able to supply some offense and power. It appears as if Gomes has the ability to do just that, so it will be interesting to watch how he performs this spring. It's amazing how one year can make all the difference. Last year at this time, Gomes was looked upon as an intriguing player who might have some upside, but he probably would not make an impact in 2013. However, fast forward to the present, and we're now talking about Gomes as one of 2014's most important Indians. That speaks volumes about just how far he's come in a year's time.

— Not much has been said about David Cooper this offseason, but he's a player that should probably be watched closely. The Indians signed him to a Major League deal this past offseason, which says something about how they feel for him. They could have just signed him to a minor league deal, but they would then risk losing him if he did not accept a minor league assignment and another team was interested. With the Major League deal, the Indians ensure that no one else will be able to sign Cooper even though he likely will still begin the season in the minors. Cooper was the No. 17 overall draft pick of the 2008 MLB Draft, and he had a solid minor league career with the Toronto Blue Jays before being released after the 2012 season due to a serious back injury. However, in 2011, Cooper led the Pacific Coast League in average (.364) and doubles (51) for Triple-A Las Vegas. He also was impressive in limited time with the Blue Jays as he batted .300 with four homers and 11 RBIs in 45 games in 2012. Cooper underwent surgery in April 2013 when he had a titanium plate and two titanium screws placed in his T7 and T8 vertebrae to reinforce his spine. While he was unimpressive in limited time last season with the Clippers, it is believed that he should be able to play baseball without feeling any effects of the injury, and that could be a huge positive for the Indians. While he has never been a huge power threat, Cooper has been a consistent hitter at every stop along the way. Every season, players come from all place to help teams contend, and we saw that very thing with Gomes last year. Could Cooper have a similar impact on the 2014 club? It may seem farfetched but he probably has as good of a chance as anyone this year. He definitely will be an interesting follow this spring and as the season draws near.

Steve can be reached via email at orbaneks@gmail.com.
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Here is a nice photo essay on what might have been:

http://www.digitalballparks.com/Florida/Homestead1.html

After Hurricane Andrew, Homestead’s ball park remains a symbol of what might have been

Once a symbol of hope, Homestead’s baseball stadium has been a headache for city leaders ever since Hurricane Andrew struck, 20 years ago, on Aug. 24, 1992.

By Christina Veiga
cveiga@MiamiHerald.com

Homestead’s baseball stadium sports a fresh red-and-white paint job. Palm trees surround the small ball park, and a nearby lake glints in the Florida sun. Inside, the crack of a bat rings out as cheers erupt.

But the applause is far from a roar. The parking lot isn’t close to full and neither are the stands — about 200 of the stadium’s 6,500 seats are filled. The new paint covers crumbling and rusted posts and columns. The toilets don’t flush in the bathroom.

This stadium was supposed to be Homestead’s salvation. But that was 21 years ago, just before Hurricane Andrew made straight for the small town south of Miami, and nearly leveled the ball park. These days, the stadium that was supposed to be the city’s ticket out of the backwaters has come to stand for something else entirely: how Homestead has never fully recovered from Hurricane Andrew.

Andrew sent major league baseball packing. Though the city promptly rebuilt the stadium, attempts to sell or rent it always seemed to fall through. At one point, the city considered imploding the multi-story structure until that proved too expensive. Last summer, when the city finally thought it had found a stable tenant — a budding sports media company — the relationship soured, spawning two lawsuits.

In the two decades since Mother Nature stole its momentum, Homestead’s stadium has stood largely unused, a symbol of what could have been. Over the years, the city has paid about $6 million to keep it ready, on an increasingly slim hope: If you rebuild it, they will come.

“I love that stadium,” said Homestead Council member Judy Waldman. “I’m not a quitter, and I think she has great potential.”

JEALOUSIES AND OUTRAGE

Back in 1989, Homestead stunned its metropolitan neighbors when it announced that the city would build a world-class baseball stadium — using county hotel-tax dollars everyone assumed belonged to Miami and Miami Beach.

“I feel like I’ve been hit in the head by a two-by-four,” Jack Eads, Coral Gables’ city manager, complained at the time, after learning that his city also could have been eligible for the money.

Homestead’s then-city manager, Alex Muxo, had pulled off a financial coup — and may have yanked the money out from under Homestead’s more powerful neighboring municipalities — by simply reading the laws governing who could use the funds.

As Homestead’s mayor at the time, John “Tad” DeMilly, put it: “There were jealousies.”

And outrage. Miami Beach tried to take the money back. Homestead sued. A judge ordered Miami Beach to pay up. But beach officials didn’t let go easily: Convinced the deal was illegal, they ordered an independent investigation into Homestead’s actions. The investigation found no wrongdoing.

“Homestead had been, I don’t think it is today, but it had been generally a rural community separated by a fairly large tract of space on U.S. 1 that was not developed. And metropolitan Dade county — Miami, etcetera — kind of looked down on Homestead as a redneck community,” DeMilly said.

But Homestead had Muxo, an ambitious, young city manager, the first Hispanic to hold the job.

Though Muxo did not respond to repeated interview requests for this story, his mother told the Herald in 1992: “Of our three sons, he was the most concerned about being American.”

From the start, it was the Cuban-born Muxo who spearheaded Homestead’s efforts to build a monument to America’s favorite pastime: a baseball stadium.

Before the ballpark was even finished, the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago Cubs, the Boston Red Sox, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles all were eyeballing the location.

“We, the city, had finally arrived to where we felt we had something substantial,” said Ruth Campbell, vice mayor of the Homestead at the time. “And it was pretty.”

The salmon-pink, multi-story stadium was one of the tallest buildings around. It had a thick carpet of green grass and coveted sky boxes overlooking the whole thing.

“The buzz word was ‘awesome.’ It was just a very magnificent facility,” DeMilly recalled. “The colors were bright and very tropical.” Though the grand opening was held Aug. 20 — almost a year to the day before Andrew would strike — the real celebration had occurred a day earlier, when the Cleveland Indians signed a two-year deal, with two additional 10-year options, to move their spring training to Homestead. The famously unlucky team would make Homestead its home starting in spring 1993.

“To... demonstrate that the small community of Homestead could build something that was world class and actually attract a major franchise such as the Cleveland Indians was something to brag about,” said DeMilly, the former mayor.

Homestead’s stadium was poised to become something big, something major league — until Andrew changed everything.

THE STORM

The hurricane struck with 165-mph winds. It killed 26 people directly, another 39 indirectly, and left 180,000 people homeless and 1.4 million without power.

In Homestead, where the southern eyewall tore a path, it leveled 80 percent of the housing stock. Robbed the city of its fledgling downtown. Blew away the beginnings of a new Miami Dade College campus, tossed around fighter jets and irreparably smashed the Homestead Air Base.

The nation’s eyes were on Homestead. The town that had hoped baseball would pull it out of obscurity was well-known now — for all the wrong reasons.

And the stadium was wrecked. The once-pristine fields: shredded. The bright lights and the scoreboard: gone. And the plush sky boxes: covered in glass from shattered windows.

“The building was here, but it looked more like a ghost,” said Campbell, the former vice mayor.

For a while, the National Guard moved in, leading recovery efforts from the leaky stadium. While so many factors after the storm seemed uncertain — where would the homeless sleep? how would the city pay for the recovery? — one thing always seemed sure: Homestead would rebuild its ball park.

“I think it was a given. The question would have been, would we have it rebuilt in time for spring training and to be able to honor our contract with the Cleveland Indians?” DeMilly said.

The city poured its energy — and $6.4 million in insurance money — into rebuilding the stadium in a mere five months. Cleveland had a contract. Homestead city leaders were determined to honor it.

RENEWAL

Inside the stadium, it was as though Hurricane Andrew had been nothing but a bad dream from which the city had finally woken up. Everything was normal again.

Just beyond the stadium, though, the nightmare was relived every day. Residents were still stuck in tents. Homes remained mangled. The city was still staggering from the blow.

The Indians took a look around, and decided to start spring training a few hours north in Winter Haven. The move was supposed to be temporary. Homestead understood. The city even sent its groundskeeper up with the team, to make sure the Winter Haven fields were up to par.

But a month after Homestead hosted two full-house exhibition games between the Florida Marlins and the Indians, Cleveland announced it was moving permanently to Winter Haven.

Homestead had been socked again.

“We were just plain mad. Mad,” Campbell said. “We really wanted something sustainable. That’s what we hoped for.”

Indians officials did not return calls for comment.

FALLOUT

With the rebuilt stadium empty, Homestead officials scrambled to attract a major league team. None would come.

Slowly, the salmon-colored structure that held so much promise for the city became known as the “pink elephant.” It was costing the city, too — up to $500,000 a year, at a time when Homestead was on the edge of bankruptcy.

From 1994 to 2000, the field saw occasional use: college ball, a summer amateur league, a woman’s professional team, the Homestead Challenge Tournament. But by 2001, the city had to mothball the stadium after entertaining offers to sell it to a former University of Miami basketball coach, the Homestead-Miami Speedway and even a “military-type” religious camp.

Other ideas were floated, such as imploding the stadium to turn it into a regional park.

TODAY

For years, Homestead’s pink elephant received only the most critical maintenance.

“We would just put rouge and lipstick on her every year, and fix her up the best we could so that we could continue to rent it out,” said Waldman, the current city council member, who has taken to calling the structure “my girl.”

But in 2011, the city thought salvation had come in the form of Miami lawyer John H. Ruiz and La Ley Sports. Ruiz had built a name for himself as a Spanish-language TV foreclosure lawyer. He was looking for a home for his latest business venture: a sports broadcasting and stats-gathering company. He bid on the stadium, offering to lease it at first and buy it in a matter of years, while promising at least $2 million in repairs in exchange for two years of free rent.

“The Homestead complex would kind of be like an ESPN Wide World of Sports,” Ruiz told the Herald at the time.

Waldman and the rest of the council were impressed, voting to hand the stadium over to Ruiz in July 2011.

Warned Waldman at the time: “She’s expensive.”

“I’m used to that,” Ruiz responded.

Progress came quickly — most notably when La Ley painted over the once-derided pink exterior with red-and-white. The field was restored, 169 frogs were removed from four feet of standing water in the dugouts and dead pigeons were scooped out of the long-dormant speakers, Ruiz said.

“The electric systems were not working properly. The plumbing was a disaster. The sprinkler systems in the field were not functioning. The grass was knee high. The suites were destroyed. The drop ceiling was falling all over the place,” Ruiz said. “So we had to redo the entire, entire, entire, entire thing.”

But Waldman’s earlier warning would soon ring true.

Ruiz’s company at first failed to carry property insurance — which had been so crucial after Hurricane Andrew — and then asked the city to drop his requirement in his lease to do so. The city refused, though Ruiz asked three times.

La Ley fell behind on its utility bills, and according to the city, still owes tens of thousands of dollars — even after it was found that the city had overbilled. Then the city found out Ruiz had sublet the stadium to a company that had underage ball players living in the locker rooms. The city, citing the sublease and a host of other issues, declared La Ley in default on its lease.

Ruiz filed two lawsuits against Homestead, leaving him in something of a standoff with city officials.

The stadium, meanwhile, seems stuck in limbo again. Though Ruiz has sunk millions of dollars into repairs, the white columns that mark the entrance are crumbling at the bottom, and a wall of translucent glass blocks is shattered. The ticket counters are shuttered for use as a broom closet. A media room with marble floors and granite countertops has a leaky roof and sagging, moldy ceiling tiles.

Ruiz is undeterred. He points to the summer tournament that draws a small, but steady crowd. He has plans for the land around the stadium — a hotel, football fields — and says he plans to broadcast sporting events to a world-wide audience from small city of Homestead.

He will not be one more person to walk away from Homestead’s stadium, he says.

“I’m a visionary, and I don’t give up,” Ruiz said. “Every day it gets better.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/23/2 ... rylink=cpy

The Indians took a look around, and decided to start spring training a few hours north in Winter Haven. The move was supposed to be temporary. Homestead understood. The city even sent its groundskeeper up with the team, to make sure the Winter Haven fields were up to par.

But a month after Homestead hosted two full-house exhibition games between the Florida Marlins and the Indians, Cleveland announced it was moving permanently to Winter Haven.

Didn't know those details. Very sad.

Just one more thing the Jacobs screwed over in their day.

Jacobs did bring Cleveland a pretty impressive decade of baseball

Winter Haven was at least near civilization. Homestead was near the end of the Earth.

My Winter Haven experience was more than baseball. It was also about the many Forumites I got to meet. People like Donna and Sonny, Tampa Steve, Denver Lou, JR, Lou and Eva, Jim from Nebraska, Frank Kreutz and his kids and his dad, Bill and JoeZ were all part of the Winter Haven experience over the years.

I might have gone to Homestead once but I doubt I would have had the good times I had in WinterHaven.

Those were great times, SEAGULL. Too bad they had to end.

Game is on STO now, and will be on MLB at 5, just like yesterday. Masterson starting today, Santana at 3rd. Billy Hamilton singles to lead off, but Aguilar throws it into the seats, so he goes to 3rd.

Catching is Treanor. Masterson gets a K, then a grounder back to him, then Ks Heisey to end the inning.
Beautiful day in Goodyear, LOTS of empty seats, so if you're in the area...

Did Tom Hamilton make it out there today, or is his son's basketball team still alive in the tournament?