hello again everybody. padraic here, welcoming all you friends of a feather to another season of indians baseball, er my baseball only blog.

my most favore-ist team in the whole wide world, the cleveland indians, will be my main focus. but i do love the game of baseball in general, so any baseball related topic is fair game.

i have thought about doing this for awhile now. i love talking baseball. it all started when i was a kid. i was on a baseball team. i sucked. the main highlight for me was after the game at the concession stand. this is when i would forego candy and whatever crap they sold and just purchase baseball cards. this is back when baseball cards were good. yes, they were somewhat plain, compared to today's 'flashy' cards, but they were affordable to kids. and they displayed the players complete stats, and each one usually had a small bio and / or piece of baseball trivia to boot.

then i attended my first baseball game at old cleveland municipal stadium. i cannot remember the year. i may write baseball digest, to which i am a subscriber, to print the box score of that game. i remember enough about the game, i believe they will be able to find the box score. that is their specialty in the large the fans speak out, the letters to the editor section. anywho, the specifics were the indians were playing the baltimore orioles. gregg 'zeke' swindell started. he was a left handed starting pitcher who was the indians best starter. he finished his career with the arizona diamondbacks, i believe. anywho, he was dueling a relative rook in bob milacki. yes, that was his actual, real name. it was a scoreless game going into the ninth inning. i have no idea how the indians were doing in the standings, or even how far into the season it was, but i was totally into the game regardless. i couldn't believe there were no runs scored, and it was the ninth inning. that NEVER happened in little league! it was so exciting. one run could win the game. the littlest play, lucky hit, error, anything could be the difference. the orioles were held scoreless in their half of the ninth by zeke. now it was the tribes turn to try to win it, in 'walk off' fashion, if they were to avoid extra innings. somehow, someway, a runner for the 'good guys' had reached third base. the problem, there were two outs. but joe carter was up. joe was our clean up hitter. he could crush monster home runs. he had some speed too, as i believe he was a member of the rare (at the time) 30 - 30 club. membership requires hitting 30 home runs, and stealing 30 bases, in the same season. this is the guy you want at the plate in this crucial situation. i felt for sure he would send home everybody happy with a home run into the night sky. instead, he bunts! and he is safe at first! the runner scores! the tribe wins! on a 'walk off' bunt! boo ya!

this is when i officially became hooked on baseball, and the cleveland indians. consequently, this is why i am a 'pitching and defense' guy. i will take an exciting 1-0 win any day, and twice on sundays, over any other kind of win. a 10-1 win is nice too, because it means you dominated both aspects of the game, but where is the drama? baseball games are the ONLY times i love drama. ok, drama is cool in movies also. baseball and movies. that is all. in that order.

so, catching back up to the present. the year is 2006. cleveland has just ended a uberly disappointing season. the st louis cardinals (inexplicably) are the world series champs. the detroit tigers came from nowhere to become the AL's best team. the indians were supposed to occupy that spot. they were supposed to make the playoffs. many sportswriters, and myself, had picked the indians to contend for the AL central title. they seemed poised to knock off those cocky world series champs from'05, the chicago whitesox. mother#$%&#ers! but there were some changes in the off season. most seemed good. we still had alot of good young players though, and they seemingly had gained valuable experience from almost winning a playoff spot in 2005. things did not go as planned :( we did not even finish .500 :( 78-84. still, despite living in arizona, i watched (on the major league ticket), or listened to (on XM radio), or watched the game but listened to the XM broadcast, as many games as possible.

ok, my intro is now complete. i hope i have conveyed the true 'die hard' status. the depth of my passion. if you still are not convinced, just follow this blog. you shall see.