Cleveland Rocks ... With Regret Over World Series Aces

NEW YORK -- People in Cleveland will tune in for Game 1 of the World Series, Brian Anderson said, as a sort of masochistic ritual.

Sort of like attending a Browns game.

"Cleveland fans," Anderson told FanHouse on Tuesday, "as much as it kills them to watch things, be part of things, get emotionally involved, they do it anyway. I bet a lot of people watch it for the ironic, do-you-believe-who's-facing-each-other kind of deal."

Who's facing each other is CC Sabathia of the Yankees and Cliff Lee of the Phillies. They were Cleveland Indians teammates just 16 months ago, each winning a Cy Young Award for the Tribe and getting traded the following July.

"It paints a portrait of what could have been, right?" said Philadelphia reliever Chad Durbin, yet another ex-Indian.

But it isn't.

"Cleveland fans as much as it kills them to watch things, ... I bet a lot of people watch it for the ironic, do-you-believe-who's-facing-each-other kind of deal."
-- Brian Anderson, former major league pitcher, who grew up in Cleveland Knowing they couldn't sign Sabathia once he hit free agency last year, the Tribe dealt him to Milwaukee in July 2008. Then this year, when ownership told the front office it would not be able to add payroll over the coming winter, general manager Mark Shapiro decided to deal Lee to Philadelphia and catcher/first baseman Victor Martinez to Boston.

Thus, a team that two years ago was one win from the World Series is now in full rebuilding mode.

"It's got to be tough" for people in Cleveland, Sabathia said.

"They can't be feeling too good about" the Game 1 matchup, Lee said. "It's two guys they could have had on their team."

Anderson said he understands -- but the fans can't -- why Lee, Sabathia and the others have been traded away.

"They say, 'Hey, pay those guys. Keep a winning team on the field,'" said Anderson, a color analyst on Rays broadcasts who grew up in Cleveland, pitched for the Indians (1996-97 and 2003) and still lives there.

"But if you're Mark Shapiro sitting up in your office and the Dolans [owner Larry and brother Paul, the team president] are saying to you, 'We're not ponying up $150 million for anybody,' What are you to do? Most of the bitterness from fans here in Cleveland is more directed at ownership, more than anything."

Sabathia, Lee and Martinez weren't the only ex-Indians in the 2009 postseason. There was also Boston's Paul Byrd, the Dodgers' Casey Blake and Ronnie Belliard, Minnesota's Carl Pavano, Philadelphia's Ben Francisco and St. Louis' Mark DeRosa. Plus Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, who was the Indians manager from 2000-02.

"It's part of baseball," Francisco said. "People change teams all the time."

Lee and Sabathia remain close. When the Indians came to Yankee Stadium for its regular-season opener in April (Lee won that game for Cleveland while Sabathia got no decision), Lee went to Sabathia's New Jersey house for dinner.

"My wife cooked, and he came over and hung out," Sabathia said. "That's just how we are. We've always been pretty close, pretty cool. The conversations are really never about baseball, though."


Lee said it's their "laid-back personalities" and "super-competitive" natures that helped them hit it off.

Sabathia and Lee first met after Lee was called up to the majors in September 2002. Sabathia was 22 and in his second year with the Indians; Lee, 24 at the time, had been acquired from the Expos that June in the Bartolo Colon deal.

In his debut -- 5 1/3 innings, one run against Minnesota -- Lee "went out and dealt," Sabathia said. "He was the Cliff that he is now. He went out and pounded both sides of the plate, attacking, real aggressive in the strike zone, and he's the same guy. His changeup is very underrated. I think a lot of people don't know he has a great changeup. He goes right after you. He's going to be ready tomorrow."

In the five-plus years they spent as teammates, Lee said, Sabathia and Lee pushed and boosted each other on their way to becoming aces.

"I honestly think we both helped each other out along the way and both became better from the relationship that we developed," Lee said. "I got to see him develop from a young pitcher that would ... get mad and throw the ball as hard as he can, to a guy that nothing fazed him and he was totally in control of the game. ... I'd like to think that I had something to do with it, kind of as far as helping him out here and there."

"And the same for him; just rubbing ideas off each other and bouncing ideas back and forth and stuff like that and just talking on the bench, while someone else was pitching, about certain stuff."

In recent weeks, as the Game 1 matchup became more and more possible, they have exchanged text messages frequently.

Sabathia said in recent days he has also received texts from friends in Cleveland, some of whom work for the team, saying "it's going to be weird watching us pitch against each other in the World Series."

Said Manuel: "I don't know what they're thinking in Cleveland, but I know that we're in for a good game. ... This matchup couldn't have been better."

Shapiro on Monday told reporters it would be "bittersweet" watching Lee and Sabathia match up.

"You don't work in this game without building a personal attachment to guys," Shapiro said. "So I look out there and see those two guys, and, as people, I'm excited for them. I'm excited for them to show their talent on that stage, I'm excited for them to get that type of exposure. And yet I'm bitter that they're not doing it in the Indians uniform."

He's not alone.

Anderson said when you take the Browns -- "you hope that they put up a good fight for a half" -- and combine that with "the backhand across the face of Lee and Sabathia, two former Indians from a year or two ago, both Cy Young winners, squaring off in the World Series, it's, 'Of course.' That's the Cleveland sports scene in a nutshell."

"It's a cross between anger and disbelief. It's just turning people into, 'Who cares?' ... People just shake their heads and say, 'This is so Cleveland.'"