nope. its completely naive to how wealth is managed in these kind of family empires, or within any wealthy family or families for that matter, to believe there is no connection. the big issue i am aware of is the dolans have been trying to buy up cablevision for the past ten years and turn it private, but the stockholders keep turning them back. you can bet the same "various family trusts" have been and will continue to involved (also explains the miserliness accusations). however, i dont see that they can keep up those efforts as for one thing cable tv is tanking. if they give that up maybe it will free up some coin and will be good for the tribe down the line. who knows.

2016 schedules are out! The Indians play a 27 game homestand in August/September. Assuming that's due to not having access to Progressive Field during the RNC in July. Home opener is April 4th vs Boston.

 

EDIT: The August games were marked incorrectly on the schedule. That did seem a little insane.

 

http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/schedule/index.jsp?c_id=cle#y=2016&m=4&calendar=DEFAULT

at last -- after the win against the tigers last night the indians can reach .500 tonight. anderson vs verlander. there are about 25 games left and they are in the thick of the hunt for a wild card slot. keep hope alive!

Have to play .750 ball -win three of every 4- to get that wildcard.  Texas would have to go 13-10 in that same stretch. No impossible but they really can't take any pitches off

ugh - 6 games out from the last playoff spot with the 2-0 loss.

 

and celebrating royals hr's with the fireworks:

 

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13667669&ex_cid=espnapi_internal

 

^They're five back...

6 behind houston or texas as of today, no? they have 77 wins and the tribe 71.

6 behind houston or texas as of today, no? they have 77 wins and the tribe 71.

 

No. They're 4GB in the loss column, thus 5GB in the Wildcard standings

^Since Texas just inched past Houston to lead the AL West with last night's win, we Indians' fans now must switch our rooting interests from the Astros to the Rangers to help us move a little bit closer to that 2nd Wild Card slot.  Crazy.

 

... but first things first, Danny Salazar's got to bring home a win over pesky KC tonight.

6 behind houston or texas as of today, no? they have 77 wins and the tribe 71.

 

No. They're 4GB in the loss column, thus 5GB in the Wildcard standings

 

Make that 4GB now. And Minnesota and LAA are both currently losing...

Have they forgiven the poor fireworks guy from the other night?  My wife heard a rumor that he was fired, but I hope not... everyone makes mistakes!

I'm flying into town to attend Indians game Saturday night (and Browns game on Sunday).  Pumped for these Indians during this push.  And yes, I take my vacations to Cleveland.

Have they forgiven the poor fireworks guy from the other night?  My wife heard a rumor that he was fired, but I hope not... everyone makes mistakes!

 

I would hope they gave him a break.  The Indians are in the hunt and still only drawing 11K per game.  That poor guy gave them more mileage on social media to casual fans than the starting lineup has all season!

Something I've realized in regards to attendance during games is that there weren't any minor-league teas within a close proximity to the Indians during the 90s.  Now there's the Captains in Eastlake, the Lake Erie Crushers in Avon, and the Akron Aeros (RubberDucks now) in Akron.  On top of that, the league has done a poor job marketing MLB to inner cities.  I can't tell you how many weed-filled baseball infields there are on the east-side of the Cleveland; not that that's the MLB's fault, but marketing to inner city youth and families would help.  Add our sprawl and the basic direction of the team since being sold to the Dolans, and we have what we have today when it comes to attendance.

 

Having said that, a week ago I didn't even think there was a chance that we had a shot at playing for the Wildcard again.  Go Indians!

Fireworks guy wasn't fired.

^^I think what contributed more to the Indians attendance was not having an NFL team at the time.  In their hey day, the Browns were off to Baltimore.  That, and the fact that our trade deals seemed to work out every time in producing another all star.  It was the luck of the draw.

Have they forgiven the poor fireworks guy from the other night?  My wife heard a rumor that he was fired, but I hope not... everyone makes mistakes!

 

I would hope they gave him a break.  The Indians are in the hunt and still only drawing 11K per game.  That poor guy gave them more mileage on social media to casual fans than the starting lineup has all season!

 

Mistakes happen and canning the fireworks guy would be a gross overreaction.  The fact that it was a national story -- and kinda funny actually -- shouldn't matter either... To the more somber issue, the Indians' stubbornly low attendance is a cause for concern.  Quite frankly, I don't understand it.  Cleveland is a large metropolitan area that lives and breathes sports (consider the hopeless lemmings who continue to pay hard money for the honor of being perpetually torchered by a Browns' organization that really doesn't seem to give a damn about the team's on-field performance).  And it can't be an issue about going downtown, given how popular and strong downtown Cleveland as, both as a place to visit, live and invest in, has been in recent years... Other smaller and more less exciting or even seemingly downtrodden cities well outdraw the Indians on a consistent basis.  I don't have an answer for our fan's apathy toward the team.

 

 

Might the very renaissance of downtown be a contributing factor? There's just more appealing alternatives for leisure time and dollars...

The fact is, you're all right. Loss of population in the city, addition of minor league teams in the suburbs, loss of employment and corporate sponsorship downtown, drop in popularity among inner city youths, and mediocre ownership all add up to crappy attendance.

 

The team is playing well. Hopefully it carries into next year if they can't make the playoffs.

Maybe its because nobody believes the dolans are actually interested in winning.

I'm flying into town to attend Indians game Saturday night (and Browns game on Sunday).  Pumped for these Indians during this push.  And yes, I take my vacations to Cleveland.

 

you arent the only one lol!

Maybe its because nobody believes the dolans are actually interested in winning.

 

You know how we make fun of the Dick Feaglers out there who say they'll never come downtown because all the department stores are gone and it's not like it was when they were younger?  This anti Dolan stuff is kind of the same thing.

Tribe getting rocked tonight.  I was afraid Kluber might come back rusty.  The pen was no help at all.  We can only hope Texas can hold onto/build upon it's 1-run lead over the Astros to keep us 4 games out of the Wild Card (3 in the loss column).

Maybe its because nobody believes the dolans are actually interested in winning.

 

You know how we make fun of the Dick Feaglers out there who say they'll never come downtown because all the department stores are gone and it's not like it was when they were younger?  This anti Dolan stuff is kind of the same thing.

 

It isn't.  The indians had a good attendance base and the dolans betrayed that by selling off talent over and over again to save money.  Meanwhile, the team is worth three times what they bought it for and they sold their tv station for a quarter of a billion dollars. 

 

The team isn't cheap because of a lack of support, it's the other way around.

My two cents on attendance theory: ever since the Tribe pulled their games off of free t.v. on Channel 43, a significant number of fans have lost touch with the team. Today I know very few people that have traditional cable, let alone pay extra to watch whatever channel the Indians are on now.

My two cents on attendance theory: ever since the Tribe pulled their games off of free t.v. on Channel 43, a significant number of fans have lost touch with the team. Today I know very few people that have traditional cable, let alone pay extra to watch whatever channel the Indians are on now.

 

I agree with this.  I stopped watching the Indians when I could not watch them on regular cable.  The same thing with the Cavaliers.

My two cents on attendance theory: ever since the Tribe pulled their games off of free t.v. on Channel 43, a significant number of fans have lost touch with the team. Today I know very few people that have traditional cable, let alone pay extra to watch whatever channel the Indians are on now.

 

I agree with this.  I stopped watching the Indians when I could not watch them on regular cable.  The same thing with the Cavaliers.

 

There can't be many teams left anywhere that have games on "free" television these days.  All these teams have signed multimillion or billion dollar deals with the sports networks... especially Fox affiliated ones.  I can't fault the Indians for doing so as well, though I think they sold low.  Viewership has been steadily rising for the last few years.

My two cents on attendance theory: ever since the Tribe pulled their games off of free t.v. on Channel 43, a significant number of fans have lost touch with the team. Today I know very few people that have traditional cable, let alone pay extra to watch whatever channel the Indians are on now.

 

I agree with this.  I stopped watching the Indians when I could not watch them on regular cable.  The same thing with the Cavaliers.

 

There can't be many teams left anywhere that have games on "free" television these days. 

 

Do you think that trend could coincide with the NFL becoming even more dominant over MLB?

My two cents on attendance theory: ever since the Tribe pulled their games off of free t.v. on Channel 43, a significant number of fans have lost touch with the team. Today I know very few people that have traditional cable, let alone pay extra to watch whatever channel the Indians are on now.

 

I agree with this.  I stopped watching the Indians when I could not watch them on regular cable.  The same thing with the Cavaliers.

 

There can't be many teams left anywhere that have games on "free" television these days. 

 

Do you think that trend could coincide with the NFL becoming even more dominant over MLB?

 

I think that is quite likely, though baseball TV viewing has been up across the nation, as well as here.  I'm not certain the same is true for raw attendance.  Although for all the complaints about attendance, it's not so unusual for Cleveland.  Apart from the 90's, Cleveland was never a huge baseball town as far as attendance numbers were concerned.  That doesn't make me any less of a fan, though.

everybody seems to put a few free token games on regular tv once in awhile, but that is it. talk about killing off your fan base. no wonder other sports are gaining ground. if only they would just take the freakin golf matches all weekend off and move them to cable instead!  :whip:

Three games back

with the 6-0 win the indians are .500. they have been really entertaining and playing well. unfortunately, with 10 games to go we are now down to a 4% chance of getting the last wildcard spot:

http://www.playoffstatus.com/mlb/indiansstandings.html

 

welp its all down to these long shot scenarios:

 

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2015/09/cleveland_indians_wild_card_hu.html#incart_m-rpt-1

^Yeah, we'll try again next year.  The core talent on this team is young and locked up so we have a chance in the next few years to make a run as long as our pitching stays healthy and we can get some consistent hitting.  We know we can count on Brantley, Kipnis, Lindor (hopefully), and Gomes (if he's healthy), but I think Urshela and Chisenhall are going to be key pieces next year.

This is one of the most frustrating seasons in recent memory... We wasted one of the finest, top-to-bottom pitching staffs in the MLB on top of the fact we have one of the leading managers in the game along with the potential Rookie of the Year in Lindor, despite his only playing 1/3 of the season... People can carp at Ray Farmer all the want (and he certainly deserves heat as does Mike Pettine), but none should have a hotter seat than Chris Antonetti.  He made 3 very expensive busts in Swisher, Bourn and Moss -- esp the 1st 2) and it dragged down the entire organization.  And now Shapiro is gone, so there's no safety net for Antonetti... If he can't bring a quality bat into this lineup and if we are, again, sellers at next year's All Star trade deadline, Antonetti should be sent packing for, if he survives, it's just one more legitimate gripe fans have with the Dolans.

If we could replace Santana with a right handed bat I think we'd be a very good team.

They need two or three bats.  Who knows if the tribe is willing to get them.

Santana is deceptively productive. With a crappy .229 average, he still has 80 rbi, second only to Brantley, and has scored 69 runs (second only to Kipnis). Imagine what he would do with just 30 more hits a year. That would put him right now with 151 hits for a .280 average -- both decent, but neither outstanding. (And imagine if he were to get all those extra hits when Kluber was pitching!)

On an individual player basis, the Tribe actually had plenty of raw offensive output this year to be good. Unfortunately, a very large part of winning games is ordering that output in an advantageous way, and that part is almost totally random. Same thing happened with the pitching. All adds up to an especially disappointing season.

 

[Edited for typo]

^ Yep. Almost as underachieving as the Nationals.

so eliminated on wednesday and now we are ending up the season with this talk:

 

 

As Nick Blazek points out, this was yet another season in which the Indians lagged in attendance. With Montreal pushing hard to land a major league baseball team, the city of Cleveland may have to face the tough reality of losing the Indians. While the Tampa Bay Rays are the most frequently connected team with Montreal, the Indians’ attendance hasn’t been much better in recent years.

 

http://wahoosonfirst.com/2015/10/03/clevelinks-cleveland-indians-eliminated-attendance-notes/

^ Why would the Indians want to leave with the sweet deal they have with their ballpark? I know it's 20+ years old now, but they're still sitting in a pretty good spot with all the public financing. Also, despite people's negative feelings about the Dolans, they're the last of or major team owners that are actually Clevelanders, so I'd find it really hard to believe that they'd be looking to relocate the team.

 

Also, why would they be putting tens of millions of dollars into the ballpark if they were going to be leaving town in the immediate future?

That's crazy talk.  If the Tribe were in the playoffs, the stadium would be packed.  Not so in Tampa Bay....

 

I don't believe that rumour for one second.

congrats to danny salazar & the relief parade today as the tribe ended the season on a very positive note and finished above .500!

 

MLB Gamecast - Red Sox vs Indians http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/gamecast?gameId=351004105&version=mobile&appsrc=sc&ex_cid=espnapi_internal&gcSection=boxscore

 

 

 

 

i see the tribe is fishing in south korea for talent -- here are a few other available gets via free agency:

 

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2015/11/cleveland_indians_free-agent_p.html

 

tribe signs joba chamberlain - indians-yankees twittering follows lol:

 

http://m.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/indians-sign-joba-chamberlain-promise-no-bugs-article-1.2451491

 

Who needs David Price when we can get Joba. Huzzah!

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2015/12/indians_getting_new_scoreboard.html#incart_river_home

 

Cleveland Indians getting new scoreboard at Progressive Field

 

"The new boards will significantly enhance our fans' experience at Progressive Field," Indians Senior VP Neil Weiss said in a statement from the team."

 

Don't be a schmuck Neil. No one gives a shit about a publicly subsidized scoreboard.

^ I do.  The old scoreboard sucked big time.

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2015/12/indians_getting_new_scoreboard.html#incart_river_home

 

Cleveland Indians getting new scoreboard at Progressive Field

 

"The new boards will significantly enhance our fans' experience at Progressive Field," Indians Senior VP Neil Weiss said in a statement from the team."

 

Don't be a schmuck Neil. No one gives a S**t about a publicly subsidized scoreboard.

 

^ I do.  The old scoreboard sucked big time.

 

 

Progressive Field renovation thread:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,29502.msg781802/topicseen.html#new