How do you think Buddy would feel if he knew how much attention we've paid him and just how much debate he's generated? Imagine if right now, totally unbeknownst to you there were people passionately defending and attacking you, perhaps for decisions you barely even put much stock in, and might not now even remember. That'd have to be somewhat cool, no? Of course, Bell is a public figure, and likely knows there are a bunch of losers and yahoos who never played the game who sit in their parent's basement and post things on the internet while they should be out chasin' tail or liftin' weights or fiddlin' with cars. And as such, already has a proper and justified (more or less) mental defense mechanism built in.
Well regardless of whatever Buddy would hypothetically think of RR, I think its safe to say that in the past week, we've all gone a bit crazy with the Bell debates, which, while an understandable response to a losing streak that featured a series of bizarre and mind-numbing moves, is nevertheless entirely irrelevant since the man is riding off into the sunset in a few weeks. So for a few days lets all just chillax a little bit on this subject and focus on the things that make us happy, or, at least the things that make us angry that aren't directly Bell related. Like Ryan Shealy.
Tonight's game features one of those happy things, as our man Brian Bannister (12-8, 3.46 ERA) takes the ball against the Indians. I'll fully admit that I was fairly critical of the Burgos-Bannister trade when the deal went down, thinking that the Royals traded a guy who had a 5% chance of being awesome for a guy who had a 1% chance of doing the same, but, here we are, and Banny is awesome. And doing with control and discipline and an intelligent approach.
When you look in the mirror, C.C., what do you see see?
The Indians counter with C.C. Sabathia (17-7, 3.15 ERA) who is making his 100th career start against the Royals (ok, its only his 27th), the team he has now faced more than any other. After the Indians and Tigers acted out their own version of the NL Central for two months, the Indians finally started winning, and in a week's time basically claimed the division. It was fairly stunning how it all played out, since I spent the summer in Cleveland as the fans went through a pretty brutal two month stretch (15-13 in June, 12-14 in July, began August 5-8) that was filled with the predictable complaints that the team didn't "do the little things" well enough, and all that blather.
Finally, this super-early game thread has been occassioned by the fact that its a get-away-day for me. I'm trying to do some quick spot editing on a article I'm working on (non-baseball related, which is to say, real life, what I should be doing all the time, related) before jumping in my truck for a relaxing jaunt from Iowa City over to Howe, Indiana for a few days.