DON McCORMACK
Paying another Sunday morning visit to the variety store...
Tribe talk
As the Indians prepare to head west to begin spring training in Goodyear, Ariz., the team’s biggest question mark is without... well, question, the starting rotation.
And among the guys the Wahoos are counting on to be part of the rotation, none is a bigger enigma than Fausto Carmona.
Having just recently reread one of my favorite sports books of all-time — “Veeck — as in wreck,” the autobiography of former Indians owner Bill Veeck — I was taken aback at the similarities between Carmona’s first four seasons as an Indian and those of the guy who was the ace of the Tribe pitching staff the last time Cleveland won a World Series title, 1948.
Namely, Gene Bearden.
A left-hander with a trick pitch, the knuckleball, Veeck caught lightning in a bottle when he dealt for Bearden from the Yankees.
After a cup-of-coffee debut in 1947 — one appearance, one third of an inning — Bearden came out of nowhere to go 20-7 and lead the American League with a 2.32 ERA in 1948. More importantly, he was the winning pitcher in the famous one-game playoff against the Red Sox at Fenway Park that won the American League pennant — on one days’ rest — 8-3.
He then threw a complete-game shutout against the Boston Braves in Game 3 of the World Series to win, 2-0, and then recorded a 1.2-inning save in the Series-clinching win in Game 6, 4-3.
However, there was a problem. Casey Stengel, who had recommended Bearden to Veeck, prompting him to deal for him, came up to manage the Yankees in 1949.
Here’s what Veeck wrote in his book about what transpired next for Bearden:
Casey knew something about Gene — or at least suspected something — that he had been warming over in the back of the craggy mind of his. Bearden was a knuckleball pitcher, the only pitch he needed when he was right. Most knuckleballers, to be effective, have to keep the ball low. Gene’s knuckleball was especially effective because it broke down very sharply, which made it impossible to hit for any distance.
From watching him as often as he had, Casey had the distinct impression that Gene’s knuckler usually dipped below the strike zone after it broke, which meant that Gene was totally dependent upon getting the batter to swing.
He instructed Yankee hitters to lay off Bearden’s knuckleball until there were two strikes against them.
He was right.
Bearden would fall behind the hitter and have to come in with his very ordinary fastball, or curve or, even worse, start his knuckler up high.
That kind of information gets around the league with the speed of light, and Bearden was through. Casey giveth and Casey taketh away.
Enter, Carmona. After a disastrous trial as a closer in the 2006 season, like Bearden, he came out of nowhere to take the American League by storm in his second season.
Carmona went 19-8 with a 3.06 ERA in 2007, combining with hefty lefty CC Sabathia to hurl the Indians to within one game of a spot in the World Series.
Like Bearden, Carmona has a trick pitch, his devastating sinker.
However, also like Bearden, Carmona’s sinker is rarely called a strike when the hitter takes the pitch, something they apparently realized en masse starting in 2008.
After his 20-7, 2.43 season in 1948, Bearden faded to 8-8, 5.10 in 1949 for the Indians and was traded to the Washington Senators halfway through the 1950 season, finishing that year with a 4-8, 4.99 campaign.
Since Carmona’s 19-8, 3.06 2007 season, he has dipped to 8-7, 5.44 in 2008 and 5-12, 6.32 last summer.
Sound familiar?
Bearden, who didn’t get his shot in the majors until the Indians gave it to him in 1947 at age 26, ended up pitching only seven seasons in the majors, compiling a 45-38 record and a 3.96 ERA.
However, what he did do was pitch the Indians to victories in the biggest games of their last championship season, including two wins and a save after the 154-game regular season.
Carmona doesn’t have that on his resume. And, at age 26, he already appears to be at a crossroads in his career as whispers have been heard that have him being included in some possible trades.
In April 2008, Carmona signed a four-year, $15 million contract. That deal runs through the 2011 season. However, the agreement also includes club options for 2012, 2013 and 2014, years that could balloon his compensation to the contract to $43, with the chance it could escalate to $48 if Carmona reaches certain incentives.
The whispers about possibly dealing Carmona aren’t because the Indians have a plethora of options for their rotation, it’s because of their wallet, which these days is tighter than a popcorn... well, you know.
Peddling Carmona would free up precious financial resources for the penny-pinching Wahoos, who will enter the 2010 season with the lowest payroll — by far — among the teams in the American League Central Division.
If Carmona continues to follow along the same path Bearden took more than half a century ago, it will only magnify how devastating the collapse against Boston in the 2007 American League Championship Series — a best-of-seven series the Indians led, 3-1 before Sabathia was clobbered in Game 5 and Carmona was knocked around in Game 6 — truly was.
Rest of the story
It would be terribly unfair to an Indians World Series hero (after all, how many of them are there, anyway?) like Bearden not to mention what else he did with his life.
In the middle of his fourth season in the minors in 1942, the Lexa, Ark. (population 331) native, Bearden answered the call of duty and enlisted in the Navy.
Truth is, the fact Bearden even survived World War II, let alone would return home eventually hurl the Indians to the AL pennant and a World Series title, is nothing short of incredible.
He was assigned to the USS Helena, which was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on July 6, 1943 in the Battle of Kula Gulf, located in the Solomon Islands, just east of Papua, New Guinea.
The Helena took three torpedo hits in the battle, the third of which sent Bearden hurtling from a ladder onto the ship’s deck — head first.
He suffered a fractured skull and his right kneecap was crushed to the point that medical personnel believed he would never walk again.
However, Bearden endured multiple surgeries and an aluminum kneecap was screwed into the bones in his knee.
Not to mention, a metal plate was implanted to hold his fractured skull together.
With doctors giving him zero hope to ever play competitive sports again, Bearden worked tirelessly through two and a half years of hospitalized rehabilitation, finally being discharged in early 1945.
Bearden returned to the game — amazingly, later the same year. But the reconstructed right knee resulted in his velocity dropping dramatically.
So Bearden turned to the trick pitch — the knuckleball — and he was loaned by the Yankees to Oakland of the Pacific Coast League. He and his knuckler danced their way to a 15-5, 2.41 season in 1945 and a 15-4 mark in 1946 before the Indians traded for him.
His magical 1948 season was a storybook tale.
However, his manager in Oakland during his 1945 and 1946 seasons in the PCL — the aforementioned Stengel — brought the curtain down on his career.
Gene Bearden, World Series hero of the Cleveland Indians who put his life on the line serving his country in World War II and was nearly killed, died on Thursday, March 18, 2004 in Alexander City, Ala.
He was 83.
Difference maker
Standing 44-11 headed into tonight’s All-Star Game, the Cavaliers are but one game off the pace that paved the way to a franchise -record 66 regular-season victories a year ago.
But there is a big difference between the 2008-09 Cavaliers of coach Mike Brown and the current model.
Literally.
Shaquille O’Neal.
At 37, he is no longer the man who could dominate a game for 48 minutes. However, while a step or two slower, Shaq comes with a wealth of experience at not only playing, but winning, big games.
His four NBA championship ring speak for themselves.
What he does for the Cavaliers — as was, if you’ll excuse the term, witnessed, most recently in a second victory against Orlando this season Thursday night at Quicken Loans Arena — is what he does against the opposition and for his teammates.
His ability to man the middle by himself against the likes of Orlando’s Dwight Howard has a ripple effect on the Cavaliers. It allows Brown not to employ double teams on Howard, which means the rest of the Cavaliers can get in the face of the Magic’s perimeter players.
Not being able to do that because they had to send a second defender at Howard to help the overmatched Zydrunas Ilgauskas in the Eastern Conference Finals last spring poked more holes in the Cavaliers’ usually sturdy defense than a piece of Swiss cheese.
But O’Neal also came in with the right attitude, and it’s never wavered.
“I wasn’t brought here to put up big numbers,” he said. “I wasn’t brought here to put up 27 (points) and 10 (rebounds).
“As a guy, I’m just doing what I’m told, and now we have a couple of guys out and I’m getting more touches.”
And he’s under no illusions the Cavaliers are anybody’s team except that of LeBron James. He constantly defers.
“One thing is, I’m a realist and I’ve dominated the game for four presidents. I’m older now,” he said. “I ran three different corporations my way and I was successful and now I’m an older guy on my way out, and now they brought me in as a consultant to look over another up-and-coming CEO.”
After Cavaliers general manager Danny Ferry dealt for O’Neal last June, many wondered whether the big man had anything left. He said nothing about it... all he’s done is make one of the NBA’s best teams THE best team, one that is a perfect 4-0 this season against the teams that were their Achilles’ heel last season — the Magic and the Lakers.
“Only guys who’ve been in my shoes can tell me I have nothing left,” he said. “Like if I hear it from a Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar), a (Charles) Barkley or (Charles) Oakley or guys like that. I was brought here to be a high-level role player, and that’s my job.”
One thing Shaq does, without exception, is do it one way — his way — which led to an acrimonious parting between he and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles.
“My thing was, if I’m going to get blamed by (the media) for losing games and get blamed by the organization for not winning, I’m going to do it my way. Period,” he said. “No matter who likes it.
“It actually worked. Me and the other guy aren’t the best of friends, but if you look at how that corporation was run, we won three out of four.”
No one realizes more than himself that Shaq is on the tail end of the back nine of what will be a Hall of Fame career. Still, he knows... and accepts, his role.
Witness protection, if you will.
“The guys that have not accepted their diminishing roles are the guys who have been forced out,” he said.
So far, so good. And with Mo Williams returning in two weeks or so, the sky appears to be the limit for Shaq, LeBron and the Cavaliers.
Odds are...
You most likely don’t recognize the name Benjamin Eckstein, but he’s the man who produces the daily America’s Line feature for the United Press Syndicate that appears on these pages.
Here’s the odds Eckstein is laying with regard to what city LeBron James will be playing in when the 2010-11 NBA season tips off:
n Cleveland — 1/4.
n New York — 5/2.
n New Jersey — 8/1.
n Detroit — 25/1.
Which only backs up what we’ve been saying in this space for a year or so now — expect LBJ to reup with the Cavaliers this summer, most likely signing a three-year extension that will allow him become a free agent again at the height of his powers at age 28.
Then, this mess will start all over again. Until then, though, sit back and enjoy the true greatness we are fortunate enough to... witness... night in, night out.
Brownies
A pair of ESPN’S NFL Insiders have already posted their mock drafts.
Here’s how Mel Kiper and Todd McShay see the Browns going about their business with their first-round selection, the seventh overall pick:
n Kiper — Joe Haden, cornerback, Florida.
“I’m not convinced the Browns will be willing to draft a quarterback simply because the position is unsettled,” he said. “In Haden, they can’t go wrong with by far the top CB on the board, a player they can plug in from day one. A deft cover corner and great tackler, Haden is the total package.”
n McShay — Eric Berry, safety, Tennessee.
“Oklahoma State WR Dez Bryant will be tough to pass up here, but the Browns did spend a pair of second-round picks on WRs Brian Robiskie and Mohamed Massaquoi last year,” he said. “Berry has the talent and experience to make the kind of impact for the Browns that perennial Pro Bowler Ed Reed made for the Ravens early in his career.”
McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.
