Sightless in the Forest City

Did you know Cleveland's nickname is "The Forest City"? An apt monicker it was for the Tribe in the 1960s and '70s, when management couldn't see the forest for the trees when it came to building a team.

Well, they did build a team: a team with (for a while) great pitching and nothing else. After I wrote those posts about the Cardinals, I couldn't help but feel blue for the boy I was in Cleveland in the 1960s, naively rooting for a team that had no chance of winning the pennant. The Cards were able to grow and groom youngsters as a foundation for a pennant winner (McCarver, Boyer, Javier, Flood, Shannon, Maxvill, Gibson, Carlton, Washburn, Sadecki, Briles, Hoerner, Carlton) while trading astutely for just the right pieces (Brock, White, Cepeda, Maris, Groat) when they needed them. Cleveland could spot good pitchers, but the position players they signed mostly stunk, and their trades became ever more pathetic as they had less and less to offer in trades.

Consider the pitching talent the team had in the 1960s: Jim Perry, Mudcat Grant, Gary Bell, augmented by wiley vets like Cal McLish, Jack Harshman and Dick Donovan initially. Then, as this staff aged, up came Sam McDowell, Luis Tiant, Mike Hargan, Sonny Siebert. Wow! (By the way, the Ron Taylor pictured on the Rookie Card with McDowell was traded in '62 to St. Louis for Fred Whitfield. As a relief ace, he helped both the Cards ('64) and Mets ('69) to pennants. Whitfield helped The Tribe put a lock on fifth place.)

But the Tribe did not use its pitching talent wisely. Since pitching was the team's strength, they needed to trade one or two of them to get some hitting. But the one big guy they traded--Jim Perry--was traded for another pitcher! Perry won 145 games for other teams. The guy they got for him--Jack Kralick--won 20 for The Tribe--over 4 years!

For the decade 1958 to 1968, Cleveland's pitching ranked anywhere from solid to awesome. The Tribe had a Dodgers-type staff. That's a good thing. But then you look at the other side of the coin: the position players of the '60s. Just simply awful. Once the team of Rocky Colavito/Vic Power/Minoso/Piersall/Billy Martin was destroyed through poor trades, the downhill slide was inevitable. Here's a list of "players" I grew up trying to root for in the 1960s:

Jerry Kindall, Larry Brown, Bob "Fat" Chance, Willie Kirkland, Vic Davalillo, Vern Fuller (oy!), Al Luplow (double oy!), Pedro Gonzalez, George Banks, Jack Heideman, Jack Kubiszyn, Richie Scheinblum and Tony Martinez. It makes me weep to see them all together like that. My youth! Undermined by probably the poorest crop of farmhands in the history of the game!

Oh, there were a few decent players in that era, guys like Fred "Wingy" Whitfield, Max Alvis, The Immortal Joe Azcue, Johnny Romano, Chuck Hinton, Chico Salmon and Tito Francona who would have made for a great BENCH if Cleveland had any position players of real value. Leon Wagner was probably the only true above-average player of that period. "Get Your Rags from Daddy Wags" read the sign above his mod fashion store. Had to love him! But the rest? OY!!!!!!!!

This is why I don't spend much time analyzing Cleveland's personnel decisions. It's simple: good pitching, rarely traded for anyone of value; lousy position players who couldn't be traded for anyone of value; and a bad farm system that rarely produced anyone of value. There just wasn't much talent outside of the pitchers for management to misjudge in those days. Colavito-for-Kuenn shot a fatal hole in the underside of an already aging ship, and the poor players produced by the farm system finally sank the ship. Not until 1987 was there even the glimmer of hope for us Tribe fans, and then that's about all it was--a glimmer.