What were they thinking?

The core of the Indians team, a catcher with a live bat, gone for an untested middle reliever and some magic beans.

We argue whether Pete Rose should be admitted to the Hall of Fame because of what it says about the integrity of the game and then watch the Indians hand over Victor Martinez, who had a year left on his contract after this season, to the Boston RedSox for a whole lot of nothing.

Will the Indians complete this season or just shut down now?  After letting two consecutive Cy Young Award winners (Sabathia and Lee) go they are "rebuilding".

With what?

Justin Masterson?  A middle reliever who will be converted to a starter.

Nick Hagadone?  Who has only pitched 25 innings this season because he's coming off Tommy John surgery in 2008.  Why not just sign Tommy John?  Sure he's sixty-six years old, but that ligament they put in hasn't even turned forty yet.

Bryan Price?  Who is getting knocked around in A ball?  When will Price be ready?  Sometime during the second term of the Obama administration?

And how about the integrity of the pennant race?  I know it's been done before, but when does it stop?  How much is enough?

Why did the Indians need to trade Martinez?  Because they had to replace Lee.  Why did they get rid of Lee?  They're rebuilding.

What exactly are the Indians rebuilding into?  The San Diego Padres of Ohio?

And how is that Sabathia deal working out?

Well, Matt LaPorta was hitting .190 the last anyone looked.  Robert Bryson, who was a 31st round draft pick, has pitched two games this year in Rookie ball and blew out a few scoreboard lights (and not in a good way).  Then there is Zach Jackson, he of the 9.35 ERA.  And Mike Brantley, who is a centurion with the bat.

He hits a home run once every one hundred plate appearances.

Bud Selig can't fix this problem.  The Major League Players Association won't.  They'll go on strike before we ever see a salary cap in baseball.

There is only one way to end this trade deadline gutting of mid and small market teams.

Punish the owners. 

If you are an Indians fan, don't be.  Stay home.  Watch the games on TV if you must, but don't darken the gates at Progressive Field until they bring major league baseball back to Cleveland.

Enough is enough.

How anyone can think a quarterback who hasn't read an NFL defense in two years is going to come back and be effective?

Can the Pittsburgh Pirates be decertified as a major league baseball team and be declared part of the Boston RedSox farm system?

Why relief pitchers all want to look like the Unabomber.  And who they think they are intimidating.

Why USC only recruits potential sociology majors for its football team.

How many professional lives Omar Minaya has, and why the Mets wear those awful black caps.

Could a trained chimpanzee to manage the New York Yankees to the pennant as long as the payroll was kept at $210 million.

By show of hands, who out there believes Manny Ramirez hasn't been abusing performance enhancing drugs for years.

Does Jim Rome go home and talk like that.          To himself.       And are the e-mails..   From the Clones.               Mostly made up.          By his producers.

And a followup please.  In a street fight among daytime radio hosts, who would be left standing.  Rome, Rush Limbaugh, Doctor Laura, or that really scary woman from "Democracy Now"?

Will there ever be another caucasian thousand yard rusher in the NFL......and why do African-American offensive linemen so seldom get to play center?

If a hockey team in the NHL falls, will anyone hear it?  Or care?

Does Tony Romo care?

What does the 13th pitcher on the Yankees staff do in his spare time, which is basically every day ending in the letter "y"?

Why do I miss George Steinbrenner when I never liked him that much way back when?  And why can't he fire Joe Girardi for no reason just for old time sake?  And why don't they just name it Steinbrenner Field, since it really isn't Yankee Stadium anymore?

Finally, does anyone really know what time it is?  Does anybody really care?  (Rats, another song I won't be able to get off my mind).

I don't really care who dunks on LeBron James.

Basketball players get dunked on.

What I would like to know is this.  LeBron's in his office.  Phone rings.  Nike is on Line 1 and the Cleveland Cavaliers are on Line 2.

Which call does he take?

I'm betting the call from Portland gets put through before the one from Cleveland.  After all, when have the Cavaliers ever taken a camera away from anyone for King James?

And who pays him more annually?  (Hint, we are witnesses).

That's why CameraGate matters.  It shows when LeBron sneezes Nike gets a cold.  And when LeBron's image gets challenged it's Nike who is there to erase the film. 

So it's a year from now.  James is a free agent two ways.  His Cavalier contract is up and his endorsement contract with Nike ends at the same time.

The phone rings.

Nike is on the line wanting to reup the man who says his goal is to be an "international icon".  Just one thing.  Before they make an offer, Nike wants to know where James is going to be playing.  Because LeBron James in New York is worth alot more to Nike than LeBron James in Cleveland.

From an artistic standpoint, the Nike storyline with LeBron James in Cleveland is played out.  "We are witnesses."  Yeah, hooray, contain my excitement.  Another year, another trip home without the hardware.  The pride of Ohio.

LeBron James in the NYC?  Whole different story.  New town, the biggest stage in sports, the big guy in the Big Apple.  That Nike can work with.  Maybe even a new uniform number to move a little merchandise.  Get this, no number, just a symbol.  The basketball player formerly known as King James.

Maybe LeBron wants to stay in Cleveland.  Maybe he was telling the truth to Trevor Ariza that he's coming back.  And maybe right now that's his intention.

But when more than half your income is riding on it, you owe it to yourself to listen to what Nike has to say.  And it doesn't make sense for Nike to say anything other than New York.

The question mark that hangs on LeBron James is what the mix of celebrity and basketball player is.  Seventy percent basketball, thirty percent celebrity?  Fifty-fity?  Thirty-seventy? 

What matters most, six story billboards or an NBA title?

The clue may have come with the petty little incident of the dunk video.  Wilt Chamberlain would have laughed long and hard about being dunked on by a kid.  Michael Jordan would have rolled his eyes and gone back and schooled him on the same tape.

LeBron stood by and watched corporate types take away the video.

LeBron James is headed uptown, and I don't mean University Circle.

The All Star game will feature President Obama throwing out the first pitch and the Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Carter in a public service video to be shown at the game. 

How exciting.  Seven minutes of former presidents spotlighting people who have performed outstanding community service.  Maybe during next year's NBA finals we can stop and have Al Gore do two minutes on global warming.  It won't be as long as the ex-presidents are getting from baseball, but it will seem longer.

Much longer.

Which makes me wonder.  What sort of sports fans would the presidents be?  Would they go out together to games?

I have this image of a drunken Lyndon Johnson heckling some Illinois fans at a Longhorns football game.  Finally, having taken all he can take, Ulysses S. Grant climbs up the bleachers and confronts Johnson.  All the while, Abraham Lincoln is looking in his pockets for his car keys and hoping none of the Texas fans notice Grant was sitting next to him.

George Washington was a big guy, so I can see him following the NBA.  Courtside with Spike Lee at Knicks game, growing rapidly tired of Thomas Jefferson poking him in the back with a foam finger and then looking away innocently.  Afterwards, as the police are escorting him out of the building, Washington confesses.  "I cannot tell a lie, I decked the @#!% and I'd do it again."

FDR would have problems.  No smoking in Madison Square Garden.  Big Rangers fan.  First period, the big smile, the wave to the crowd.  Second period, he's asking Calvin Coolidge for nicotine gum.  Third period he's screaming down to James K. Polk (wearing a Carolina Hurricanes jersey), "You wanna piece of me Polk?  I got your manifest destiny right here pal." 

Woodrow Wilson was a killjoy.  I could see him at the track trying to explain to Truman, Nixon, and Coolidge what a bullet workout meant and why the really smart money was the 5-2 favorite and not the longshot Truman was about to throw his money away on.  When they go to the concession stand you could imagine Nixon whispering to Truman, "I'm not saying we should, because it would be wrong, very wrong.  But I know this fellow Liddy who could make the whole thing look like an accident."

John F. Kennedy and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.  Trouble.

Bill Clinton and the Laker Girls.  Bigger trouble.

Grover Cleveland and the Alabama cheerleaders.  Instant paternity suit.

Reagan would be the great organizer of baseball excursions.  The good natured guy who gets everyone together and sorts out who is going in what car.  Who agrees to let Teddy Roosevelt (who won't ever shut up) ride with him, along with Martin Van Buren (who thinks he invented the infield fly rule), and William Henry Harrison who whines the whole time about the air conditioning being too cold and how he'll catch his death of cold.

You would probably want to be sure and take Andrew Jackson's keys after the game.  Millard Fillmore would agree with everyone on everything, and still nobody would like him.  Ike and Gerald Ford would sit in the back talking about their playing days while Bush (43) kept asking his dad, Bush (41) "are we there yet, are we there yet?"

Barack Obama?  He'd end up paying for the parking every time. 

The new guy always pays.

"Fans, for the past two months you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at those grand suckers. Which of you wouldn't consider it the luckiest break of your life just to laugh your back pocket off at them every day?

Sure I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known George Washington.  One hundred sixty-two million, two hundred fifty-eight thousand, two hundred and sixty-nine times.  To have spent years ignoring some of the finest managers in the game.  Then to have come to Los Angeles and make a complete sucker out of that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe Torre?

Sure I'm lucky. When the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team you would give your right arm to play for, holds a place for you for fifty games-- that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you and stay out of your way -- that's something. When you have wonderful clubhouse managers who flinch when your name is mentioned-- that's something. When you have an agent like Scott Boras who can wring every last dime out of these teams -- it's a blessing. When you have little guys like Juan Pierre who play the best ball of their career and then go back to the bench when you come back -- that's the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I’m still Manny being Manny.  And there is nothing you can do about it."