Is Tribe Prepping for 2011 or '12?

Come mid-October, you won’t hear general manager Mark Shapiro talk about how well the Indians played the final month of the '09 season. For Shapiro will have bigger issues ahead to confront than trying to put a smiley face on the dismal past: He needs a new manager.

In a decision Wednesday that surprised nobody, he didn't dismiss or release or bid adieu to manager Eric Wedge; no, Shapiro fired Wedge. No reason to use euphemisms here to soften it, because Shapiro just did what he should have done awhile ago.

With the Wedge era closed, the cliches about "lessons learned" can follow him out the clubhouse door. Who wants to hear those words anymore? Besides, what lessons do players learn from loss after loss?

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