Lovely Impression on Valentine's Day

Bobby Valentine got nostalgic. He sat with journalists Thursday inside Progressive Field and reminisced about the glory days of Cleveland baseball. Valentine remembered those days, as does any person who calls himself an Indians fan.

He relished an opportunity to bring those days back. That was the reason he was in Cleveland talking baseball. He was making a case to GM Mark Shapiro to hire him as the next manager of the Indians.

“I had a great day – a great day,” Valentine said. “I talked to baseball people – talked baseball. I couldn’t be happier with that.”

(Continue to Justice Is Served)

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?

(Continue to Justice Is Served)

Tigers vs. Indians: Now It's a Sprint

This series begins what will be a particularly brutal month for us Tigers fans. Detroit is a pedestrian 27-20 against division opponents, one game worse than Minnesota. Twenty five of the remaining 32 games this season are against divisional foes.

The good news is that the Tigers finish the year with seven games at home against the Twins and White Sox. The bad news is that they must play nine straight roads games before the last week of the season.

(Continue to Michigan and Trumbull)