Tribe's Tribulations

Player	Position	Precomeback Team, Year	Comeback Team, Year
DANNY BOONE	P	Astros, 1982	Orioles, 1990
JIM BOUTON	P	Astros, 1970	Braves, 1978
TOM BUBGESS	1B	Cardinals, 1954	Angels, 1962
WARREN CROMARTIE	OF	Expos, 1983	Royals, 1991
MILT RAMIREZ	SS	Cardinals, 1971	A's, 1979
VICENTE ROMO	P	Padres, 1974	Dodgers, 1982
Source: Elias Sports Bureau

If only the Indians were half as good as White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf thinks they are. With Chicago trailing Cleveland by just 3½ games at the July 31 trade deadline, Reinsdorf broke up his team in a trade with the Giants, secure in the knowledge that the Sox couldn't catch the Indians, who seemed to him a reincarnation of the '27 Yankees. Since then, mighty Cleveland has won just nine of its 18 games and at week's end led the decimated White Sox by only five games. (The second-place Brewers were only 4½ back.) "We're inviting everyone to stay in the pennant race in our division, and that's embarrassing," says Indians catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. "We're definitely a team paddling through a storm, and that storm has lasted much longer than anybody expected."

It would be easy to blame injuries for Cleveland's inconsistency. Through Sunday the Indians had lost players to the disabled list for 514 games, and manager Mike Hargrove had been forced to use 13 starting pitchers. But the truth is that sloppy fundamentals have hurt the club more. A power-hitting team not built to scratch out runs, Cleveland has bungled its situational hitting, failing regularly to advance runners from second to third base with nobody out and from third to home with less than two outs. To make matters worse, the Indians recently had 11 runners thrown out on the base paths—not including steal attempts—in 20 games.

At times the team has looked just plain clueless. In the eighth inning of a blowout loss to Detroit last week, Indians outfielder Manny Ramirez advanced from first to second base on catcher's indifference, then began walking back to first and was tagged out. Ramirez explained later that he thought the batter, Jim Thome, had fouled off the pitch, even though Thome hadn't even swung. "Sometimes it looks like everything we do is a mistake," Thome says. "Fielding errors, stupid baserunning, no timely hitting."

All those blunders led general manager John Hart to issue a harsh review of his team in late July. "We give away two or three outs on the bases every night, and on defense we give the opposition extra outs," Hart said. "Mental mistakes start with the players, but the manager has the ultimate accountability. This is unacceptable."

It is hard to believe that the Indians are only two years removed from their magical '95 season, when they had a 100-44 record and marched to the World Series. Back then Hart was lauded as a visionary with a blueprint for modern baseball: He signed his young talent to long-term contracts and built a potential dynasty. Then, in a span of nine months beginning last July, Cleveland lost three key players. Hart traded second baseman Carlos Baerga, lost cleanup hitter Albert Belle to free agency and dealt leadoff man Kenny Lofton for fear that Lofton would follow in Belle's footsteps. So much for the best-laid plans.

Hart has plugged the holes by adding third baseman Matt Williams and outfielders David Justice and Marquis Grissom. and he bolstered his injury-riddled pitching staff with the acquisition of John Smiley and Jeff Juden at the trade deadline. But the '97 Indians have yet to jell. "We're the victims of baseball in the '90s, so we've had to rebuild on the fly, and we're adjusting," Hart says. "I guess the feeling around the league is that we're beatable, that we can't bludgeon teams like we once did, but we're still a formidable bunch."

There is no sign of panic on the team, though a couple of weeks ago Williams jokingly suggested that the Indians sacrifice a live chicken in the clubhouse to exorcise the demons causing their slump. "We know we have to start playing the last three innings with more authority," says shortstop Omar Vizquel. "This team used to have a killer instinct, and now it's like we have to learn how to win close games again."

At week's end the Indians had won five of their last seven games, and they were looking ahead to seven critical games against Belle and the White Sox in September. Cleveland is rallying around a theory voiced by reliever Paul Assenmacher, who's a hockey fan. He thinks the Indians can follow the path of the Stanley Cup champion Red Wings, who finally discovered that the best time to peak is in the postseason. "In '95 and '96 we won more games than anybody in the regular season, but we couldn't get a championship ring," Hargrove says. "This year our goal is to be the best team in October."

A Long Road Back

The Brewers, trailing the Indians by 4½ games, acquired veteran southpaw Mark Davis last week to strengthen their bullpen for the stretch. That capped a remarkable comeback for Davis, 36, who hadn't pitched in a big league game in more than three seasons and had undergone surgery on his pitching arm twice in the past two years. "Getting back to the big leagues wasn't probable," Davis says, "so I'm going to savor it."