First Entry/Indians, Crushers

And now for something completely different, a sports fan starting his own blog about his thoughts on the sporting world. But you know what? I don't care. I like blogging and I like letting complete strangers know what I think about the situations that take place on the Diamond, Gridiron, Hardwood, Ice or Links.

Since this is my first ever post and it's still relevant, Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking down Hockey's evil empire, a.k.a. the Detroit Red Wings. I can't tell you how much I dislike that team. From their smug fans to their front-running "I don't really follow hockey but the Red Wings are always good so I'll root for them" fans, I just can't stand them. I don't like the city of Detroit much at all and being from Cleveland, you'll just have to be ok with that.

Now that I have that out of the way, let's talk about the National Pastime, Baseball. Baseball is by far my favorite sport and I live and die with my Cleveland Indians. Let's take a look at last night's game against the Pirates. Thank the Lord that the Indians finally got off the snide and held on, white knuckles and all, to get the victory. David Huff is looking great, throwing 8 scoreless innings and giving up just 4 hits. Once our rotation is healthy and Aaron Laffey gets off the DL, I think we might be able to pull out some games and maybe fight back to .500...but I'm getting ahead of myself because we have a bullpen...ugh. Tribe up 5-0 heading to the bottom of the ninth = Tribe winning 5-4. I do not blame Eric Wedge one bit for going to the bullpen with a young lefty having thrown 110+ pitches, but I still think the man needs to be fired. Do you really expect your most consistent bullpen guy (40 year-old Matt Herges) to keep going at the pace he's on? Where's Jensen Lewis in that situation? Where is anyone else in that situation? I don't have all the answers but there HAS to be someone out there better suited to run the Indians clubhouse than Eric Wedge. Every time they take 3 or 4 steps forward, they take 7 back and that just doesn't work in Baseball.

Enough ranting about my Tribe. I love them and I will never leave them. Let's talk Minor League Baseball, more specifically, the Frontier League. I live in Elyria, Ohio and a new team moved into Avon, Ohio called the Lake Erie Crushers. I absolutely love having cheap baseball in my backyard. I've been to 4 games this season, including their season opener. Last night, they took on the Division leading Kalamazoo Kings and took them down hard, by a 19-5 score. Their staff Ace, Paul Fagan, pitched last night and gave up 2 runs in 6 innings. I've seen him pitch a couple times now and the kid has some good stuff. In the last 2 nights, the Crushers have outscored the Kings 32-6.

Well, I think that's a good First blog...what do you think? Let me know! If you have any comments or anything to add, e-mail me at mgvanwormer@gmail.com!