They Would Have Built a Statue

4/12/08 Update: Sabathia smoked again by Oakland. Three and a third innings, TWELVE hits, NINE earned runs. His ERA is now 11.57 on the season.

After being touched up by a weak Oakland lineup for four runs, six hits, and four walks in 5 1/3 innings yesterday, Tribe ace and reigning AL Cy Young winner C.C. Sabathia is 0-1 with a 7.59 ERA after his first two starts this season. We believe that this slow start is substantially a result of Sabathia’s inner conflict over his impending decision to either remain an Indian, or leave Cleveland to take more money to pitch elsewhere. We expect more of the same from C.C. this season until this inner conflict is resolved.

We hope that C.C. has the chance to speak with his old teammate Jim Thome about this decision, as Thome was the last Indians superstar who was confronted with the same choice. Sabathia might take note of how comfortable Thome looked back in Cleveland when he took him deep twice on opening day at Progressive Field. Thome decided to leave Cleveland for Philadelphia in 2002 for what amounted to a difference of a few million dollars. At the time, Thome was the Tribe’s all time home run leader, and one of the most beloved Cleveland Indians in the team’s history. Thome broke down in tears at the press conference where he announced his decision to leave Cleveland. His decision broke the hearts of Indians fans everywhere.

Things didn’t exactly work out for Thome in Philadelphia, and he was traded to the Chicago White Sox in 2006. Thome is probably the best hitter on a mediocre Sox team, but he has not been, and odds are that he will never be, embraced by the city of Chicago as a hero the way he was here in Cleveland.

We don’t think it’s stretch to say that Thome would make a different decision today if he could do it over again. We know that he still lives in Northeast Ohio. He and his wife liked the area so much that they have decided to raise their children here. It might have been more fun to raise them in an area where their father was the most beloved player in Cleveland baseball history. We have to wonder whether that’s not worth the difference between $85 and $80 million alone. We also have to wonder what Thome would have meant to the Tribe’s playoff run last year. Regardless of the answer to that question, we know that Thome would have rather been playing in the postseason than sitting at home. He will probably feel the same way this fall.

They almost certainly would have built a statue of Thome outside of Progressive Field if he had stayed. Maybe he could have made up the extra millions in endorsements alone, or maybe those millions would be worth it simply to buy the peace of mind that would have come with staying home with the franchise that drafted him and raised him; the peace of mind that would have come with being a legitimate hero to a region of millions of people who are fiercely loyal to their hometown ballplayers; and the motivation that would have come with the chance to bring those people their first championship in 50 or so years. And there’s no telling what it would be worth to actually bring that championship home.

Thome had a chance at all of that, and he sold it for a few million. We have reason to think that it might have been worth a lot more than that. C.C. now has a chance at the same thing, but his opportunity might be worth even more than Thome’s was, given the nucleus of young talent that now surrounds Sabathia on the Indians roster. Could this chance possibly be worth less than going to New York or somewhere else to be a hired gun on a roster full of imported high priced talent? Has any player earned 'all-time great'/'face of the franchise' status on any major league club after being brought in after spending ten years of his career somewhere else? In view of all of this, we enjoyed Thome’s home runs against Sabathia on Opening Day as signifying something more meaningful than the resulting runs on the scoreboard. We can only hope that somewhere inside of him, C.C. was aware of what Thome gave up to leave Cleveland. Of course, C.C. will face tremendous pressure to do the same thing, if not from the MLB players union, then at least from the other teams who will try to lure him away. Whatever C.C. decides to do, we look forward to the day that we in Cleveland have our own Cal Ripken, or Tony Gwynn, or Kirby Puckett, or John Smoltz, or Chipper Jones, or even a Biggio or Bagwell (damn this list is short) who will turn down more money for something less tangible, but seemingly more important.