The Daily Take: Indians 3-4 on road trip, Hall of Fame Speeches

The Bad News:  The Indians went 3-4 on their recent road trip and lowered their record to .500
The Good News: The Indians took 3 out of 7 against 2 division leaders on the road

Its all about perspective.  While the Indians had a bad road trip, they had a good one at the same time.  It was ugly and heartbreaking for fans, but 3-4 is not a bad result considering they played the Rangers and the Red Sox.  It hurts a lot more because the Indians were in all the games and the starting pitching and defense was enough to win each game.  Unfortunately, games are 9 innings.

Its the 7th inning or alter that the Indians were losing their games.  The starters had their ups and downs, but always seemed to have the lead no matter how well they pitched.  Tomlin had a so-so start against Boston and Ubaldo was a bit rocky his first time out but in all the outings, the game was either tied or the Indians were leading when the starters left.  It should be obvious then why a team would finish 3-4: the bullpen.  While individual players did not play flat out awful (Pestano and Tony Sipp were decent), as a whole the bullpen was just dreadful and had an ERA 6.53.  The bullpen is still one of the better bullpens in the league, but they need to bounce back.

The next series for the Indians is key and they could be in some serious trouble if they lose the series.  The Indians do have 3 more series' against the Tigers, but this one may be the biggest one.  The Indians need to make up serious ground and if they lose the series, they would be 57-58 and 5 games back.  The Indians also match their 1-2-3 starters with Detroit's 4-5-1.  If there were ever a chance to make up ground its now, especially since 2 of the 3 series afterwards are in Detroit.  The Indians want to control their own destiny instead of relying on Detroit collapsing.



The NFL Hall of Fame induction ceremony was a couple days ago and I took a few things from it.  First of all, Ed Sabol should have been in the HOF long ago.  Yes, he is not a player but he is one of the top 3 in this induction class in their overall influence on the game of football.  The way we watch the game was changed forever when Sabol founded NFL Films.  NFL Films marked the start of the mythos that surrounds the NFL.

I really did not like Deion Sanders' speech.  It was definitely from the heart, but it missed the mark.  He said that all the stuff he did in his career, he did "for his momma". He dumped water on Tim Mccarver for his momma?  This can set precedent that people can do these actions as long as there is a backing such as "doing it for my momma".  He is an incredible player, but I don't think this had the message he intended

I love Shannon Sharpe's speech, which I thought was right on target. I love the fact that he starts off the speech saying he is the only HOFer who is only the 2nd best player in his family.  You kind of forget, but Sterling Sharpe would have made the hall easily if it had not been for injuries.  While Sanders kinda had the attitude "yeah, its about time I made it", Shannon Sharpe looked legitimately in shock that he was there.  He had a similar message as Deion, except his was much more anecdotal and set up how he wanted to be good so he could give his Grandma everything.