C.C. Sabathia, once the great hope for the Indians' future, pitches for the Yankees Tuesday night in Progressive Field. Mixed though his reception will be, his return will be a homecoming parade compared to when LeBron James comes back.
CC Sabathia is sympathetic to LeBron James' decision to go to Miami, but Bill Livingston says there's a significant difference in how Sabathia and James left Cleveland.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- CC Sabathia sat in the visitors' clubhouse at Progressive Field Monday afternoon, his baseball cap hanging above him in his locker. He wears the black hat, or at least the navy blue one now, of the New York Yankees.
That other guy who passed through town -- the one who played for the Cavaliers and wore a Yankees cap when the Indians were playing New York in the playoffs here three years ago -- left too.
It will be harder for LeBron James to come back than it is for Sabathia.
"It definitely helped that I was traded [to Milwaukee in 2008 for the stretch run in the National League]," said Sabathia, who signed a $161 million contract as a free agent with the Yankees after pitching the Brewers into the playoffs.
Whatever the Brewers wanted in '08, he provided -- quality starts, microscopic ERA, 11 wins in 17 starts with four no-decisions, pitching on short rest -- coming up big when they absolutely had to have it. Then he won a World Series in New York and rode through the streets of Manhattan in a victory parade unlike any other in this country. This season, he is 13-3 and contending to win the Cy Young Award for the second time.
The fifth-game loss to Boston by Sabathia, the Cy Young winner in 2007, in that year's league championship series, in a game played in Cleveland, when the Indians had a 3-1 series lead, began a sudden, shocking collapse from which the franchise has yet to recover.
He is not on the hook for the worst Cleveland performance against a Boston team, however. James retired that trophy when he quit on the floor in the fifth game of the playoffs last spring.
So we have come to this: Simple professionalism, no matter how ineffectual it is in defeat, is something to be savored in Cleveland.
Sabathia's failure might have eaten away at him if he had not gotten another chance soon. "I thought about Game 5 from time to time, until I was in the playoffs the next time, for Milwaukee against the Phillies," he said.
The trade of Sabathia for prospects began the dismantling of the Indians. That team of the magical autumn of 2007 is gone, its players as ghostly a presence as fans were in the vacant upper deck of right field Monday.
"I only know three of the guys over there now -- Jake [Westbrook], [Travis] Hafner and [Shin-Soo] Choo. Grady [Sizemore] is not here because he's hurt," Sabathia said. "It's almost like just another game, pitching here now."
It will not be just another game when James returns.
The Indians players all were traded or left as free agents for more money. James left money on the table and concealed his intentions for so long that, when he did leave, it was like slamming a door on the Cavs' future.
"In that Yankees-Indians series, everybody thought we were going to stay here," said Sabathia. "LeBron wanted to win. He figured playing with D-Wade [Dwyane Wade] and [Chris] Bosh in Miami gave him the best chance. LeBron and Wade made up their minds a long time ago that they wanted to play together."
The culture today is all about instant gratification. James jumped straight from high school to the NBA. He set various age records as the fastest to attain various statistical milestones and the youngest to win various honors.
Baseball, by contrast, is a sport of fine tolerances in victory or defeat. Sabathia spent three years learning his craft in the minors before pitching in Cleveland. In baseball, you learn patience. Even the Yankees, with their huge payroll, had not won a World Series since 2000 until last year.
Fans complain baseball players always give in to avarice in the only major sport without a salary cap. James, by deciding it was too hard to try to win in a lead role here, however, gave in to a contemptible failure in initiative. He was scared to fail, pure and simple.
"He's the fastest, strongest player in the game, but people will put that out there to try to spoil his legacy," Sabathia said, meaning James' jump to a loaded Miami team.
James was already tarnished when he left. But in Miami, unfortunately, the victory could go to the spoiled.