CC Needs to Shut Up

I actually stumbled across this lovely quote by the former ace of the Cleveland Indians staff, CC Sabathia, who has an, um, “interesting” view of recent Tribe history:

"When asked about his history with Lee and the Indians, Sabathia said, “That wasn’t our fault. They traded us. That’s on them.”Sabathia feels the 2007 Indians, who reached the seventh game of the ALCS, had greatness in their future.“If they had kept everybody at least for two more years, I think we had a chance of having a really good team,” said Sabathia. “You look back on Cleveland and the only one that’s left is Jake [Westbrook]. It’s kind of sad to me.“We all came up together. We grew up together. It’s been a tough thing to watch.”-Paul Hoynes, The Plain Dealer"

I suppose I shouldn’t be amazed that Hoynes didn’t immediately question Sabathia’s rather selective memory. Hoynes is just as bitter towards the Indians as anyone, nevermind the only reason he still has a job is because no one cares enough to take Hoynes to task for BS like this.

Anyways, CC was allowed to utter these statements, even though he’s like the main reason that Indians team fell apart. CC’s line in the 2007 playoffs: 8.80 ERA, 2.21 WHIP in 15 1/3 IP over 3 starts. Mind you, the Indians had a 3-1 lead in that ALCS versus Boston, when CC didn’t help win any of the games.

And as Paul Cousineau of the DiaTribe points out, here’s CC’s line in April 2008, when things really came apart for the Tribe: 7.88 ERA, 1.78 WHIP, .911 OPS against in 32 IP over 6 starts. Not exactly ace-like.

Luckily, two writers have already questioned CC’s memory. First, Anthony Castrovince with a brilliant piece yesterday over at Castroturf, and then Cousineau took a swing of his own today at The DiaTribe, with the two pieces pretty much hitting on every point I wanted to say. So here’s my statement to Sabathia: You are just as guilty as the Indians management. There are no innocent victims in this sad tale of woe, but given recent developments in Cleveland sports (which you ARE aware of), and given that you called this city your part-time home for seven and a half years, it seems awfully cruel to bring up a past Cleveland sports heartache and pretend like you had no say in the matter, when you unfortunately are a huge part of it. So please CC, just shut up.