On Wednesday, October 7th, the Cleveland Guardians traveled to Chicago to take on the White Sox for Game 3 of the ALDS. With a win, the White Sox would clinch a Playoff Series at Home for the first time in over 100 years. It would be only their 2nd ALCS appearance in over 100 years. Needless to say, everyone in and around the organization was a little excited; the players, fans, organization, alumni, and the small few who fall into multiple categories. More on that last one in a minute\u2026<\/p>\n
First, a little background on me, in case you\u2019re wondering \u201cwho the hell is this guy?\u201d; I\u2019m Jake, a Cleveland sports fan my entire life. I was born in 1989 at the Jersey Shore, and grew up in the small town of Spring Lake, New Jersey. My Dad is from Youngstown, Ohio, and like what I assumed most Fathers did, passed his morals, religion, good hair and sports fandoms down to me. At a young age, I learned really quickly how much I was gonna live watching and playing sports. Growing up, I thought there was nothing cooler than watching the Cleveland Indians score 1,000 runs with my Dad. And still to this day, there isn\u2019t much that can beat that.<\/p>\n
Since birth, I\u2019ve lived my entire life (outside of a brief D.C. tour for college) 7 hours East of most Cleveland sports fans. Some say it makes me a more dedicated fan since I\u2019m so loyal to a team that I\u2019ve never been physically close to. Others would suggest I don\u2019t get it because I\u2019m not immersed in it every day. There is no right or wrong there; I\u2019m definitely somewhere in the middle. My only claim is that I hate the Yankees more than you ever could.<\/p>\n
This is all to say, while I may not have a 330 or 216 area code, rest assured it kills me just as much when this team fails, we get mistreated by the national media or our Heroes don another team\u2019s uniform.<\/p>\n
To the point- I grew up in the 90\u2019s. And while it was the worst time to be a kid that\u2019s starting to watch football, I was the perfect age to start watching Cleveland baseball. Some of my fondest early memories are my Dad letting me stay up late to watch the Tribe, a team that was very good, quite often. I didn\u2019t realize just how close we were and just how hard it was to get back. But I didn\u2019t care yet, I just loved watching them play. Especially since everyone I knew was a Yankee fan. My team was just as good and I felt special since none of them knew a lick about my team while I knew everything about theirs. Naturally, an early hatred grew from that.<\/p>\n
Those teams featured some great players. All Stars, MVP candidates, Hall of Famers and ultimately, Cleveland Legends. And if you grew up in the 90\u2019s, there was a good chance that until Jose Ramirez came around, your favorite player was Jim Thome. For me, that was certainly the case. Kenny Lofton definitely had some time in there as well, but the more I started playing baseball myself, the more I realized I\u2019m much more \u201cpower hitting first baseman\u201d than I am a \u201cspeedy\u201d anything at all. So yeah, Jim Thome, the Man.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t need to tell you about Jim Thome. 600 Homerun club, all time Cleveland Homerun leader, 13 seasons, 3 time All Star and MVP candidate. He has a statue outside of our stadium and known to be one of the nicest guys in the game (you don\u2019t get the name Gentleman Jim by mistake).<\/p>\n
Jim wasn\u2019t a lifetime Clevelander though. Like many big names before and after him, once Jim hit Free Agency he took off for a more lucrative offer. Considering where he was in his career and where the Tribe were headed at the time of his Free Agency (read; Rebuilding), it didn\u2019t come as much of a surprise that he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies (that did NOT however stop me from crying in front of my friends on the way home from a 7th grade basketball game upon hearing said news). After three years with the Phillies, he was traded to the then defending World Series Champions White Sox, where he spent 4 pretty successful years both on the field and off, slugging against an up and coming and eventually extremely competitive Cleveland Indians team, while also growing his young family. It was there that it really hit home that Jim wasn\u2019t Mr. Cleveland anymore.<\/p>\n
A few years later he would return to Cleveland for a semi-Retirement tour, but upon actually retiring, Thome took a job in the White Sox Front Office, working with Fan outreach, alumni and eventually bigger roles like MLB network analyst, Assistant to the GM and President of the MLB Players Association.<\/p>\n
In other words, for the last 13 years, the White Sox have provided Jim a Career outside of the foul lines that\u2019s been just as long as his run in Cleveland as a player was. During this time, his children have grown up (as White Sox fans) and lived their entire lives in Chicago. And as a Father myself, I can say that that is pretty important. You can see it when Landon, Jim\u2019s son was drafted by the White Sox this past summer. Everyone in his family was overcome with emotion, not just happy for Landon for getting drafted, but for being drafted HIS hometown team, the team he loved growing up. It was an incredible family moment for the Thomes.<\/p>\n
Fast forward back to the American League Divisional Series this past month. Game 3. The White Sox have a chance at clinching something special. They brought out all the stops, including a \u201cBlack out\u201d in the crowd. And when it was game time, and the cameras went searching for everyone\u2019s favorite Chicagoans, there is Jim Thome, he of the 337 Homers in Cleveland that retired his number and gave him a STATUE, wearing all black as the Cleveland Guardians took the field.<\/p>\n
This, upset a LOT of people. Maybe some comments were in jest, but there were calls to tear down the statue, to reissue the jersey number and to ban him from Cleveland all together. And while I was bummed to see him there supporting the White Sox, I thought to myself \u201cwhat else would you expect?\u201d.<\/p>\n
Yes, as a player, he was Cleveland. We\u2019ve covered that. But he hasn\u2019t been a player for quite some time. What he HAS been for the last decade plus is a White Sox (that\u2019s somehow the singular and plural, something I can never wrap my head around). The White Sox are his family\u2019s team, it\u2019s his job, it\u2019s his life now. This isn\u2019t to take away from his time in Cleveland, but it\u2019s his current life, and one that has made him happy. So do you really expect him to show up to work on one of the biggest days of their franchise\u2019s history, and start rooting for the opponent? Was that what people really expect of employees these days? They want the guy nicknamed \u2018Gentleman Jim\u2019 to spit in the face of his boss. Yeah, not gonna happen.<\/p>\n
Look, I don\u2019t like policing fandom. I did when I was younger and that now feels tacky and invasive. I just have a few rules I think all fans should follow.<\/p>\n
Never bother anyone who is minding their own business. And obviously leave kids alone\/follow common decency.You represent the whole fanbase, city and team, for better or for worse, so take responsibility for your words and actions.If you talk the talk you better walk the walk. No one else should have to answer for your stupidity\/audaciousness.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, it\u2019s pretty much all fair game. I root for multiple college football teams and I think my reasons are valid. Have I violated these rules before? Absolutely. Am I proud of it? Absolutely not. I understand that fandom gets the best and worst out of a lot of us and I am no different.<\/p>\n
But here I think people need to use a little common sense. I believe Jim can be respectful of his past as a Cleveland Indian, while also supporting his organization. If we don\u2019t like it, we probably should\u2019ve hired him back in 2013. But alas, not the case.<\/p>\n
So in closing, I\u2019m not gonna tell you how to feel. If you\u2019re angry because the guy you idolized growing up was supporting the White Sox, you have that right. If you don\u2019t think it\u2019s a problem at all, that\u2019s also you\u2019re right. For me, I\u2019m just a little bummed. I freaking loved Jim Thome growing up. I don\u2019t want him supporting them, but at the same time, he\u2019s in their Front Office! He\u2019s been there for a long time, living in Chicago where his kids grew up. The White Sox are his life now, and he\u2019s not the guy to disrespect his bosses like some wanted him to. There is life outside of playing, and we got to see first hand what his is. And as much as I love the Guards and hate the AL Central rivals, I feel like given the situation, I\u2019d do the same as he would. Because to guys like Jim Thome, there might be more to life than the Glory Days. Those will always remain, but in the past. That\u2019s just not who he is anymore. And I think that\u2019s ok.<\/p>\n
So go ahead, call me a fair weather fan or tell me to stay on the East Coast. But I\u2019m with Jim on this one (not as a White Sox fan, just as a guy who puts his family first and worries about baseball, well after). And I\u2019ll be happy to welcome him back to The Jake as a special alumni, because your 9-5 also doesn\u2019t erase those times we had. The two can co-exist.<\/p>\n
And frankly, deep down I\u2019m willing to bet he\u2019s pumped Cleveland pulled off the comeback (ok maybe deep, DEEP down).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday, October 7th, the Cleveland Guardians traveled to Chicago to take on the White Sox for Game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[232686,363,99],"class_list":["post-901347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-cleveland-guardians-analysis","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}