Saying Hello
Travis Sawchik has distinguished himself in recent years as one of the sharpest minds in baseball journalism, exhibiting his intelligence not only by way of his work for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review but also with his book Big Data Baseball. He has recently joined FanGraphs. We’re happy to have him.
My wife, two-year-old, and I share the holiday season with our families, alternating Christmas Day between each respective side like a college-football home-and-home series. Christmas was spent with my in-laws in Georgia this year, which meant we visited my parents a week earlier at my childhood home in Concord, Ohio, a suburb east of Cleveland.
There, the unfinished basement remains something of a shrine to the Cleveland Indians, particularly the 1990s-era teams of my youth. There are laminated Cleveland Plain Dealer and Akron Beacon Journal section fronts documenting postseason triumphs adhered to the cinder-block walls. There are autographed items – including signatures from Ruben Amaro and Jerry Dipoto – and a sequence of photos details the rise of Progressive Field from an old market and warehouse district just south of the city center in the early 1990s. The basement is something of an archaeology of fandom. It’s also the only place Mom would allow for such clutter. Though covering the sport as a member of the press diminishes enthusiasm for any one team, I was raised to be a fan of the sport. I still very much am.