MLB The Dynasty That Almost Was (1990's Indians)

welcome to mlb network presents as epic as the 2016 world series was and as cathartic as it was for chicago cub fans there was another side of the story namely the excruciating ending for the cleveland indians the indians now have been without a championship longer than any franchise in the game still the long wait doesn't mean they haven't come close and in the 1990s they came very close with a tremendous collection of talent that indian fans adored even now looking back in some ways for the folks in cleveland it almost feels like they did win it all almost this is just a tremendous sight out here listen to this crap this is this is a this is an unbelievable moment it's a victory lap cleveland style 50 000 people showed up that day in 1995. look at that raising their arms up in the air they know it they know these people love them 50 000 people who lined the streets for a parade to celebrate a baseball team one of the most talented hitting teams ever put together you got to be watching this and i tell you your heart's probably in your stomach too cleveland shut down that day the whole city screaming for the players like they were rock stars [Music] today we celebrate the most spectacular baseball team that cleveland has ever put on the field now imagine something else imagine what it would have looked like if the indians had actually won the world series this is the baseball city of the 90s ain't gonna wait another 40 years i can tell you that we're coming back here again next year [Music] hello again everybody harry doyle here welcoming all you friends of the feather to another season of indians baseball you know it's funny i've been on the job two weeks and they've got this movie major league coming and i said hey what is that and so i went down to the premiere you know i'm going all right this is piling 1. listen to the roar of the crowd as the indians take the field [Applause] [Music] so yeah maybe it wasn't the best timing when john hart joined the cleveland indians front office in 1989. with our movie major league the biggest hit the team had had in years you know here we are coming in and you know taking over this franchise here i got to sit through this two-hour movie what team do you play for jay the indians i didn't know they still had a team i laughed along with it but inside i was like really i mean this is what we're gonna have to go through but the hard truth was that hollywood had gotten it right the indians hadn't made the postseason since 1954 and hadn't exactly come close either a moving major league was literally the only time in a lot of people's lives the indians ever won when they're making movies about you that's not a good thing the teams were terrible you never expected anything good to happen if they finished 500 that was a plus this could be the big year this is a sleeping job i think the ball club has a lot of potential the indians turn the corner it's not an 86th indian summer and this is gonna happen the team is on fire indian fever is taking the test you know but that that season you know fell flat the cleveland indians looked to put seasons of frustrations behind in 87 sports illustrated had picked them to win the world series [Music] and they go on and lose 100 games it was you know it's just that kind of thing they always had a financial crunch you know the toilets were overflowing at the old stadium there was mice running around the press box there was nobody at the ballpark a couple times we play in the old municipal stadium we got i think 300 people in this tank 300 people in the ballpark will take 85 000. you kidding me the joke used to be you know somebody would call the ticket office and say hey what time's tonight's game and the answer would be when can you get here you know when i told my friends i that i got my first job in baseball from the cleveland indians it was like cleveland really and my dad turned to me and said are you sure this is what you want so maybe cleveland didn't look like a place anyone in baseball wanted to be but there was one ray of hope in the late 80s a new owner named dick jacobs who bought the club with the novel idea of putting together a winner what dick jacobs made a career doing was he would say buying distressed properties well he found one in the cleveland indians jacob's brought in hank peters a veteran baseball man to run his front office and peter's first two hires were 40 year old hart and 29 year old dan o'dowd it was rather depressing walking into those offices and recognizing the challenges that we had in front of us we were trying to build something in cleveland a team that had lost its fan base we looked at it and said hey we're starting with a blank slate you know games about the players let's get the players let's put the right people in place as much as we looked around at an empty stadium and not a lot of hope we did we had hope we believed that you know we could make this thing work when john hart came in one of the scouts scouted the whole farm system and said you got one player albert bell a lot of people were comparing me to the guy major league i'm doing the voodoo who couldn't hit the uh the breaking ball i do it myself back then albert was joey he wasn't albert and he was combustible he was an extremely talented player with absolutely no filter of emotional control whatsoever he's known for his temper he could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears he fought coaches he threw it he fought teammates albert bell was a man at war with himself he had some issues for not hustling i remember one time vividly i flew into kinston north carolina and i sat before the game with him and i said albert you know if you don't hustle while i'm here i'm gonna send you home first hit bat popped up didn't run out next at bat did the same thing didn't run out and looked at me in the stands got the first base and walked himself all the way just walked across the field like during the game walked right across the field and walked to the clubhouse and i see a cat pull up and he got in the car and went home hank peter said you need to consider releasing him i looked at him and i chuckled and i said since it's my decision i don't think we're going to let him go and he laughed at me and goes why would you want to put up with this and i said simply because he's the only really talented player we got in the entire system at that time the club only had one star at the major league level two outfielder joe carter but after the 89 season john hart traded him to san diego for a package of young players including a top catching prospect sandy alamar jr and an infielder hardly anyone had heard of this carlos by earth you look at pictures it looks like this little penguin you know kind of like shirt like this this guy hit well straight away center well he gets in here he's starting at 320. the indians had served notice their front office was no laughing stock and that same year they drafted an unheralded community college player from peoria illinois in the 13th round my name is pronounced jim tomy a lot of people pronounce it thom fomey tomei it's pronounced tone me like in toe and me you know he was playing third base at the time and he wasn't exactly you know dancing with the stars over third base he was a little you know he wasn't he wasn't that good at third base but he tried hard i remember spring training we were playing cincinnati and jim bowden was sitting behind me and you know two hopper to tommy clang off the glove next when he finally gets a glove on he launches it in the first base and i remember bowdoin lean over and he said that's your first mistake he said that's the mistake right there and i went we'll see we'll see two years later the work continued when they drafted an eccentric teenager from washington heights new york in the first round our scouting director at the time named mickey white walked in and saw manny play in new york city and said i had visions of roberto clemente when i see the guy play i never gonna forget about the first day that we saw him you know hitting in the batting cages danny ramirez the rising star from washington heights he comes out and he starts taking bp and he you know like he's just kind of pushing the ball out the right field looping balls down the right field line and i think we all kind of looked at each other like you know like is this our number one draft and i said i better get over and start working with that kid and then all of a sudden the game like turned on he started hitting the ball out of the ball bar we say wow he hit like three home runs and a double header it was impressive i said no i don't think i'm going to touch you [Laughter] after the 91 season the indians took another chance going after an outfield prospect better known for his talents in another arena john hart traded for a basketball player kenny played basketball with steve kerr and sean elliott arizona i mean he was a good player he had to teach himself how to play baseball and two years later heart struck again bouncing ball up the middle diving stop throwing it out there what a play of his cow you know i'd watched omar over in seattle and i said that is our missing piece that's the shortstop that is going to add flare and verve to this ball club i met with edgar martinez who had played third base when i was managing a double a i'd known edgar for a long time and so i kind of you know kind of fishing a little bit i said you're gonna tell me a little bit about jay buener oh john he's a good player tell me about griffey oh this guy's amazing i said how about the shortstop uh what's his name fiskell and he goes oh this guy's gonna be exceptional he's a winner great defense and he's going to hit and then that night i picked the phone up and made the trade for omar and the next day it was a little tough around the ballpark with edgar he didn't want to talk to me he wasn't real happy by 1993 just four years after major league had turned the indians into a subject of humor the team's roster had albert bell sandy alomar junior carlos ballerga jim tomy manny ramirez omar vizquel and kenny lofton even though those were dark days and that that old cleveland municipal stadium was cavernous and empty most the time we had a ton of young talent so i think we knew that we had a chance to be really good our ball club projects to have an impact player at every position you know as much as we tried to go out and sing the song it fell on deaf ears i mean i felt like the old politician going around with the megaphone saying you know come on this is going to work you know there wasn't a lot of hope there in cleveland it was always that that angst that what's going to go wrong next what's the next big misfortune the 1964 browns were the last ones to win a title so the landscape by the early 90s was one of desperation it was a tough time to be you know a cleveland fan because nothing was going to go your way and your teams weren't going to win cleveland sports for some people was shakespearean tragedy and it was going to come with a name usually one word the drive the shot the fumble [Music] i'll tell you i lost it ernest beiner falls at his knees at the goal line i was sobbing amidst the tears i remember telling my mother unequivocally i will play on the first cleveland team that wins the championship in the winter of 1993 the cleveland indians found themselves in strange new territory they had a roster loaded with young talent and after years of playing at frugal we're ready to go after some big names in free agency when john hart called a press conference and we heard he was signing eddie murray and dennis martinez this was a shock hi everybody i knew dennis i knew eddie i knew what those players thought of cleveland well at this point in my age you know it doesn't matter where but uh you know i i think guys it's going to be a real great place to be again all i can say is we got some nuts and we got some semi nuts and then we got some laid-back people here and really it could really make for a pretty good mixture here and the indians weren't just getting new players in 1994 they were also getting a new ballpark for 61 years the club's home had been cavernous charmless municipal stadium where we filmed major league now they would be moving into brand new jacobs field on opening day it was so beautiful it was like you know walking into disneyland the car's beautiful it's great i mean i don't know it's hard to believe it's in cleveland for the first time in jake's field your 1994 cleveland indian that was the first time that we see a ballpark pack backpack it's like when you in christmas you get a gift that was a gift for us please welcome legend bob beller for the first time i think this city was like this is what a baseball park is supposed to look like finally this beautiful new ballpark was going to open and i looked at the schedule and i went to seattle randy johnson here he goes randy johnson randy johnson is the man of the hour here in cleveland his stuff that day was like stupid electric [Applause] breaking ball over for strike three no pitcher in the history of the game's ever thrown on opening day no hitter except bob feller and he sure as heck didn't want randy johnson joining him the indians are gone here in the fifth bob you know god bless his soul he's sitting up in a press box you could tell he was it was killing him inside randy johnson can he join this man i can see bob to this day pacing up and down the hallway like an expectant father in the hospital i thought bob was gonna go down and get a bat himself he was dealing he was dealing for eight innings and i happened to head a ball to right field got a base there it is then the team kind of reacted [Applause] to i think the fact that we came back and won that game i think it set a mindset of resiliency here was this this great town and then you add something new and it's like the old cliche if you build it they were coming to what they did [Applause] we were winning we were off and we were playing good after 40 plus years of losing people were interested people were excited this is amazing look at this crowd we were getting 38 000 on weekday nights in april and may in cleveland and that's unheard of to win the ball game people were energized from the first pitch to the last pitch and every time we won we're in the streets celebrating honking horns it was a city falling in love with the team but while the indians were the biggest story in cleveland they were barely a blip on the national baseball radar at least until albert bell got everyone's attention doesn't like what he saw at the end of that event somebody tipped off the white sox obviously that albert was doing something with his bath so they confiscate the bat umpire's put in the room there's a good guy to give it to oh many take care of it i'll tell you that right now that will not get out of his hands when anything was over i asked him i said that bad cork and he looked at me real funny and he didn't say nothing i go oh okay as that was going on we were in the game so you you know you're like hearing all this stuff all of a sudden they say well we're all right what are you talking about it's all right you know we got the backpack how the heck y'all get the backpack jason grimsley goes through the ceiling tiles it's like he's a ninja you know carl and grimsley was crazy anyway so he was like he climbs through the ceiling dropped in and and grabbed albert's bat but he didn't put another albert bell bat in there he left a paul sorrento man so you know you didn't have to exactly be colombo to figure out that something just happened and the only thing we could figure out is all albert's bats must have been court bell was ultimately suspended for seven games but the tale of albert's court bat wasn't the only colorful story coming out of cleveland with a rookie right fielder attracting some attention of his own i can tell you a lot of stories about manny he i mean some good ones really i was actually on rehab assignment in aaa when o.j simpson had the white bronco chase and all that manny thought it was me my last name is oj but not o.j so he thought he thought it was me i don't know it's because your name was o.j he thought you were in the bronco yes he thought i was in the bronco he thought i had killed my wife back up we're in kansas city one day manny says me and julia and tavares want to buy two motorcycles can you lend us like 14 grand that's that's what we need and they said i'd gone to john hart but but he won't loan me he won't give us an advance on our salary and i'm looking at i'm looking at manny like if he's kidding me or not manny you know how much reporters make don't you the tribe's eclectic mix of personalities was matched by its talent with the club in the playoff hunt in mid-august and their fans primed for their first pennant chase since the mid-50s we were 14 and 17 after the first 31 games that year and then we went 52-30. [Applause] we were a team that was really starting to put it together there in august [Applause] it looked like a whole new ball game for the indians at least until the bad luck struck again august 12th baseball went on strike a few weeks later it was official the season was canceled when the strike hit it was almost like a shock to us like why did this have to happen now even though i think the white sox was ahead of us at that time they had no chance we say no way we are going to the playoff for the first time it was like beyond belief it was like you know this really cannot be happening here in cleveland they are talking about that black cloud that seems to follow the cleveland indians everywhere it just kind of fed into oh are we going to have another one-word name for this season sure enough the strike [Music] in april 1995 nine months after the strike wiped out the cleveland indians best season in more than four decades baseball returned to jacob's field [Applause] and his other city struggled to win back their disheartened fans clevelanders packed their ballpark to capacity to see baseball here at jacobs field and tonight they see a winner this is what the city had been waiting for the young indians were all grown up they were dangerous and everyone knew it to say the 95 indians had a swagger doesn't do swagger justice how many always say you're not cocky you're just convinced that you can get the job done and i think that's was our attitude we had our music going i remember that that song that they got at the time this is how we do it this is how we do it once again a home plate celebration every time before the game and after the game we just put the music and everybody got loud you know and pop it up and say we're gonna get it [Music] it's friday night [Music] cleveland loved that 95 club because finally cleveland was the big bad bully kicking sand in somebody else's face it was murders rose lineup man it was it was top to bottom kenny lofton and albert bell and manny ramirez paul sorrento and jim tomy these guys had so much fun they didn't just like to score or run here or chip away they like to bludgeon people whenever you'd go out and have a drink with another pitcher they were like man i really don't want to face y'all they would always come up with some lame injury the reason that i signed with cleveland is they were averaging seven and a half runs a game and i thought my abilities are starting to go down seven and a half runs i can wait around for that w every time we step in the field we want the people know the world know that we are the man ho-hum we're up three to nothing i remember jim tommy one of the nicest guys on his team bat flipping when jimmy starts doing that this this is now infectious that's just the way we do it i guess the indians unstoppable offense rendered the long-shot hopes of a pennant race all but moot by the all-star break the tribe had a 12-game lead in their division every home game from mid-june on was sold out and albert bell whose attitude had nearly got him released a few years earlier was so popular that he had his own candy bar that's one of the reasons why we're in first you know we're eating a lot of candy bars i had a full head of hair before i ate my love at age 28 bell was having his best season yet on his way to the only 50 double 50 home run season in big league history with albert we can really make a book about you know albert was a really strong personality he had a game when he was four for four and uh he popped out on his feet the bat and he was really mad and when we came to eat he turned the table around because he was he was mad he break all the plates and it was food all over the place i heard from a lot of people too that he was crazy superstitious pretty superstitious i don't like nobody to sit in his chair and we find our reporter was sitting in his chair and he don't even like that reporter and yesterday what are you doing get out of here get out of here now that night he got two more wrong it's gone so the next day we're coming back from the body practice the guy is way out because he don't want to get near albert he said hey what are you doing coming down sit down relax i said oh now you want him because you got you hit pretty good yesterday so that's how he is he was super tedious with bell anchoring a lineup that led the majors in nearly every offensive category and dennis martinez oral herscheiser charles naggy enclosure jose mesa leading a staff with the best team era in the american league the indians went an incredible 144 in the strike shortened regular season if they deployed 18 more games they very well could have set the all-time record for wins and on september 8th yet another sellout crowd at jacobs field witnessed a moment that hadn't come to cleveland in and this generations of dreams has become a reality cleveland you will have an october to remember i'm going to tell you a story that i think probably sums it up as much as anything in 92 or 93 this man came up to me he said when i was seven or eight years old i used to go with my dad to the indians games the bond that dad and i had was just something that i'll never forget and i would like to have that bond and that experience with my son when he gets old enough to understand we win yeah this is how we do it on friday night in 1995 when jim tommy caught that foul ball my first thought was we've just erased 40 years of suffering in cleveland my second thought was i hope that guy is here with his son [Music] when that air gets cool and the shadows get long and they're hanging to bunting out in cleveland pretty special it was october of 1995 and for the first time in 41 years there was season baseball in cleveland we're starting [Applause] showtime in cleveland ohio during the indians blistering regular season run no team had any answer for their devastating lineup game one of the al division series the red sox would leave no stone unturned in trying here's a smash to deep left this ball game is tied they have taken albert bell's back you remember he was suspended after a court bat incident last year he was saying that he was using a quarterback and he said no no no i got power to do it that was maybe a little bit of that swagger we kind of all fed off of albert and i think that all pumped us up when he did that two out of the last the 13th three and out of pena now either he didn't see the take sign or ignore the take side but he wasn't supposed to swing at the pitch sends everybody home and i always thought that represented subway that team too because it was just like tony painting oh shoot i'll just hit it out like everybody else boston would never recover from that game one loss and the indians swept the sox in three games then against randy johnson in seattle in the championship series it was the indians turn to work for an edge we have a meeting you know in the clubhouse and we talk about kenny you have to make things happen when you bother him he go crazy he throw the ball away stuff like that johnson can't get him at first you know i'm always trying to be aggressive lofton goes no play i was on second base omar was hitting i don't think he's gonna you know hit a ball to the wall so if he hits a ball just go straight to the infield i'm gonna try to make sure i score it gets away heading home as a morrow to third as lofton and i just looked up i'm like why is he just standing there i just kept going and now i looked at the dugout and these guys what just happened the cleveland indians after a 41 year wait are in the world series after beating randy johnson we hit the ground in cleveland at about five in the morning and there were ten thousand people players went out they were shaking hands signing autographs it was an awesome awesome time they've been the 10th man all year our fans have been the 10th man we say wow you can't remind you we win no matter what time they got to be here they're going to be thousands of thousand people we are proud of the fans i know they're proud of them so that was the good taste that we have if we win everything it's gonna be crazy they were the toast of the town the one problem was the goal was just to get to the world series that was like their title and i never thought they were fully engaged in the world series like they were the first two rounds this is the way it should be the two best teams in baseball meeting in the world series the cleveland indians and the atlanta braves the braves they were the gold standard you know they were the gold standard so we were playing against mag sklavin you know schmoltz these these guys were among the most special players and obviously in a generation maybe the best picture of his time in the minds of many greg maddox is on the bound tonight game one he pitched masterfully 12 straight set down by the professor i think things started to speed up on us a little bit maybe the stage got us we didn't deliver i was timid i backed down i almost was lost [Applause] i pretty much was the goat of that game oral hercheiser suffers his first ever postseason lost it was such an incredible journey all season long the next thing you know you're in atlanta and you're down 0-2 jeffrey jones calls everybody off and the braves win and it's like holy cow the world series has started just like that the swagger and the arrogance that defined the indians was gone by game five cleveland found itself one loss away from the end of their dream season i got a call about an hour before the game it's tommy lasorda i don't even say hi and he has airing me out he's like you were a chihuahua you were not a bulldog i want to see the bulldog out there tonight and i took the mound with just fire in my eyes bulldog going back to atlanta for a game six and then you get down to atlanta and the joe brinkman game the home plate umpire decided home plate was 26 inches wide not 17. outside outside corner you know i've got to stop guessing with this guy brinkman you can't do it our players kept going the strike zone's too big the strike zone's too big it was pretty big i remember one time i told the empire hey man we i can't hit we can't hit that pitch it's too far outside you know struck him that was a big factor in the series it's not the reason that the braves won the braves won because they played better than we did the team of the 90s has its world championship over the full season there's little doubt the cleveland indians were the best team in baseball but for a week in october the edge belonged to the atlanta braves after losing to atlanta in game six people including they didn't care would they have liked to have won yeah but this wasn't going to be one of those cleveland sports tragedies and to make sure of that the city of cleveland did something unheard of they threw a parade for a team that had just lost the world series you know the next morning everybody suited up we got on floats and we cruised down through downtown cleveland i mean that that makes you feel good you know we gosh what a what a time what a time if you can look out into this ocean of people it's a beautiful beautiful sight you guys are the greatest fans in the world this was a cleveland celebration having a baseball team to be proud of for that year that was enough [Music] i think a lot of us thought we'll win it the next two three years [Music] [Applause] after the 95 season ended it was a big parade in cleveland everywhere they went players told me they'd walk into restaurants and people started giving a standing ovation of course nobody could buy a beer or a meal everything was taken care of now it comes though they want to be paid bell is heading for free agency belt wants to become the highest paid player in baseball kenny lofton heading towards free agency eddie murray's contract is up he wants to be paid the city of cleveland is like eddie murray yeah that's grandpa old guys who've been revived again the 39 year old murray had led the team with a 323 batting average in 95. but john hart's contract offered to murray was for a million dollar pay cut john hart tried to rationalize cutting eddie murray's contract from 3 million to 2 million saying eddie would play some first base but by the end eddie was primarily a dh well you're just a dh so you shouldn't be paid as much we were cleveland i mean we weren't we couldn't just write checks and had a bottomless well out there sometimes all decisions like that are not good decisions sometimes you got to pay someone who's shown you that you can get the job done you know one thing about eddie murray he feels that you've wronged him he's done with you hey will y'all get your hands out the way we trying to hit man back despite the controversy murray did resign and the indians got off to another strong start in 1996 but the conflict would soon come back to haunt the team it's like middle of may and they need a little help at first base and our growth says well eddie i need you to like play first i don't do first base do you remember his this pleasure yeah i do you know we're going to say a whole lot on that because that's you know that's eddie's business by mid-season the indians were pulling away again in the al central but murray was slumping and the organization was nervous about having a disgruntled veteran leader sitting unhappily on the bench we made the decision that it was best for us to move eddie murray off to baltimore and if you will sort of clear the air that had a real negative effect on a lot of players they were unhappy because they didn't think eddie had been treated right and murray wasn't the only indian struggling fan favorite carlos balerga was mired in the worst offensive season of his career it has got very frustrating for a guy who is as popular with his teammates as he is with the fans i don't know that we have ever had a player in cleveland that played the game with more energy more enthusiasm than carlos ballerga what a prize by erica is for the indians and the fans love him here in cleveland but then he wasn't playing very well i came here to spring training and dana started getting more hurt during the season with that one that one hurt carlos was my favorite player you know at the end of it was a tough thing to do but we made the move we traded carlos buyer and it was a hard hard thing to do [Music] it was hard i cried a lot i remember that i was like this is the only place that i know you know i played here for seven years my family was here my kids they born here in cleveland so that really hit me very hard i even said to the gm from the new york mets i said don't make the trade i want to stay here i don't want to go there it was a shock heard around cleveland i remember the day it was announced there was an airplane flying around that said trade hard to keep by erga and it just flew around the stadium all day and i'm like boy i'm telling you i'm wearing this one you're just kind of going what is happening here all of that feel good some of it is gone that confused a lot of us feeling like why are you changing what we have let us go at this run again when you change the complexion of a team other things start to stand out other things like the matter of albert bell [Music] even though his mvp caliber back consistently drove the tribe in 96 the rest of the package had ceased to become a laughing matter albert had some issues in the clubhouse we had to keep worrying about our light fixtures coming down the albert made and out there was a time he got mad at a photographer was taking his picture and started throwing balls at him and hit him in the chest with a ball and another time he thought the temperature was too warm he just busted the thermostat putting a hole in the driveway like that big the bat's sticking straight out of the wall then he runs over vina in milwaukee albert bell lays it on vina that will just add to all of the problems that bell had it was always like darth vader and the cleveland indians and i think they eventually grew tired of that he was in the last year of a deal and you compound that with some of the issues that were beginning to happen [Applause] we just said we'll leave it alone and let albert go ahead and test the free agent market you know he was upset about that but he sucked up hitting home runs after everything else if anything else that just played into his rage there was some trials and tribulations in 96 this season of discontent but we felt that we were a club that was going to go deep into postseason the indians 99 wins were the most in baseball while jacob's field remained packed with the club selling out every home game of the season the cleveland indians clinched the american league central division championship and in their division series cleveland was a decided favorite against old friend eddie murray in the baltimore orioles things went awry quickly boom brady anderson gets a home run right off the bat to start game one one nothing baltimore and that almost was a sign of boy this isn't going to be like it was driven in another run it was hard to watch you know i say man i should be there you know i should be there hitting against baltimore team that i used to hit really good the indians lost those first two games in baltimore and then in cleveland the postseason ended with the whimper strike three the orioles have won the divisional series and this time there'd be no parade downtown i don't think anybody celebrated more than eddie murray did i wish the organization would have tried to give us another shot at it we were right there we was expecting to have the same exact team with a little added to help us not subtract things from us all i ever wanted was a chance to play major league baseball and the indians gave me that opportunity it was unfortunate things can work out and you know i'm just you know moving forward and and i'm looking forward to bigger and better things a little more than a month after the disappointing end to the indians 1996 season albert bell in his divorce from the team official signing the richest contract in baseball history at the time with cleveland's division rivals the chicago white sox we love arbor bell but we couldn't afford him but that was by choice you know that he had a choice albert bell leaves and then the indians are trying to sign kenny lofton he turns down pretty hefty contract so we're in spring training and we were having trouble getting a deal done with kenny and you know i told kenny i said look you know the mo here john hart says that's it i'm not going to be riding on the albert beltran again with kenny he trades loft [Music] wow that was one of the saddest moments for me [Music] i was coming to the clubhouse early that morning and told me i've been traded wow i mean my my heart just dropped to the floor and people were in shock what do you mean kenny got traded there was no rumors whatsoever about kenny lofton being traded none [Music] kenny lofton made it very clear he wanted to go out onto the market and the cleveland indians were not prepared to allow that to happen and we come up with nothing my youngest daughter at that time was eight nine years old kenny was her favorite player and when we traded kenny she didn't talk to me for about four or five days she was ticked and you know i didn't blame her [Music] when he left it was like okay who are we getting but then you get marquis griezmann and you get david justice to like whoa when you see who they got with marquis grissom and david justice i'm not surprised those two guys were two key opponents we had just lost to in 95 we got rid of a winner and got two winners so you know do the math so you go from some of the heroes of 95 often by erica bell murray gone by the opening of 97. [Applause] the new look indians got off to a slow start playing just 500 baseball for the first two months of 97 and then in early june their former star left fielder made his return to cleveland in his new uniform oh boy yeah you knew things were going to be hostile when albert came back yeah they are booming cleveland albert bell is being greeted by some of his fans i just remember all this wind and all this paper money blowing around left field and albert standing there playing and the fans were throwing stuff at him i don't know if there's anybody in cleveland anymore that's got a monopoly game with money that's some big money right there big bucks bell would have the last laugh that day you can't put it on the ball yes going three for five with a home run and three rbis in a white sox win and then albert turned around and flipped everybody off it was like god what is going on here [Music] without belle the indians continued their uneven play deep into the summer hanging on to first place but hardly looking the part of a world series contender that ball club i thought that we struggled to find our identity you know for most of the year things didn't click for us we were in august whenever jim told me his birthday was that's when it was everybody decided that we'd all wear our socks up high and honor jimmy for his birthday you know because jimmy wore his socks up high which not a lot of people did then for my birthday guys ended up pulling their socks up and we won a ball game marquise grissom a grand slam home run and it's 7-3 next thing you know everybody was like hey keep them up and we won another one and we won another one and then all of a sudden we ran with it dave justice comes through [Applause] that for me was the defining moment it was when the ball club kind of came together and found their identity the indians win it 2-1 and the ball club absolutely took off that's when we played some of our best baseball it was the last month of the season ultimately the recipe of big bats doing the big work was familiar and in an ale central with no other teams better than 500 the indians managed to win another division title despite winning just 86 games after winning 100 games in 99 games we eked in the twins have beaten the white sox eliminated them welcome to the american league postseason well i'm glad to be a part of a great team and we got two more hurdles to jump and i think we're going to do fine we want to win the world series plain and simple our goal is to win the world series if it happens that's great if it doesn't it won't be because we didn't give it everything we have [Music] even after a third consecutive division title the indians found themselves in the unfamiliar role of underdogs as the 1997 postseason got underway going into the playoffs you're like well if we couldn't get out of the first round last year this isn't good because now you're playing the yankees they're the defending champs they're loaded so it looked rather ominous but a combination of experience and clutch play help them to throw in the yankees in the alds [Music] and next in the alcs they got their revenge on the orioles that postseason was magical i mean it was magical the whole way through it seemed like it was kind of destiny that we were going to be in the world series because things just kind of went our way the indians were the american league champions for the second time in three years and would face the upstart expansion florida marlins in the world series well we loved our chances we really believed that that was our time and certainly you're not taking the marlins for granted they had a lot of talent a ton of talent the marlins they are the best team money could buy this season you know this seemed like some hired guns and a bunch of assassins coming in and there's no way we're gonna let a team like that you know beat us in our minds we couldn't be denied back and forth in both tight battles and big blowouts the clubs traded wins over the first six games it was every other game lose win lose win lose win yeah you end up three to three game seven tomorrow night [Applause] the indians were now one win away from the club's first title in 49 years and the moment might have meant more to cleveland native brian anderson than anyone else what would uh what would a championship mean to the city of cleveland well we'd probably cure a lot of people's insanity you know because they've been so close with the browns and the indians they you know they were close in 95 and then last year the city's been thirsting for a championship for so long that uh i'm sure if we get one it's probably a good thing we're down here you know the place is going to be crazy things had come full circle to a promise he'd made to his mother while watching ernest biner's infamous fumble we're sitting at brunch before game seven of the world series in 97 mike mom you remember i said i'm gonna play on on the first team that wins a championship i was sobbing i was 15. i hadn't even made the high school team yet which is why when you fast forward 10 years i knew we'd win this 10 years ago remember this is going to happen this is a done deal well got to be a part of that one too not good not good the indians faced a dilemma on the mound in game seven start their struggling ace or a young rookie with a perfect three-and-oh post-season record charlie nagy was supposed to start game seven charlie was struggling a bit in the playoffs the indians had called up this pitcher named jarrett wright at mid-season jared got hot when the game sent the most so much for the nerves for jared wright he is absolutely thriving in this atmosphere so it's like indians are going into game seven mike hargrove is tormented charles nagy may be one of my all-time favorite people i have a huge soft spot for charlie if i made the decision of my heart i would have started charlie but jared wright had pitched really well for us so i felt it was a better fit for jared to start it i wasn't happy about it but you know it's the best decision for the team and the 21 year old right-hander jarrett wright the rookie gets the call they told me hey you're starting game seven and honestly i i didn't get nervous it was like cool let's do this breaking ball got him first strikeout for right we wanted him on the mound you know i mean he was a guy he had electric stuff struck him out with the high fastball he went out and threw the ball great got a couple of runs early and fernandez with a liner in the center for a base head [Applause] now you know it's getting late and the tension is palpable because you realize you're nine outs away eight outs away you have the lead it's a one-run game as we go to the bottom of the line so in the ninth i went up into the clubhouse and when i went up in the clubhouse they were building the stage and they were putting the plastic over the lockers and i remember thinking not yet not yet i decided to go to the bathroom and i saw a bunch of champagne moving from one side to another you know trying to prepare for the celebration i remember being called down and didn't want to leave my seat fought it said hey i'm not going to locker room don't want to go we're not no you've got to go you've got to go major league baseball protocol you go so i went i have to go to the clubhouse to do our post-game interviews and whatnot and i'm in there watching the ninth inning they're stapling up the plastic on the lockers they're wheeling in the world series trophy trophy's in our locker room biggest jinx ever this doesn't feel right it's like we are tempting the baseball gods here i remember hating that feeling i wish i hadn't seen it it was weird just to see that i wish i would never go to the bathroom on that particular evening and see that and then sure enough you know you could just see it unraveling moisture salute led the inning off a little broken back single at the left center field but it got the job done and anytime somebody leads the ending off with a broken back anything it usually doesn't turn out well mesa would strike out bobby bonilla for the first out but then after getting charles johnson to a one-two count the indians couldn't all get on the same page you know we hardly ever called pitches in that game i called fastball in because the two fastballs been away one and two to johnson sometimes the money are too intelligent and caught the pitch from the dog ow and relays the sign to the catcher i just felt like you threw a fastball in charles was out and jose kept shaking it off didn't want it if you never caught the gang on me why are you going to call it again tonight you know what i mean let me pick my game i know how to do it jose shook it off that's him you know he didn't see what he wants to throw through a little slider away that he did a little dinker out the right field [Applause] [Music] this inning just got real complicated because now they got runners on the corners then this guy was a correct counselor he hit the fly both right here and tied the game when they tied the game it felt like we lost it was oh my good god maybe it's because i grew up in cleveland this is eerily familiar and it stinks and boy you've never seen plastic come down faster or trophy get wheeled out of a clubhouse quicker extra innings in game seven [Applause] now it's mixed runnings indians are running out of pictures here comes charlie naggy and from the bullpen i don't know what's the last time charlie pitched in relief you know a hundred years it felt like prior to tonight charles maggie had made 211 big league appearances one of them in relief our bullpen had been gassed charlie really had no business even being in there i mean quite frankly it wasn't his role the marlins come up in the bottom of the 11th yeah i came in and uh bobby boat base hit hard through the middle and then they bunt it uh i caught it almost doubled him off at first base didn't [Music] roller to second uh okay double play right here then you turn around and the ball's rolling in the right field [Music] you know when you got a guy in second base he's like tony fernandez easy ground ball and he built it so you know that'll tell you know everything going right for the money nothing you can do about it you know so then you're like oh then all of a sudden you you got first and third uh then we intentionally walked the bases loaded devon white was up jammed him ground ball the second to fernandez [Applause] start him off with a breaking ball kind of buckled him a little bit a breaking ball is in there came back with it and he just kind of hit one of these knucklers at me it's kind of off the end of the bag it was kind of slow motion that was the slowest that super slow-mo hit that i've ever seen the ball just going over nega's head you can see the ball just barely reaching you know it's kind of floated he didn't hit it all that great but it was hit just right and it kind of tipped off the top of my glove and you know that was the ball game right there [Music] [Applause] have won the world series [Applause] you're thinking this isn't happening and it did the image i have in my head is counsel both arms in the air coming across home plate game over [Music] it was like a knife just went through your heart it was the most the most heartbreaking field ever has a baseball player because we fought so hard that year to get back to the world series and we couldn't finish it when it's somebody shuts the lights off and it's over that trophy's not in your locker room it's hard i've never seen that many tears in a locker room these guys they took it hard this one was ours we had in the ninth we blew it it's over that was an emotional game i got to tell you i mean i don't really look at that game much and i don't really talk about it a whole lot i still to this day haven't watched that tape haven't watched it i had a guy ask me one time the next year in spring training so how long did it take you to get over you know losing the seventh game of the series the way you lost it and i said well just as soon as it happens i'll i'll let you know i had a guy ask me about two months ago said how long it takes you to get over that and i said just soon as it happens i'll let you know so you don't forget one of the people we're obviously trying to get for the show is is albert who declined our request for an interview but in doing so he left me a voicemail with one point that he wanted to go on the record with that i'd love to actually just play for you and get your honest candid response to uh i will give you a quote um if you want to use it my memories of the the great landis team is uh john hart screwed up our dynasty after the 95 season so you can quote me on that all right tank style yeah well uh listen that's uh uh that's always a part of uh uh players mentalities and you know how you go through it uh i think players are entitled certainly to their feelings but you can't make everybody happy we made some some some deals in 96 to move some guys off that actually worked out well and the club continued to play well unfortunately albert wasn't on that 97 team that got to game seven of the world series but it was a you know it was another world series team that was pretty special and it continued right on we kept rolling albert's got a very long grievance list i mean real real one so when he screw up the dynasty i mean i guess he could say they didn't give albert all the money in the world to stay there but that's not why they failed to win more pennants so what did really happen after they came so close in 97 the indians roster was still stacked and the team kept winning their division but they could never get back to the world series i do think you know both john and i have some regrets of never adding that true you know number one starter we had an opportunity to trade for for pedro during that winter of 97-98 asking prices bartolo colon who's a young prospect they didn't know how good he was going to become and jarrod wright you can't trade jared right this guy's 21 years of age he gives up one run in game seven of the world series he looks like the next bob feller we turned the deal down shoot we were still the team to beat we signed robbie alamar going into 98 we brought kenny lofton back i thought we were the best team in baseball at first it looked like hard had pressed the right buttons as the indians won their fourth straight ale central title in 98 but jared wright struggled with injuries and without a true ace the tribe couldn't compete with the powerhouse yankees in the alcs you know hindsight's always 20 20 and jared had some injuries and it sort of derailed his career and obviously we watched pedro just shove it against us every time he went out there most notably 1999 when pedro almost single-handedly eliminated the tribe from the postseason you know we had a 2-0 lead over boston in the first round of the playoffs and got beat the night that pedro came in limping down two games to none the boston red sox storming back they had good teams 98 99 2000 2001 playoff caliber teams never got close to the world series though maybe the era symbolically ended on april 5th 2001 when for the first time in over five years tickets went unsold at jacobs field ending the indians record-setting attendance streak those teams didn't have an image anymore you know they started becoming a different team so new players started taking over and obviously uh uh the years from the 90s were starting to disappear a little bit by 2003 there was only one star left from the indians heyday omar vizkal who'd also become an author publishing a memoir that detailed his years in cleveland i think one thing we've all learned never write a book while you're still playing the game we wanted to put a book out speaking about the experience of the world series and everything and obviously we needed to start in the moment that changed the direction of the game and you know the moment was the ninth inning when jose came uh in the ninth inning and and how jose was a little nervous and i described the moment as as a ghost moment and omar basically insinuated that you know jose was scared the sooner i saw that i said listen if you're going to talk in garbage about me i'm going to try and let you know going to bring up all my of a skill i mean mason was a bad dude man you did not mess with jose and it's up almost by the head of the skill of ducked under it he promised that any time he faced omar vasquel from that point forward he was going to drill him inside almost titfasco again the last time he faced me went up and in and that's that's just bush those two guys were friends they were great friends they sat next to the locker right next to each other i'll tell you what he never missed he dotted him every time mesa pointing his finger at vasquel who's screaming back at him i want him to charge me believe it or not i want him to charge me because he when i got inside we hang i want him to go to the mouth yeah i bet he wanted to yeah but i didn't i didn't let him get out of his way safe to say there's no love lost between jose and omar moby said they're going to spank me for life because you're not going to hit every time i pitch to it he lucky if i saw hanging in dominica me and wanted to talk you know jose grow up on that one so the aftershocks continued for years after but none of it changed the biggest headline the best indians club ever never delivered a world series title to cleveland in 2016 a new indians team came up oh so close once again you know i actually came to game seven last year against the cubs and kind of had a little bit of that heartbreak but um they're gonna get there you know they're going to have their chance they're going to get there and it'd be nice to see them win at one time so they're still waiting and they've been waiting longer than any other team in baseball waiting for a moment that if you remember those 90s teams once felt all but inevitable sometimes i wonder you know maybe i'll wake up one morning we did win it and 20 years later that's still not the case you know we'll always be known as the 90s team but in the same sense we'll always be known as a team that got that close and that that kind of hurts a little bit sometimes but the city still loves you you know they still love the fact that we did what we did [Music] the cleveland indians became part of the fabric of the city instead of something they were embarrassed of i mean they sold out a full season for five straight years that's i mean it's insanity nobody would have ever thought that that could have happened in cleveland i'll tell you you look back and you're darn proud of what our clubs did we was a dominant force at the time we had team spiros teams didn't want to come into cleveland because they knew we were winners if you lived here during then you'll never forget it you'll argue it to your grave that it was the best era of indians baseball i mean you lived and died with that ball club and even now here we are in you know 2017. the city doesn't look animus losers [Applause] this is just a tremendous sight out here just soak it all in right now you know there's no pity party i mean i loved it i had the best years of my life in cleveland it was awesome it was awesome it was the best time of my life my best memory was in cleveland and i wouldn't change it for anything it isn't just that you have to win the world series in a town like cleveland that wasn't close to anything in terms of winning a title those guys gave them a reason to cheer and yes it was tough to see them lose in the world series but those guys delivered

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Id: WTpg4q7AmyU

Length: 68min 25sec (4105 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020