Splitsville

They did what they needed to do, though the path was more than a little rocky. The Indians are coming home for Game 3 of the ALCS with the series tied 1-1.

1. Games 1 and 2 underscored just how difficult it is for a visiting team to win playoff games at Fenway Park. At the moment, it might even trump Yankee Stadium for intimidation factor.

Fenway is one of the smallest ballparks in the Majors, but Boston fans are notoriously loud and crass, and they're practically right on top of you. The opposing right fielder takes his life in his hands when he ventures close to Pesky's Pole to try and yank a fly ball away from the stands. The wall is barely four feet high.

That might have been a factor in why Franklin Gutierrez pulled up instead of diving after a ball in Game 1.

Combine the loud crowd with quirky outfield dimensions, the Green Monster, torrid clutch hitters like David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Mike Lowell, and it's easy to see why the Red Sox have arguably the best homefield advantage in baseball.

2. C.C. Sabathia is probably going to win the AL Cy Young Award if you believe with the pundits on ESPN have to say, but Josh Beckett is the best pitcher in the playoffs right now. He didn't even have his top-notch stuff working in Friday's Game 1, but it was still more than enough to make C.C. melt under pressure.

3. If no one else will say it, then I will: C.C. was pitching scared on Friday. A 6'-7" lefty with a 95-mph fastball and nasty slider shouldn't need to nibble at the corners, but that's exactly what C.C. did, or tried to do. Many of the people who watched the game seemed to think C.C. just didn't have his good command. I saw a pitcher who seldom went inside after hitting Ortiz, apparently terrified of making the mistake that would open the floodgates.

Of course, if you pitch like that, the floodgates will invariably open. That's why C.C. was dispatched after 80 pitches and less than five innings. He was credited with eight runs in Boston's 10-3 shellacking of the Tribe.

4. The Tribe's ALCS pitching MVP so far will surprise you -- nay, utterly shock you. It's Tom Mastny.

After two innings of one-hit relief on Friday, Mastny pitched not-so-arguably the most pivotal inning of relief work in the Tribe's season thus far on Saturday, retiring Ortiz, Ramirez and Lowell in succession to set up the Indians' seven-run outburst in the top of the 11th. This from a guy who surrendered 63 hits and 30 earned runs in 57 2/3 innings of work this year.

After becoming a forgotten man down the stretch, it appears Mastny has rediscovered the formula for bullpen pitching success: throw strikes down in the zone. It's something the rest of the Indians' pitchers should remember.

5. Eric Wedge is sailing through uncharted waters right now. He's never managed in the postseason, so he's going with the formula that got his team here. In other words: Don't expect a lot of adjustments from Wedge, win or lose.

It's an honorable strategy, one that places full faith in the abilities of his players. But Wedge might want to file a little tidbit away for future use: If you have a chance to start your 23-year-old ace at home in Game 3, you take that chance. Sometimes, matching the other team ace-to-ace isn't the best strategy, especially when you're asking your two aces to dive headfirst into their first ALCS at Fenway Park against Beckett and Curt Schilling, two of the best postseason pitchers around.

Sabathia and Fausto Carmona looked overwhelmed and overmatched in the first two games. C.C., a seven-year veteran, has less of an excuse. Carmona, who is for all intents and purposes a rookie, could have been saved for a Game 3 start at Jacobs Field where he probably stood a better chance of staying in control of the situation -- not to mention that fact that he would square off against Daisuke Matsuzaka, also a first-year starter in the Majors.

Carmona can't be protected forever, and sooner or later, he'd need to prove his mettle in a place like Fenway. But when you have the luxury of two aces, I'm in favor of staggering them against the other team's rotation as opposed to a head-on collision in the other team's park.

Of course, I should be the first to admit that I'm second-guessing a manager who has his team in the ALCS, and actually won the game in which Carmona pitched. So maybe I should put a sock in it. But it's something to think about.

6. Trot Nixon is making Mark Shapiro look like a genius at the moment. Last winter, Shapiro signed Nixon weeks after inking David Dellucci to a three-year deal. The Nixon signing didn't make a lot of sense then, and watching him struggle through a .251/3 HR/31 RBI season that featured a terrible .336 slugging percentage did little to shed light on what, exactly, Shapiro saw in him.

On top of that, years of injuries appeared to take their toll on the former stellar defensive right fielder, reducing him to a limping tortoise who was eventually benched in favor of Gutierrez.

But ever since the postseason began, Nixon has been placed back in his comfort zone, right in the middle of the New York-Boston crucible. Sure, there was that embarrassing fielding miscue in Game 3 against the Yankees, but at the plate, Nixon has looked (gasp!) competent again.

The appetizer was the homer and double off Roger Clemens last weekend. Saturday against the Red Sox, he looked like the ultimate fight-fire-with-fire weapon, burning his longtime former team with a gargantuan RBI single to score Grady Sizemore in the 11th, igniting a seven-run rally and propelling the Indians to the win in Boston they so desperately needed.

7. This has been the story of the Indians' lives this season. Teammates picking each other up, sometimes under the least likely of circumstances.

Sabathia and Carmona falter, the bats Travis Hafner and Kenny Lofton go quiet, all hope seems lost. Then the Indians get a boost from Tom Mastny and Trot Nixon in extra innings, in the most inhospitable postseason environment an opposing team can endure -- possibly outside of Yankee Stadium, which Paul Byrd already conquered.

Even when they get blown out in Game 1 and fall behind 6-5 in Game 2, even when their fans want to switch off the TV and not endure another possible dream-shattering Cleveland collapse, this Indians team never stops picking each other up. I don't know how or when this postseason ride is going to end, but from a purely objective standpoint, this has to be one of the toughest, most resilient $60-odd million payroll teams I've seen in a long time.

The best is yet to come

The Indians beat the Yankees. Paul Byrd beat the Yankees. Joe Borowski nailed down a save against the Yankees. Everything we thought could never happened did happen in last night's 6-4 series-clinching win. And now the Indians will play the Red Sox for the American League pennant.

1. I need to get this out of the way first to ESPN's resident overreactor and Cleveland knife-turner Bill Simmons, who predicted a Borowski series-losing meltdown and told us to bet on another "Red Sox-Yankees Armageddon" in the ALCS: Kiss my ass. That is all.

2. Two guys I am really happy for today: Byrd and Borowski. Were there two guys in more pivotal roles that we as a fan base had less confidence in? I know I was basically chalking Game 4 up to a throwaway game, figuring that Eric Wedge was using Byrd as a sacrificial lamb so he could pitch C.C. Sabathia on normal rest in Game 5.

It was a warranted mindset based on Byrd's recent history against the Yankees. But Byrd was baffling Yankee hitters for just about all of his five innings. He had the type of outing Byrd usually has when he's on, allowing the opposition a bunch of hits (eight) but not allowing them to translate into a bunch of runs (two).

Borowski, of course, had to make stomach acid well into our collective esophagus twice, allowing a towering homer to Bobby Abreu, followed by a towering near miss down the right field line off the bat of Jorge Posada. But he induced Derek Jeter to pop up to get that critical first out, and he retired Alex Rodriguez on a fly ball to right for the second out.

He came close to needed every inch of the 6-3 lead he was handed to get the save, but he got it, and in Yankee Stadium in October, beggars can't be choosers.

3. One guy I'm kind of feeling bad for today: Joe Torre. That's right, the manager of the evil, soulless Yankees.

I'm not feeling bad that he lost. I'm feeling bad because it appears the Yankees, and possibly all of New York, are going to dump this third-straight division series loss in his lap. And it might (probably will) cost him his job.

Ever since becoming the Yankees' manager in 1996, Torre has been nothing but class. He's handled the inevitable George Steinbrenner blow-ups, intense media scrutiny and a merry-go-round of a roster by never changing his attitude, and never forgetting his position as the manager of baseball's flagship franchise.

With four World Series titles, he has (or should have) written his name alongside Miller Huggins and Casey Stengel as one of the greatest Yankee managers of all time. But in New York more than any other city, the daily phrase is "What have you done for me lately?" And for Torre, it's been no playoff series wins since 2004 and no World Series appearances since 2003.

The Yankees were an also-ran when Torre took over. He helped restore the Yankees not just to championship status, but to classy winners, the antithesis of the brawling, bickering Yankees of Billy Martin as depicted in "The Bronx is Burning."

Steinbrenner and Yankees GM Brian Cashman deserve most of the blame in New York for handing Torre a pitching staff of aging ex-all stars and expecting him to win with it. But excrement rolls downhill, and it looks like Torre is going to take the fall for the Yankees' roster shortcomings. And I will have an entirely new reason to loathe them.

4. This series win was the best kind: Not only did the Indians win, they beat the team it seemed would pose the worst possible series matchup for them, a team that outscored them 49-17 in a six-game regular season sweep. If the Indians can beat the Yankees, and close them out in Yankee Stadium, they shouldn't have a reason to fear any other team.

5. The Indians now have an all-time winning record against the Yankees in the postseason, both in series (2-1) and games (8-7).

6. Blatant "Good Will Hunting" ripoff follows....

LeBron.... Do you like apples?

Well, the Yankees are going home! How do you like THEM apples?

Now, the difficult part

Yankees 8, Indians 4 ... you didn't think it was all going to be a bed of roses, did you?

1. Sunday's game underscored A) how difficult it is to close the Yankees out in Yankee Stadium and B) the level of dropoff there is going from C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona to the rest of the rotation.

The margin for error Jake Westbrook has to work with is a pinhole compared to the Tribe's dual aces. Westbrook compares to Charles Nagy, who had to live at knees in the strike zone, work the corners and rely on his defense to get outs. Leave the ball up in the zone -- as Westbrook did for one critical four-batter sequence -- and those would-be groundball double plays start getting sprayed all over the yard and outfield seats.

Not that it's entirely Westbrook's fault. Pitching in Yankee Stadium after C.C. and Fausto worked at home is akin to drawing the short straw. The Yankee Mystique is alive and well in the South Bronx. The Yankees find ways to get clutch hits, huge homers and crunch-time pitching in their own ballpark, three factors that were obviously missing for them in the first two games of this series.

2. Eric Wedge is probably going to take a lot of flack for starting Trot Nixon in right field, what with the Tony Fernandez-ing of the three-run double that put the game out of reach and all. But it makes more sense than you might realize. Nixon has had success against Roger Clemens in the past, and in the postseason crucible of Yankee Stadium, why not start a guy who has had more than his share of postseason at-bats versus New York?

It worked on the offensive end as Nixon homered and doubled. But he's very obviously reached the DH-or-bench part of his career.

3. The Indians have a lot of people rooting against them, and not all of them are LeBron James. Broadcast network TBS isn't even pretending to be unbiased. They want the Yankees to storm back and win this series. If the Yankees lose, the majority of the New York market will greet a Cleveland-Boston ALCS with their thumbs, as they use their remotes to switch off their TVs.

The TBS broadcast crew of Chip Caray, Tony Gywnn and Bob Brenly are going to great lengths to make sure Yankee fans see very little difference between a TBS broadcast and a YES Network broadcast. All it took was a single by Alex Rodriguez for Caray to declare "And here come the Yankees!" When A-Rod was erased on a double-play grounder immediately after, the frustration in the TBS booth was palpable.

When Johnny Damon homered to give the Yankees the lead, Craig Sager openly mused if that would be the moment that turned the series around, comparing it to Derek Jeter's famous ball-flip in the 2001 playoffs, igniting a rally from a 2-0 deficit against Oakland.

With the NLCS featuring the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks, TBS, Fox, and above all, Major League Baseball itself, knows that the World Series is almost certainly going to be a ratings anticlimax. The "real" World Series would be a Yankees-Red Sox ALCS for the third time in five years. So, let's be real, no one controlling this series wants the Indians to win.

4. Having said that, if you're looking for a metaphorical digit you can thrust toward the Yankee love-fest on TBS, remember this: At the outset of the series, I said the Indians needed to be up 2-1 after three games in order to have a chance to win. That is exactly where they are.

It doesn't look as good because the most recent game was a come-from-behind Yankee win, and the Indians were the only team with a 2-0 lead that couldn't finish off the sweep. But the Indians still have the trump card of C.C. Sabathia, at home, in Game 5 on normal rest -- unless Wedge caves to pressure and starts C.C. on short rest Monday night, which seems a bit too risky for the normally-conservative Wedge.

5. I'd go so far as to say that Wedge is playing for Game 5. If Paul Byrd can somehow pitch the Indians to a series-clinching win Monday night, great. But Wedge knows the best shot is Wednesday night at Jacobs Field with his No. 1 starter on the mound and the crowd behind him.

It might not be a terribly popular decision with fans to start Byrd, who has a tendency to get hammered by the Yankees. But we might reap the benefits of C.C. on full rest Wednesday.

A close shave

Assorted thoughts on Friday's 2-1, 11-inning, Game 2 win over the Yankees...

1. This is the type of game the Indians would have lost in August. Utterly stymied by Andy Pettitte, who wriggled off the hook time and time again, Indian hitters began pressing, expanding the strike zone and getting themselves out. I thought the Yankees would inevitably pull the game out after Grady Sizemore tripled to lead off the sixth inning, and was left stranded after Asdrubal Cabrera grounded out, and Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez struck out.

2. The offense did everything in its power to lose this game. The credit for the win goes almost entirely to two men -- or maybe boys who became men last night: Fausto Carmona and Rafael Perez. Carmona was simply amazing in holding the Yankees to one run on three hits in nine innings -- and one of those hits came on an infield single as Bobby Abreu beat out a slow-arriving Jhonny Peralta throw from short.

C.C. Sabathia battled through five innings Thursday night in his own amazing effort. Carmona, however, almost made it look easy. Perez relieved to start the 10th, and faced the minimum in his perfect two innings of work, though Jorge Posada provided a heart-in-mouth moment as he flied out to the wall in right in the 10th.

All told, Sabathia and Carmona looked every bit like the best one-two pitching punch in this year's playoffs. They are the primary reasons the Indians are a win away from their first ALCS trip in nine years.

3. One of the best parts about Friday's game? The Indians used only two pitchers, while the Joe Torre pretty much had to fire all of his bullpen bullets in the span of four innings. Joba Chamberlain allowed the tying run to score when Sizemore scampered home on a potentially bug-induced wild pitch in the eighth inning. The way Tribe pitchers were hurling, the tying run was all the offense needed to weather two innings of Mariano Rivera before breaking through against Luis Vizcaino for the winning run in the 11th.

Saturday's off day allowed both managers more leeway with regard to using pitchers, but if Torre was using Rivera in a non-save situation on the road for two innings and 38 pitches, you know A) he was desperate to win the game and B) he isn't exactly brimming with confidence in the rest of his bullpen.

4. Much has been made of the bugs that descended on Jacobs Field during the later innings. I suppose a plague of insects reminiscent of the Book of Exodus descending on Cleveland's ballpark during a nationally-televised playoff game doesn't do a lot to erase the image -- certainly in the minds of sophisticated New Yorkers -- that Cleveland is anything more than a hick town that considers bug zappers a form of entertainment. But today, I consider those six-legged specks an ally.

Us country folk out here in Ohiya, we can deal with our assorted varmints, pests, 'skeeters and icky-crawly things. Heck, we know that a roller coaster ride at Cedar Point during bug season can give you your recommended daily allowance of protein in the form of swallowed Canadian soldiers. New Yorkers, on the other hand, might be able to hail a cab from six blocks away, but when it comes to bug swarms, they are totally grossed out.

The proof was on the field. Indians players came prepared with bug spray. The most you ever saw out of a Cleveland player was the occasional swipe of the face or flinching of the arm. A trainer had to get a bug out of Kenny Lofton's eye.

The Yankees, on the other hand, looked like they wanted to run into the clubhouse and take showers to wash the icky bugs off. If there is a more humorous moment than Yankee trainers dousing Chamberlain with bug spray out on the mound, I haven't seen it yet. The best part: The spray made the bugs stick to Chamberlain even more.

Joba, you're from Nebraska. You should know a thing or two about bugs. Your air-conditioned, jet set lifestyle in New York has made you go soft.

5. The worst part of LeBron's decision to flaunt his Yankee colors in our faces during Game 1? The anti-LeBron signs and shirts were out in full force for Game 2, for all the New York media to see and begin, once again, penning columns about LeBron's inevitable departure to the Knicks or Nets in three years.

When LeBron signed his extension last year, all the LeBron-to-New York hype finally died down. But then LeBron had to make an anti-Cleveland spectacle of himself at Jacobs Field, and the predictable backlash was evident Friday night. From the more extreme (a "No LeBrains" sign hanging from a railing in right field) to the more conservative (a man wearing a "Wrong hat LeBron" t-shirt), our internal quibble with our resident basketball superstar is now the nation's dirty laundry.

I don't think LeBron is a mean-spirited person, and I sincerely don't believe he meant to vilify himself to Cleveland fans on any large scale. Twenty-two year old kids wear Yankee gear to Jacobs Field all the time just so they can get some drunkard in a Pronk jersey to scream "Jeter is A-Rod's ass-bitch!" at him, or something to that effect. But those 22-year-olds aren't 22-year-old worldwide basketball superstars who play for the team in their own backyard.

LeBron was trying to get a rise out of us, but as a superstar, he has to understand that different rules apply to him. Everywhere he goes, he represents the cities of Cleveland and Akron, and more importantly, the Cleveland Cavaliers -- who have a nice "Good Luck Tribe" banner hanging from The Q.

Whether you meant to or not, LeBron, you were mocking Cleveland fans Thursday night. They might have been dressed in Tribe colors, but they are your fans, too. I think they deserved better than have the first legitimate superstar in Cleveland in 40-plus years show up to, in essence, thumb his nose at them. It doesn't look good for Cleveland, and it doesn't look good for the Cavs. This should go all the way to the top. Dan Gilbert should tell LeBron that he just embarrassed the city and gave the Cavs organization a public relations black eye with his little "Go Yankees" stunt during the Tribe's first playoff run in six years.

Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic still without contracts. Eric Snow having knee surgery. Shannon Brown involved in a nightclub scuffle. And now this. It seems like the Cavs are just amassing bad karma hand over fist right now. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this coming season. But that's another column for another time.

Off to a good start

Some thoughts from Thursday's 12-3 Game 1 win over the Yankees...

1. It's only one game. Repeat: It's only one game. The Yankees, I'm nearly positive, realize this. The burden is on the inexperienced Indians to realize that they aren't going to be able to toss their gloves on the field and win this series just because the final score of Game 1 indicates a rout.

2. To that end, I echo the statistical anomaly noted by TBS and ESPN announcers last night: In each of the last seven division series involving the Yankees, the team that won the first game lost the series. Last year, the Yankees pounded the Tigers 8-4 in Game 1, then lost the next three.

3. However, trends can be spotted, and if Game 1 is any indication, the starting pitching discrepancy between these two teams is larger than anyone imagined. Chien-Ming Wang, New York's top starter, looked unsure of how to stop the bleeding once the Tribe's offense started rolling. The Taiwanese sinkerballer left pitches up in the zone all night, and the result was predictable as the Indians ran him out of the game in the fifth inning.

4. C.C. Sabathia, on the other hand, gave one of the guttiest bend-but-don't-break performances in recent memory. After letting the Indians fall behind on a Johnny Damon leadoff homer in the first inning, then walking Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez, he came back to strike out Jorge Posada and induce Hideki Matsui to pop up. He did the same thing in the fifth inning with the bases loaded, the Tribe clinging to a 4-3 lead and the Yankees poised for the big rally we all feared would come.

All told, it took 114 pitches for Sabathia to get through five innings, but it worked. However, one has to now wonder about his ability to pitch effectively on short rest in Game 4 if needed.

5. I was concerned that the Yankees would get into the front end of the Indians' bullpen in the middle innings of games and have a field day against guys like Jensen Lewis and Aaron Fultz.

Thursday, the Indians did exactly that to the Yankees. After chasing Wang, rookie Ross Ohlendorf came in and kept the cheeseballs coming as the Indians put the game out of reach. To stop the landslide, potential Game 4 starter Phil Hughes had to come in and pitch the final two innings.

I wonder if Joe Torre now regrets heading into the postseason without a lefty in the bullpen.

6. Kenny Lofton wasn't the blockbuster acquisition we were all hoping for at the trade deadline. But sometimes big things come in skinny packages.

The fact that the veteran leadership on this team now includes an able-bodied Lofton is crucial. Not only does he had a lot of experience in these situations, he can back up that experience with his play, unlike some of the Trot Nixons and David Delluccis on the roster.

Lofton went 3-for-4 last night with four RBI. No one is expecting that out of Lofton every night, but his presence contributes to an Indians lineup that can produce one-through-nine.

7. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but shame on you, LeBron James. It's a free country, and I don't care what baseball team you root for. Some Indians fans think you are a turncoat because you root for the Yankees, but as long as you remain a loyal Cavs fan, it's no concern of mine.

But you might have taken things a bit too far last night, showing up at Jacobs Field with your Yankees cap on, sitting out in the open and agreeing to an interview with TBS where you said you were "representing for the Yankees."

I'll be honest, LeBron. It felt like you were rubbing our faces in it. It felt like you were showing up at the game specifically to flaunt your Yankee cap in front of all the Cleveland fans in attendance, like you were saying, "I'm rooting against your team. What are you going to do about it?"

Maybe you think Cleveland fans are too touchy about these kinds of things. You might be right. But to have the most beloved superstar in Ohio show up at the game just to side with opposition seems like it builds unnecessary animosity with the fans who passionately root for you from November through June. Don't your handlers generally coach you to stay away from controversy?

I know this much: The next time the Pistons come to The Q, I fully encourage Bob Feller to sit right behind the Cavs bench wearing a Pistons cap. Maybe throw on a Chauncey Billups jersey for good measure.

On the eve of the playoffs

Perhaps you remember the exact moment when you knew what you had been missing all these years. Or perhaps it dawned on you gradually. But somewhere along the line, you were let in on a little secret that had been kept from Cleveland long enough to be forgotten.

There is nothing like October baseball.

The playoffs of the NHL and NBA are two-month marathons conducted at a time when the days are lengthening and the weather is warming, and feature two- and three-day breaks between games. All enough to put the proceedings out-of-sight, out-of-mind on days when your team isn't playing a game.

The playoffs of the NFL are a weekend affair in the dead cold of January, and the Super Bowl so overshadows the conference playoffs, it practically feels like an extension of the regular season if you don't have a rooting interest.

But then there's October. October baseball. October baseball in a city that has seen more than its share of dark, desolate Octobers without baseball over the years.

National scribes can gush about the title-festooned tradition of New York, the way baseball is in the blood of New Englanders, the everlasting devotion of Cubs fans through 99 years without a World Series crown.

I say October baseball means more here in Northeast Ohio, where inferiority complexes reign and winter tends to bring gray skies, snowstorms and losing football.

We need it. We've needed it for longer than we've needed Browns victories on Autumn Sundays. For longer than we've bled scarlet and gray on Autumn Saturdays.

For 107 Octobers of dying daylight, falling leaves and dropping temperatures, we've needed it. And too often, our local nine hasn't delivered.

But this year is one of the years it's different. This year, the hunger has been fed. For at least one week, hopefully longer, we get to come together as a community, every day, and feed off of what the Indians did the previous night. Every morning becomes like the Monday morning after a Browns game. The conversations spill over from the office water cooler and into the streets. East, West, city, suburbs, the Indians become Cleveland's common denominator when they reach the playoffs.

Flags bearing Chief Wahoo's likeness are draped over business and residence windows alike. There is a noticeable rise in the amount of Tribe hats, shirts, jackets and ties adorning passers-by. Goofy parody songs find their way onto the radio. The net sum adds up to "Tribe Fever," but it speaks to something deeper in all of us.

This was the seed that was planted the first time your dad played catch with you in the backyard, probably when you were too little to even know what you were doing. This was the bulb that took root when you went to your first ballgame at that rusty dinosaur of a stadium on the lakefront. The Indians weren't any good back then, October baseball was something that played out elsewhere. But you learned the game. It became something that embedded itself in the deepest part of your conscience.

People who think baseball is too slow, or that it primarily involves a lot of crotch-grabbing and seed-spitting, they don't get it. Maybe you didn't quite get it until Tony Pena hit that walk-off homer against Boston in 1995, winning the Tribe's first playoff game since 1948. Maybe it didn't finally click until Kenny Lofton sprinted home from second base in Game 6 against Seattle, and you knew your team was going to the World Series.

Maybe it came full circle when that line drive zinged past Charlie Nagy's head in Game 7 two years later, and for a while, you wished you weren't burdened by this game, this team.

But at some point, you realized the power of October baseball. The power to lift you up and send you crashing back down to Earth. The power to unify an entire city in joy, suspense and sorrow. The last rays of warmth we can capture as the Sun sets on another summer of stretching out in the upper deck of Jacobs Field with a cold beer in your hand and a scorecard in your lap.

For just the 10th time in 107 years, the Indians are playing October baseball. Now older and wiser, you understand what that means.

Mark Shapiro's second-best trade

When the subject of Mark Shapiro's finest trade as general manager of the Indians comes up, there are only a select few deals worthy to make the final cut.

Pilfering Travis Hafner from the Rangers for Ryan Drese and Einar Diaz is an obvious one. The 2002 Bartolo Colon deal that netted Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips and Lee Stevens from Montreal is another possibility, even though Lee landed with a thud this year and Phillips is well on his way to becoming a modern-day Joe Morgan playing second base in Cincinnati.

Eduardo Perez for Asdrubal Cabrera certainly looks like a steal at the moment.

But as the San Diego Padres struck an iceberg and began taking on water in the National League wild card race this past weekend, another trade came to mind -- or at least it should have.

Sometimes, it's not who you get. It's who you give up. And there is a growing trend of addition-by-subtraction deals involving Milton Bradley, who is to outfielders what Krakatoa was to tropical islands.

Everywhere Bradley has landed, he has quickly worn out his welcome, largely due to his sideshow-producing temper and apparent desire to needlessly provoke the opposition with flippant, Barry Bonds-esque acts like emphatically snapping open the Velcro on his batting gloves as he begins his home run trot.

Since 2001, the Expos have dumped him off on the Indians, who dumped him off on the Dodgers, who dumped him off on the Athletics. Earlier this year, the A's dumped him off on the Padres.

San Diego, like every other team that has traded for Bradley, was seduced by his potential. A switch-hitter with 30-homer, 100-RBI ability, he has never hit below .267 in any season since 2003. His career high is .321 in 101 games for the Indians in 2003. This year, he was hitting .306 for the season, .313 since joining the Padres.

The Padres' offense, one of the weakest among baseball contenders, relied heavily on Bradley's bat for several months. Sure, Bradley has a long history of volcanic outbursts, particularly at umpires, but if he can hit like he was hitting this year, the Padres probably figured that they could take the bad with the good.

The trouble is, the bad with Bradley can be really, really bad. And Sunday, it reached catastrophic levels.

Bradley insists that umpire Mike Winters baited him, calling him a dirty word as he stood at first base. The accepted story at this point says Bradley and Winters had a beef from earlier in the game when Winters rang him up on a third-strike appeal.

But what is for certain is that Bradley needed to be restrained multiple times from going after Winters. Padres manager Bud Black had to hold his outfielder by the jersey to keep him from physical contact with Winters, and the the subsequent fine and suspension it would bring.

(Think Eric Wedge remembers a thing or two about grabbing onto Bradley's jersey and holding on for dear life?)

Of course, we all know what happened after that. Bradley thrashed, Black tugged back, then Bradley fell and tore a knee ligament, ending his season when the Padres needed him the most.

And another team likely has second thoughts about trying to build an offense around Bradley.

When Wedge pressured Shapiro to trade Bradley just before the 2004 season began, Wedge was made out to be the bad guy in a lot of circles. He wanted his players to be puppets, detractors said. He wasn't a strong enough personality to take on a talented-but-mercurial player and turn him into a star.

We all had visions of Albert Belle back then. If Mike Hargrove could manage the tantrum-prone Belle to a 50-homer, 52-double season, why couldn't Wedge manage Bradley into a productive player ... that is, if Wedge was worth anything as a manager?

When the final straw snapped that spring, as Wedge benched Bradley for failing to run out a ground ball, then Bradley went AWOL in a taxi, we could all agree that Bradley had some issues to work out -- but that doesn't mean you just quit on a player, does it?

The comparison is faulty. Despite their standing as two of baseball's most temperamental antagonists, Bradley and Belle are not similar. Belle seldom showed extreme emotion on the field. Bradley, on the other hand, is a powder keg between the foul lines.

It turns out, Bradley has been, is, and always will be a walking distraction to a winning team. He's a fine all-around talent, but the positives begin and end there. Other than that, he's selfish, immature, injury-prone and possesses an ultra-sensitive hair trigger temper.

Trading Bradley for Franklin Gutierrez and Andrew Brown might have sent a bad message to Tribe fans at the time, fans who were looking for signs that the team was starting to pull out of its rebuilding nosedive. At that point, no one wanted to see a promising young player pawned off for yet more prospects who were three and four years away from the big leagues.

But keeping Bradley would have sent a worse message to the other players, a message that management was willing to appease a flaky player like Bradley instead of enforcing the same standards for everyone.

Over the past three years, Bradley's continuing unpredictable behavior and inability to stick in one place for any substantial length of time has proved Wedge and Shapiro right.

It might not have been Shapiro's best trade, but ridding the team of Bradley is certainly in the conversation for the second-best trade Shapiro has ever made. It didn't even take Gutierrez becoming the team's everyday right fielder to justify it. As the Indians found out, as the Padres are now learning the hard way, players like Bradley make poor building blocks for a contender, and parting ways with them is almost always addition by subtraction.

2007 AL Central Champs

Five years ago, the Indians embarked on a rebuilding project that was controversial in the eyes of many fans.

We didn't want to let go of the success of the 1990s. We didn't want to leave the certainty of the past for the uncertainty of the future. Yet that's exactly what GM Mark Shapiro did when he cut ties with Bartolo Colon in June 2002, trading him to Montreal for Lee Stevens, Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Cliff Lee.

Losing followed. A 68-94 record in 2003. A mid-August surge followed by a late-season swoon in 2004. Coming oh-so-painfully-close in 2005. The horrendous setback of 2006.

But today, it all came full circle. In 2001, an aging, veteran club Indians club clinched its sixth division title in seven years. In 2007, a much younger club has returned the Indians to the same place we left six years ago.

If that is the definition of rebuiding, consider the Indians rebuilt.

Removing all doubt

It's only September, and there is plenty of time for Cleveland fans to wring their hands over whether the Indians will choke when it really matters, or when it really, really matters.

But right now, when it matters, the Indians looked like a team ready for the challenge of the postseason.

The Tigers came into Cleveland with everything on the line. They needed to sweep, or at the very least take two of three, to keep their fast-dwindling playoff hopes alive. They were coming off a sweep of the Twins, and were playing their best ball in quite some time.

The Indians, meanwhile, had a reasonably comfortable lead in the division. A previous edition of the Indians, circa 2005, might have come down with a case of wanting-it-less-than-the-other-team-itis.

The Tigers and Indians haven't been able to shake each other all year. We braced ourselves for a series in which the Tigers would close the gap on Cleveland, turning the remaining week and a half of the season into a gut-churning horse race with the offseason awaiting the loser.

But with the season at a crossroads, with the Tigers throwing everything on the field in an effort to keep October from disappearing over the horizon, the Indians didn't just triumph. They wrapped, boxed, stamped and mailed the Tigers to the golf course, where they will now almost certainly start their offseason a week from Monday.

The Indians, the little-engine-that-could with the overmatched payroll, swept their chief division rival and turned their first division title in six years into a matter of mathematics. The magic number stands at three, the division lead at seven and a half games. The Indians have 10 games remaining, the Tigers nine.

That's dominance, any way you slice it.

Over the course of three days, the Indians managed to win games in which they faced a long-time tormentor (Kenny Rogers), one of the best young pitchers in the game (Justin Verlander), and avoided a letdown against Nate Robertson. In all three games, they trailed at some point, then rallied to win.

Monday's game will probably go into the history books as the backbreaker. Detroit's bullpen imploded, allowing a game-tying homer to Jhonny Peralta and a game-winner in extra innings to Casey Blake. But that game would have meant far less if the Tigers had won the next two.

But Tuesday and Wednesday, the Indians exhibited an intestinal fortitude not present even a month ago. They fell behind 4-1 to Verlander on Tuesday, but bludgeoned him out of the game with four home runs, winning 7-4.

The Indians have beaten Verlander and Johan Santana a combined eight times this year. Think about that when you think about the Tribe's current position.

Wednesday, C.C. Sabathia put his team in a 2-0 hole that screamed "letdown," but another Blake homer ignited the offense and the Indians chipped away at Robertson, winning 4-2, finishing off the sweep and making it safe to order the champagne, plastic sheeting and commemorative caps and t-shirts.

The Indians are going to be the 2007 American League Central Division Champions. And they can take all the credit for themselves. Detroit fans might think the Tigers choked, but they didn't. The Indians, right now, are just plain better. And they showed it this week, in no uncertain terms.

The chaos theory

Ever since the Browns re-entered the league eight years ago, I've been searching for my own version of the Holy Grail.

I want to see the Browns, someday, field a team that is capable of controlling the clock, imposing their will on another team and winning predictably, the way teams like the Patriots and Colts do.

I want to see a team that looks like it has its collective head screwed on straight, that doesn't look unstable and violently manic-depressive.

Unfortunately, the Browns of the past seven days are the Browns at their best since 1999: The kings of chaos.

Get blown out by the arch-rival Steelers in the season opener. Trade the starting quarterback two days later. Replace him with a guy who has zero wins in three NFL starts. Predict calamity as the high-powered Bengals visit town for Week 2. Then watch as the single most improbable outcome this side of aliens landing on the 50-yard-line unfolds.

Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer passed for 401 yards and six touchdowns. Rudi Johnson, who always saves his best 2003 Jamal Lewis impersonations for Cleveland, rushed for 118 yards. Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh had two touchdown catches apiece. Johnson made good on his promise to leap into the Dawg Pound.

The Bengals scored 45 points as the Browns defense -- supposedly the team's strength heading into the season -- laid an ostrich egg for the second straight week. And the Bengals lost.

How? Apparently Doc and Marty McFly managed to get the flux capacitor up and running and beamed the Browns back to 1989, the last time they scored 51 points in a game.

Apparently Derek Anderson drank some MarinoAde. Unfazed as the dropsies plagued Braylon Edwards, and at one point Lawrence Vickers, Anderson shrugged off weeks and weeks of inconsistent passing with an out-of-nowhere 328 yards and five touchdowns.

Which begs the question, "Where the bloody hell was this in the preseason?" If Anderson is capable of throwing like this, he should have buried Charlie Frye on the bench by the second week of August. Maybe last week's debacle against the Steelers wouldn't have happened if Anderson would have found the light switch a month earlier. Because you know and I know that the full resources of BALCO couldn't engineer a performance-enhancing drug potent enough to allow Frye to pass for 328 yards and five touchdowns in a single game.

But before we get too carried away, we need to rein in our adoration of Anderson right now. Sunday's win was just one game, just like the loss to the Steelers was just one game. Cincinnati's pass defense revealed exactly why, no matter how potent the Bengals offense becomes, they are going to stay a paper tiger (no pun intended) in the playoffs.

But even more than that, Sunday's game was so freakish, how can we possibly look upon it as a building block? Sure it was a win, but a win that's not likely to be replicated anytime soon. Chances are, the Browns aren't going to suddenly find their niche as an offensive juggernaut and win a bunch of 38-33 games.

Chances are, next week against the Raiders, who defend the pass far better than Cincinnati, it will be right back to scoring in the teens and the burden will be on the defense to come up with a few stops, which they have been utterly incapable of providing thus far -- game-clinching interceptions excluded.

This has been the story of the Browns' life for way too long now. It definitely feels good to get a win, especially a divisional win for the beleaguered Romeo Crennel. But if you're looking for something that the 2007 Browns can hang their hat on, this isn't it. This week's strengths tend to be next week's weaknesses, and vice versa.

Despite all the effort that has gone into fortifying the offense and defense, the Browns have become well-versed in only one thing since returning to the league: Flying by the seat of their pants. Sunday's improbable win is Exhibit A.

Waffle House

Politicians never listen to their own advice. Neither, apparently, do the handlers of the Cleveland Browns.

You're not supposed to govern by opinion polls because public opinion is extremely fickle. Yet how often do the local representatives kiss posterior to get votes the next time their name appears on a ballot?

Coaches and general managers of sports teams aren't supposed to cave to public demand, either. The old saying is that coaches who listen to the fans are destined to end up sitting with them in the stands.

Yet it appears public opinion is, in fact, influencing the method to Phil Savage's and Romeo Crennel's madness. Where fan and media pressure isn't influencing, a general lack of interest in making the tough calls seems to be picking up the slack.

This much we know: The Browns' leadership tandem (trio, if you want to throw Randy Lerner in there), has been treading on eggshells pretty much since the NFL draft. The number of noncommittal non-decisions Savage and Crennel have made since the spring is enough to choke ... well, an entire season.

They could have, and should have, named a starting quarterback at the outset of training camp. It should have been Charlie Frye, not because he was necessarily the best choice to win, but because on a team where continuity has been about as hard to access as Macchu Picchu, your best bet is to lay the groundwork for the most seamless torch-pass to Brady Quinn you can muster.

But in rode Derek Anderson on a white horse, lifting the Browns to an overtime win over the hapless Kansas City Chiefs late last year. In a city so desperate for football success in any form, this apparently qualified him to receive a legitimate look as a starter. The Anderson bandwagon picked up a head of steam in a hurry, and the Browns were happy to oblige.

So Savage rubber-stamped an open quarterback competition this year. The trouble is, straw in any form can't be spun into gold. Neither quarterback seized the job, despite the best efforts of Crennel and offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski to cross their fingers and hope really, really hard that the more physically-gifted Anderson would suddenly emerge as a modern-era Vinny Testaverde.

The QB cloud hung over the Browns for more than a month, through an 11-day Quinn holdout, through at least one coin flip to decide who would start a preseason game and through a large graveyard of offensive drives that died before their time. Finally, Crennel emerged and announced that the Browns were headed right back to where they were a year ago. Frye was starting.

As far as anticlimactic events go, that was the equivalent of any Super Bowl that featured the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills. And all it cost the Browns was a training camp's worth of building offensive continuity.

Then after finally, finally making up their minds, putting their foot down, making a move that showed some semblance of conviction, Crennel benched Frye a quarter into Sunday's miserable loss to the Steelers, and two days later, Savage traded him. In doing so, he might have revealed the real reason the Browns can't seem to achieve success.

Savage and Crennel can't blame the roster misadventures of Butch Davis anymore. Not with a couple of solid drafts and free agent classes now on the team. They can't blame hasty hiring of assistant coaches, not with the hand-picked tandem of Chudzinski and Todd Gratham piloting the playcalling. They can't blame a team president or a meddlesome owner. John Collins is long-gone and Lerner has an ongoing affair with his English mistress, Aston Villa.

The only guys left are the men in the mirror. Savage understands the talent-amassing part of the job. But that's only half the battle. You must manage that talent properly once you get it. That's something neither he nor Crennel seem to understand in full. Playing yo-yo with your quarterback situation until the tail-end of August, then pulling the plug on the guy you selected after one quarter of the first game of the season isn't managing your roster the right way. It sure as heck doesn't send a good message to the rest of the team.

It was probably a mistake to draft Frye and try to turn him into the future of the franchise. Savage was a rookie GM when he drafted Frye in 2005. Frye was coming off a great performance in the Senior Bowl, he was a local boy from a local school, and Savage was probably trying to play to the fans a little bit. But in the end, it was a "draft-and-hope" situation. Savage was hoping that Frye would be worth the third-round pick and would turn into a hometown boy made good. He didn't.

But instead of coming up with a definite plan on how to handle the Frye situation, Savage and Crennel swayed to extremes, burying him behind Trent Dilfer one year, then handing the starting job to him with no veteran mentor the next. This year, they split the difference by forcing him to compete for the starting job with Anderson, his competitive peer. All the while, Crennel and his ever-changing legion of offensive assistants were trying to de-program Frye's legs (his only true asset as a QB) and turn him into a pocket passer.

Here's a bet that once Mike Holmgren clears out all of the mental static Frye's head has accumulated over the past two years, he might actually become a productive player for the Seahawks.

Apparently, that's too much to ask of Browns management at this point. Whether it's caving to fan opinion, media criticism or their own indecision, Phil Savage and Romeo Crennel seem to be the masters of the mixed message. And the whole team is suffering because of it.

I'm not dead. I swear

Never meant for my blogging hiatus to go this long. But I am still alive and well, and should have a column up shortly.

Welcome to the stretch run

All right, Cleveland. It's time to face some cold, hard facts.

The Indians are in a pennant race, whether you want to admit it or not. And after five months of putting this team on the back burner, it's time to realize that this is one of those times that don't come around all that often in these parts.

It's time to drag yourself, kicking and screaming, to the likely conclusion that you are going to develop an emotional attachment to this team over the next two months. You've played it cool since April. You've done a really good job of keeping your emotional distance so far. You've had that "I told you so" on the tip of your tongue since spring training.

You don't trust Larry Dolan. You don't trust Mark Shapiro. You certainly don't trust Eric Wedge. You desperately want to believe that the Indians are just keeping first place warm for the inevitable stretch-run Detroit surge, a belief you hold near like a security blanket so that you can give a dismissive scoff if and when the Indians fall flat on their collective faces like they did in the final week of 2005.

But I have news for you: That resolve is going to melt away. You're like someone who has been on one too many bad dates and vows to completely detach from the opposite sex. How long do you think you can keep that pledge?

You have had built-in excuses all year. The Cavaliers preoccupied you into June. Almost immediately after that, it was the Fourth of July, vacation time, and then the buzz surrounding the arrival of Joe Thomas and Brady Quinn at Browns camp.

Those excuses are gone. The Cavs have been stone-silent all summer, Quinn has found his place behind Charlie Frye on the depth chart and the only federal holiday standing between you and October is Labor Day.

After months and months of waiting for the other shoe to drop before the stretch run arrived, it didn't happen. September starts on Saturday, and the Indians are in first place.

They could have saved you the trouble, like they did last year. They could have saved you the tension of a September push for the playoffs, of an October postseason run where it is statistically probable that your team will end the season with a loss.

They could have saved you all the hassle and just dropped out of contention in June. But they didn't. And now, despite your thick Cleveland psychological callouses, you will soon be compelled to take a front-row seat and watch.

The Indians will soon become the biggest story in town. And the only thing you can do is hang on for the ride. In Cleveland, where every pennant race and postseason run since 1964 has inevitably crash-landed at some point, that's a tall order to fill. But it's too late to stop now.

Welcome to the 2007 American League playoff race. Fasten your seat belts.

This and that

I've been extremely busy of late, which accounts for the lack of posts. But I do have a few items.

* I have made the decision to cut "The Morning After," my weekly Browns game wrap, in order to concetrate on more issue-based columns. I can't guarantee I'm going to be able to deliver a column every Sunday night or Monday morning, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to run a column called "The Morning After" on Tuesday or Wednesday.

*I am in favor of the decision to sit Josh Barfield, even though I think highly of his talent and his poise in the field. But he just wasn't getting it done at the plate. Someone needs to hit the "reset" button with Barfield. The trouble is, he's only the worst symptom in a teamwide disease, and I'm not sure anyone has the cure right now.

*If the Indians keep hitting like this, they aren't going to the playoffs, C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona aren't going to win 20 games, and Eric Wedge's job should be on the rocks -- should be. But almost certainly won't be.

*The Indians are run by a bunch of farm system guys. I think that plays into why progress always seems to come in increments and they are always so slow to react when things aren't going well. Expect a column on this in the near future, because it's gnawing at me big time.

*Hanford Dixon brought up a good point in the Monday evening edition of FSN's Browns camp show: In Derek Anderson's goal-line disaster during the first quarter of Saturday's game, where was the coaching staff's culpability? It was the coaching staff who had trouble getting plays in, burned two time outs and basically ground the drive to a halt. Anderson has definitely left something to be desired in the first two preseason games, but let's not throw him under the bus for the coaches' errors.

*Will Brady Quinn start the season opener? I'm going to play the Romeo Crennel noncommittal card and say "Ask me again about five minutes before the team runs out of the tunnel on Sept. 9." But in all seriousness, if Quinn is ready, there is no reason to hold him back, because Ken Dorsey represents the second-best chance the Browns have to score touchdowns, and that is sad.

*Michael Vick will plead guilty to federal dog fighting charges. He's going to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, so the question of "Will Vick go to jail?" has been answered. But now the question is, "Will he ever play in the NFL again?" My answer: Yes. And the fans of that team (it won't be the Falcons) will be salivating. Nothing is off-limits in war and football -- well, I can't say that. War at least has the Geneva Conventions.

Handicapping the quarterbacks

Since the four quarterbacks the Browns currently have in camp can't seem to declare a winner among them, leave it to the rest of us.

Who is going to be under center when the Browns open against Pittsburgh on Sept. 9? Who is going to be working on his short game and waiting for a team to call? Let the words show the way.

Charlie Frye

Strengths: Tough as nails, very good huddle presence, gets a lot out of limited athletic ability.

Weaknesses: Suspect decision-making under pressure, the NFL game seems to move too fast for him, positively putrid when it comes to turning red zone appearances into touchdowns.

It's tough to fault Frye for what he isn't. He's not Peyton Manning, and never will be. While he is an adequate passer despite below-average arm strength, he lacks what some sports psychologists refer to as "mental athleticism." The ability to read a situation and react properly, and do it in fractions of a second. Too often, Frye resorts to a "damn the torpedoes" style of play when he gets flustered, and that's when reckless turnovers abound.

Frye is a passable stopgap while Brady Quinn develops, and might be a worthwhile NFL backup. But it looks like the jump from the Mid-American Conference to the NFL has been just a bit too far for the former Akron Zip to achieve professional stardom.

Having said that, the starting job, at least for now, is his to lose.

Probability of Frye starting the season opener: 60 percent

Probability of Frye being released/traded: 10 percent

Derek Anderson

Strengths: Throws hard. Superior athletic ability that, on the rare occasion it is harnessed properly, can turn him into an effective quarterback.

Weaknesses: Seldom is able to harness said athletic ability. As far as touch passes go, his sand wedge is a 3-wood.

The more and more I watch Anderson, the more I get the feeling that he'd fit right in with former Indians pitchers Jason Davis and Fernando Cabrera. Like Davis and Cabrera, Anderson has all the physical tools: He has size, a rocket arm, good legs and major-college pedigree ... and an utter inability to put it all together.

Ask Anderson to throw a football through a wooden fence, he might be able to do it. Ask him to feather it into his tight end on an underneath route, he'll probably sail it over his head, bounce it in the dirt or break a couple of fingers.

Finding your receivers as a QB is like finding the strike zone as a pitcher. If you can't do it, no one cares how hard you throw or how much of a physical specimen you are.

Anderson has three more games to prove his worth to Romeo Crennel. Otherwise, he has "odd man out" written all over him.

Probability of Anderson starting the season opener: 5 percent

Probability of Anderson being traded/released: 40 percent

Ken Dorsey

Strengths: A poor man's Bernie Kosar. A smart, fairly good decision-maker with prior experience as an NFL starter.

Weaknesses: Unathletic, immobile, and a below-average throwing arm.

My chief memory of Dorsey is still watching him get stampeded by Ohio State in the 2002 BCS title game. He'd still be a stooge if not for the fact that it makes more sense than any of us realize to give him a shot leading the first team.

Frye and Anderson are gunslingers who both have a nasty tendency to sabotage drives with horrible decision-making. Dorsey, while the least athletic and least impressive of the four Browns quarterbacks, is also a good reader of defenses and an accurate short-yardage passer. With that in mind, he might be the best chance the Browns have to win some games while Brady Quinn develops. He's certainly as good a bet as Frye or Anderson to put the ball in the end zone, which isn't saying much.

It's a long shot, but it just might work.

Probability of Dorsey starting the season opener: 10 percent

Probability of Dorsey being released/traded: 50 percent

Brady Quinn

Strengths: He has all the goods for stardom: Strong arm, mobile feet, Notre Dame pedigree, poster-boy looks and a team in desperate need of a leader.

Weaknesses: Still rough around the edges, doesn't yet fully understand how much faster the NFL game is than college, 11-day holdout robbed him of valuable jelling time with his receivers.

Given the state of the Browns' quarterbacks, if Quinn impresses during the remaining camp and exhibition games, why shouldn't he start the season opener?

The fears of a Tim Couch redux are bogus. Couch was thrown to the wolves armed with an expansion team with a barely professional-level offensive line and Terry Kirby as the feature back. Quinn will have Joe Thomas and Eric Steinbach protecting his blind side and will be handing the ball off to Jamal Lewis.

Having said that, if Quinn shows he's not ready, it is imperative Crennel and Phil Savage do not force-feed Quinn into the starting lineup. Quinn has to be the best option, not the least-worst.

If Quinn shows he's not ready to start, it's better that another QB, one who doesn't have the future of the franchise riding on his shoulders, absorb the early-season Pittsburgh-Cincinnati-Baltimore-New England gauntlet.

Probability of Quinn starting the season opener: 25 percent

Probability of Quinn being released/traded: 0 percent (we'd assume, anyway)

The Morning After: Kansas City

Welcome back to another season of "The Morning After," my weekly Browns recap. Join me as I chronicle another season of valleys (and maybe even some peaks) for your Cleveland Browns.

Browns 16, Chiefs 12
Preseason record: 1-0

It's time to unveil my first official bold prediction of the 2007 season: Don't be surprised if Ken Dorsey enters the starting quarterback picture before the end of the preseason.

Dorsey is still riding third, and might be bumped to fourth once Brady Quinn gets in the race next weekend, but Dorsey is a definite dark horse candidate to be under center when the Browns play the Steelers in the Sept. 9 season opener.

Dorsey's stat line from Saturday's win looks kind of so-so, but he did complete 6-of-9 passes for 52 yards, which places him second behind Charlie Frye's 12-for-15 for 122 yards.

Frye had statistically the best game of any of the three Browns QBs that saw playing time, but he sabotaged any chance he had of solidifying his standing as the team's starting signal-caller with a couple of bush-league plays that are now famously infamous around Northeast Ohio: The botched lateral to Jerome Harrison that was returned for Kansas City's lone touchdown, and the unsuccessful decision to tuck and run for the end zone as the second half drew to a close.

Those two plays were devastating to Frye's momentum, and once again raised questions about Frye's ability to make sound decisions in pressure situations -- which is really what is going to save or kill Frye's chances of becoming a full-time NFL starter.

Combine Frye's gaffes with the fact that Derek Anderson (7-for-16, 76 yards) looked like a glorified Arena League QB, and it doesn't seem that far-fetched to say Dorsey is going to start climbing the charts in the coming weeks if he has more efforts like he had in holding down the offensive fort in the second half Saturday night -- getting stripped of the ball in the end zone for a safety notwithstanding.

Dorsey is what passes for a veteran quarterback on this roster right now, and might end up being the best combination of leadership and smart decision-making that Romeo Crennel has available to put under center. Think I'm crazy? Wait three weeks and see how many touchdown drives Frye and Anderson have led. If the number is less than two, I rest my case.

Right now, Crennel doesn't have a truly good option at quarterback. It's a shame, because the rest of the team looked like it was actually starting to fall into place, if first blush means anything.

Jamal Lewis looked as new-and-improved as advertised, and if he can stay on the field for most of the Browns' 16 games, might actually give this team its first dominant, tempo-setting rusher since returning to the league. And I write that with Reuben Droughns' 2005 campaign in mind.

The offensive line, even without Eric Steinbach, looked much improved over any previous model the Browns have trucked out. Frye and company had time to find receivers, and running backs had room to run. Linemen were even throwing some blocks downfield.

Granted, it was against Kansas City's defense, not Pittsburgh's or Baltimore's, but by the end of last year, I'm not sure the Browns offensive line could have stopped Mount Union's defense on a blitz.

And let's talk about that defense. This is going to be the manna that sustains the Cleveland Browns from week to week. Todd Grantham's unit is going to keep the Browns in a lot of games, as they did in the first half of last year before injuries started to mount. It's all going to be a matter of whether the offense can take advantage of it, or whether the Browns are going to be losing a lot of 17-9 games because the offense can't get the ball into the end zone.

To that end, the results of the first preseason game were not promising. Despite that fact that Kamerion Wimbley once again showcased his goose-bump-producing ability as a pass rusher, despite the fact that cornerback Eric Wright looked about as good as any player probably can look in his first-ever NFL action, despite the fact that the defense basically controlled the game for 58 minutes, the Browns still fell behind late because the offense couldn't muster a touchdown drive.

Thanks to Chris Barclay's running, and a lot of Chiefs scrubs on the field for the kickoff that followed Kansas City's go-ahead field goal, Cleveland escaped with a win and preserved an overall positive feeling from the night. Of course, it took a goal-line stand on the ensuing drive and a fumble recovery on third down to really put the Chiefs to bed.

There was definitely more good than bad to this game from the Browns' perspective. Every unit was solid with the exception of the quarterbacks, who are under close scrutiny anyway.

But the quarterback troubles loom large. The Browns simply cannot head into the season with the most important position on the roster in a state of limbo. Somebody needs to step up and disarm this grenade before it has a chance to blow up the September portion of the Browns schedule. The solution might not currently be on the roster.

Up next: Detroit, Saturday, 7 p.m. at Cleveland Browns Stadium

Time to get to work, Brady

It has been done.

All the posturing and rooster-strutting is over. All the flying in to Cleveland to sign autographs for $75 a pop, then retreating back down the rabbit hole to Arizona. All the haggling, all the dickering, all the holding out.

Brady Quinn is signed, reportedly for five years and a little under $8 million guaranteed, with an overall contract worth of up to $30 million if he hits all his performance incentives.

Now, he gets to work. Hard.

After 11 days and 15 practices missed, Quinn starts at the absolute bottom of the totem pole, behind all the other quarterbacks he'll need to inevitably pass if he is to make a full return on the large investment in draft picks and money the Browns made to get him.

A case could be made that more is riding on Quinn than was riding on Tim Couch in 1999. Couch stepped onto the field with an unknown quantity of a team in '99. He was starting out, the team was starting out, and if all went right, they'd grow together.

Eight years later, we know that maiden voyage ended only slightly more successfully that that of the R.M.S. Titanic.

Now, Quinn steps onto the field as far more than a building block, which Couch was. Quinn must be the primary savior for a franchise that has been a garbage dump of missed draft picks, catastrophic injuries, off-the-field indiscretions and coaching meltdowns in the eight years since Couch first pulled on an orange helmet.

Quinn steps onto the field with a desperate franchise that is riding a streak of four straight last-place finishes in the AFC North. A team that hasn't had a double-digit-win season since 13 years and a franchise ago. A team that hasn't won a playoff game since that year, and hasn't contended for a Super Bowl since 1989.

You can search far and wide, through all the Notre Dame bowl implosions that you want, and you won't find a team or a fan base more shellshocked, more gun-shy and more flinch-prone than what Quinn will encounter when he arrives in Berea for his first practice.

Quinn might think he's arriving as a conquering hero. He'll soon find out that the football-watching population of Northeast Ohio is going to want him to be something far more: The doctor who makes it all better.

Unfortunately, there is no real way for a player of any caliber to prepare himself for that. In many ways, your success or failure -- and by extension whether you are beloved or reviled in the history of Cleveland sports -- is out of your hands.

This is larger than Quinn could ever imagine. This is a team and a city in a life-or-death chess match with the demons that have plagued them for so many years. Quinn is the king piece.

Couch was greeted like Caesar returning from the battlefields. Five years later, he was crying in front of the cameras after fans cheered his post-concussion exit from a game against Baltimore (or the entrance of Kelly Holcomb, depending on which way the wind is blowing that day). Couch was metaphorically undressed that night, and never totally regained his dignity in Cleveland. Less than a year later, he was gone.

Such is life in a desperate city. If the fans and media get even a whiff of failure from you, they will turn on you in less than a heartbeat. Since the departure of Couch, every Browns quarterback has become a negative figure in Cleveland to a greater or lesser degree.

Jeff Garcia never did fit in here. He whined his way out of Cleveland the way he whined his way out of San Francisco. Trent Dilfer was utterly mediocre, and was eventually phased out in favor of Charlie Frye, who has been nothing special in a little over a season as the starting QB. The only thing that gets him a mulligan is his native town of Willard, Ohio, and a little story about having a Bernie Kosar poster on his wall as a boy.

Frye can be the first to tell Quinn that being a native son and idolizing Kosar as a boy can get you far here in Ohio. Quinn should play up that angle as much as possible. It will make you the ultimate fan favorite, especially if you are riding the bench as the starter struggles.

But once you have to strap on the helmet and live up to Kosar's somewhat-bloated legacy, then the real test begins.

And the test for Quinn is more crucial than what any other Cleveland QB has faced since Kosar. Quinn can't fail. He can't even be passable or decent. He has to be great. He has to be the man that rescues the name of the Cleveland Browns from the lake of fire.

If he doesn't, the fans will turn on Quinn with the type of ferocity usually reserved for cheering Pittsburgh fans.

That's a gamble no sensible person should want to make. But with the ink still wet on his contract, that is exactly what Quinn is facing.

This week, Quinn begins to learn what greatness is all about in this town ... and whether he can make the grade.

Tucker's transgression

Sports fans. We're all hypocrites when it suits us.

It's not hard to find a San Francisco Giants fan who thinks Major League Baseball is turning Barry Bonds into a scapegoat in the ongoing steroid abuse witch hunt. The default opinion in the Bay Area is either "He has never taken steroids" or more commonly "He was just doing what baseball would allow him to get away with."

In Atlanta, it's probably a bit harder to find a Michael Vick defender among Falcons fans simply because most people view dog fighting as abhorrent and the evidence against Vick appears to be damning. But public demonstrations in support of Vick have shown that team allegiance, in many cases, is thicker than federal charges.

If Bonds were a Dodger or Vick were a Panther, the shoe would be on the other foot and Giant and Falcon fans would be the first to persecute the chief antagonist from a division rival. But that's the way it goes in sports.

We in Cleveland have been guilty of it, too. When Albert Belle was smashing a thermostat, reportedly throwing a baseball at photographer and allegedly chasing Halloween house-eggers in his SUV, the Cleveland fans and media turned the blindest of blind eyes to his off-the-field antics because he was hitting homers and the Indians were winning.

If Belle had been a member of the White Sox two years earlier, how would we have reacted? Be honest.

Now the spin spotlight falls on Ryan Tucker, the Browns offensive tackle who will miss the first four games of this season after testing positive for a banned substance. The test occurred during the offseason, with the league suspension handed down Friday.

Tucker will be allowed to participate in games and practices during the preseason, but will be completely eliminated from all team events from the end of the preseason until Oct. 1. He'll miss the extremely important September gauntlet against the Steelers, Bengals, Raiders and Ravens, which will almost certainly determine the course of the season, and might slay or save Romeo Crennel's job.

On the surface, it seems like a fairly minor situation, and the fans and media have been quick to play it that way. Tucker took something he shouldn't have as he attempted to rebound from mental-health issues during last season. Based on his comments Friday, he knew what he was doing was wrong, knew he was probably going to get caught, and when he did, he offered a full confession and will take his punishment without a word of complaint.

In an era when Rafael Palmeiro might have perjured himself in front of Congress concerning steroid use, Tucker's candor is refreshing. Right?

If you ignore the whole pesky detail about the crime already having been committed, I suppose.

Tucker is quickly transitioning from a rock at right tackle to one of the most unreliable members of the Browns offensive line. It appears that whatever happened to him last year -- which is still shrouded in mystery by both Tucker and the team -- was not his fault. But he rebounded quickly, told the media the start of camp that "I feel great," and for the first time since returning to the league, it appeared the Browns would have some real depth protecting the quarterback and opening holes for the running game.

Now, with this latest stumble -- which was very much his fault and very much avoidable -- he hinders the Browns offensive line yet again, and through what might end up as the most important stretch of the season.

The Browns luckily have a ready-made backup plan in Kevin Shaffer, who might now have a chance to claim a starting job for keeps, even when Tucker comes back. But, as always happens when a player is sidelined, everyone else in the unit moves up a step, creating a domino effect.

The Browns simply cannot absorb another hit, injury or otherwise, to the offensive line between now and the time Tucker returns from suspension. At the rate Browns O-linemen normally fall, who is willing to make that bet?

Tucker can be praised for coming clean and expressing remorse for hurting his team. But it doesn't change the fact that he did hurt his team, at a time when they need to show significant measurable progress early in the season, or run the extremely high risk of watching another season get flushed down the pipes before the first snowflake falls.

For that, Tucker deserves criticism. And he probably deserves a spot on Crennel's bench, even when he returns from suspension.

Training camp '07: And finally...

Today I conclude my 2007 Browns training camp preview series by tying up some loose ends on and off the field.

Special teams

Phil Dawson has been a placekicking rock for the Browns since the franchise returned to action in 1999, so there is no reason to overreact to his shaky second half last year. But there are some definite concerns. After a career-high 93.1 percent of his field goal attempts in 2005, his percentage plummeted to 72.4 percent in '06, the second-lowest percentage of his career behind his rookie year.

Most alarmingly, he made just more than 50 percent (7-of-13) of his field goals from beyond 40 yards. For an offense that had trouble sustaining drives a year ago, it made a bad situation worse.

Kickers, unfortunately, are the most disposable players on NFL rosters. Dawson has to show marked improvement in '07, or the Browns might look elsewhere for a kicker in '08.

Dave Zastudil stepped into the punter's role last year, and was solid, if not Chris-Gardocki-in-his-prime-esque. Eighty-one punts, zero blocks, a 44-yard average with a 38.4-yard net. Sure as heck better than sitting through two years of Derrick Frost and Kyle Richardson.

Josh Cribbs has emerged as arguably the best kickoff returner in the NFL. With blazing linear speed, he amassed 1,494 yards and one touchdown on 61 kickoff returns last season.

The downside? those 61 kickoffs mean the other team was scoring a lot of points on the Browns. If your kickoff returner constitutes a major bright spot on your team, chances are there are other problems that need to be addressed.

The real question mark heading into the dog days of August is who will return punts. Dennis Northcutt, at one point statistically the best punt returner in the league (I still don't know how that happened), is gone to Jacksonville. That leaves a throng of players trying out for the position.

Have legs? Good vision? Able to signal for a fair catch? The Browns might have a job for you.

Right now, receivers Tim Carter and Travis Wilson might get a look as returners, as might Cribbs, who appears to lack the lateral mobility to be a great punt returner if last year's quasi-failure in the role is any indication.

Rookie Syndric Steptoe, a returner in college, could be the long-term solution. But at this point, Vince Papale might be a better kick-returning option than anyone the Browns have in camp.

Coaches

The biggest story heading into camp is the new-look Browns offense under first-year coordinator Rob Chudzinski. Chud was a former tight ends coach for the Browns under Butch Davis, and returns to Cleveland after spending two seasons coaching Antonio Gates in the same role with the Chargers, one of the best offensive teams in football.

Needless to say, Chudzinski figures to employ a lot of plays that call for tight ends Kellen Winslow Jr. and Steve Heiden to get the ball -- not the worst idea, considering they were the two most reliable receivers for the Browns a year ago. Chudzinski previously coached Winslow at the University of Miami, so the two go way back.

Chudzinski will also attempt to rely heavily on a between-the-tackles running game that utilizes the Browns' revamped offensive line and the horseplow running style of new feature back Jamal Lewis. If Lewis can stay on the field and productive for 16 games, it's a good idea ... if he can, that is.

Romeo Crennel enters the season on one of the hottest hot seats of any NFL coach. Coming off a 4-12 season and facing a brutal September/early October schedule, Crennel is fighting an uphill battle to show any progress. In the span of the first four weeks of the season, Crennel will face all three divisional opponents -- all at home, no less.

Crennel is infamously 1-11 versus the AFC North in two seasons as the Browns coach. If that record drops to 1-14 before the bye week, odds are slim Crennel is going to end the season as the Browns coach.

Already, the vultures are swirling and ready to prematurely name Bill Cowher as the Browns coach in 2008.

Front office/ownership

There is no question Phil Savage has been able to ramp up the talent level on the team in two years, even if the record doesn't show it. Last year, he drafted two potential defensive studs in Kamerion Wimbley and D'Qwell Jackson. In each of the last two years, he's drawn top-flight free agents to Cleveland. This year, he addressed the offensive line through the draft, selecting Joe Thomas third overall.

But there is that little nagging problem of Savage performing the role of a super-scout and not really providing the team with any kind of administrative backbone on the homefront. Most of the season, Savage is off scouting the college ranks in preparation for the following year's draft. That's necessary, but for a team that is still trying to crawl out of the muck of years and years of awful football and off-the-field indiscretions too numerous to count, more on-site leadership is probably needed.

Randy Lerner could try to become a front-office owner like Dallas' Jerry Jones or Oakland's Al Davis, but I just don't think that's in his blood. If this little nugget uncovered by TheClevelandFan.com's own Hornless Rhino is true, Lerner might have scones and shepherd's pie in his blood far more than mom and apple pie. Lerner also owns Aston Villa of the English Premiership, and it's becoming painfully obvious that he enjoys English "footie" far more than stars-and-stripes football.

Sooner or later, Lerner might come to the conclusion that he simply can't satisfy two mistresses in the realm of sports. The Browns might be the one he casts adrift.