Customer Reviews

Dealing: The Cleveland Indians' New Ballgame: How a Small-Market Team Reinvented Itself as a Major League Contender

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Terry Pluto is as close to a homegrown sports reporter as a region can have. Living in the Cleveland (OH) area, Pluto has aced major sports writing posts for The Plain Dealer and Akron Beacon Journal, along with writing numerous books on sports and other issues.

While he has returned to his roots as it were for recent books on the financial sheets of the new Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Indians, Pluto may be best known for an outstanding oral history on the ABA, Loose Balls.

When you mention the Dolan family to sports fans in NE Ohio, you may be greeted with words that drove Howard Stern to satellite radio. In the late 1990s the Dolan family purchased the then thriving Cleveland Indians from Richard Jacobs, and have been considered cheap, incompetent and having little clue in long-term planning to bring the club back into a contender's slot for the World Series.

Pluto does an excellent job in describing how that myth does not equal the reality of new franchise owners who admittedly got in over their heads in trying to be like cash-cow franchise like the Red Sox and Yankees & have poised the team to make solid division runs in 2006 and beyond with a nucleus of players who will be with the franchise for several years.

As I write this review, though, the Tribe is mired behind the Tigers and White Sox in the AL Central & has been victim to some disturbingly erratic play. With the Cavs recent playoff run and the Browns ready to start soon, the interest level in baseball remains tepid at best. These issues may lead to a new dynamic in the club blueprint outlined in the book.

Where Pluto has had utter disdain with the way the NFL and Al Lerner brought football back to Cleveland - which severely hampered the writing in that book - he has a more objective pen in attempting to present facts through team financial documents, scouting analysis and interviews.

I strongly feel Pluto learned a valuable lesson from his Browns book to limit quoting himself from ABJ colmuns. He limits his writings, which is a major plus. Recent interviews with past participants in the glory run along with material culled from past media reports is a nice mix.

The book may not be for a reader who has little background in the history of the team over the past decade or so. For as popular the club has been in the sales of hats and jerseys nationally, fandom remains regional. That could be why it was published by a NE Ohio-based company.

I hope Pluto considers writing a book on the rebirth of the Cavaliers through the eyes of management. In my view he's batting .500 in his exploration of the financial side of pro sports in Cleveland and has his own emerging blueprint to make a basketball book a real winner.

Terry Pluto has a wealth of inside information about the professional sports scene in the Cleveland area. In this book he shows us what goes on in the front office and what goes into some of the decisions about players. If your are even a casual follower of the Indians, or MLB in general, you will be interested in reading this book. You'll get a whole new look at why a team has some of the players it does, and why it doesn't have some of the players it or you may have wanted.
A very, interesting read.

This new century's baseball team has different players than those in the good old days:
Moneyball
Fantasy
Reality
Business
Agents
Cable
Free Agency
Arbitration
Revenue Sharing
and of course, that good ol' reliable utility player

Hindsight

You can shuffle your lineup any way you want to, but at the end of the day, the deck is still stacked against the owner(s). Cleveland fans feel so deprived as none of their professional sports teams have won a championship for so many years, most people can't remember the last time it happened! And they're not the only ones.

In the last few years, the rules have changed--drastically. It's hardly fair to blame the new owners (the Dolan family) for not being the previous one--Dick Jacobs. After all, Jacobs did just what he'd done all his lifetime--bought low, sold high. Sold extra-high, actually. That doesn't mean that Jacobs should be blamed for having bought the baseball team in the first place--or selling it twelve years later. Had he not bought it when he did in 1987, the Cleveland Indians might well be some other city's team. Even so, it took the Jacobs family several years to get to the high-flying mid-90s, when the playoffs were the standard by which all other accomplishments were measured. Back then, the Browns were a bunch of nobodies, and so were the Cavs. Things are vastly different now--at least for the Cavs.

Terry Pluto uses his extensive knowledge and the openness of the Dolan family, along with Mark Shapiro, to explain the last few years of baseball in Cleveland. Actually, Paul Dolan, president of the team, should almost qualify for co-author status, he appears so often and so openly, explaining the actions of himself and his family. The Dolans appear to be out-going, straight-forward owners, explaining matters to the fans. (Sometimes they explain too much, to be sure.)

Reading this book, you'll feel like part of the team in this plain-speaking look at the inner workings of a Major League baseball team's front office, and how the entire team--front office and the one on the field--combine to make things happen.

Perhaps the Dolans biggest mistake was that, although they had been shrewd businessmen for many years, they approached the purchase of the team as fans rather than owners. For no other reason, perhaps, you have to like these guys. They play with their hearts--with tons of dollars thrown in for good measure. Seems to me they should be given a bit more time to make good on their intentions. After all, the world--and Northeast Ohio--changed drastically in the four years since they overpaid for the team.

There was the aftermath of 9/11, which will continue for a good many more years. The economic scene in Cleveland has gone through major changes in the last four years. Loss of jobs equates to many less dollars available for this not-so-inexpensive-anymore entertainment. Baseball, itself, has experienced the same sort of trauma, with new, long-term very pricey free-agent contracts. (Also, it's not only the Indians who sometimes have to pay another team to take a player they can't support any longer.) Then, too, the very novelty of the shiny new Jacobs Field began to wear off a bit. And don't forget the players. It takes much more time for a player to reach his prime than it does for him to pass on by it. Aging athletes can't always keep up, and it's a wise manager who realizes that fact, while still working around it. Not to mention, it's all too easy to ruin a player who's too young to handle the constant every day stress of competitive sports.

Pluto goes into great detail about how--knowing they weren't baseball strategists--the Dolans wisely found a solid core of young, knowledgeable men with varying skills and put them in charge of the team. General Manager Mark Shapiro (MLB's Executive of the Year for 2005); his assistants: Chris Antonetti, (the wizard of the computer); Neal Huntington, director of player development; scounting director John Mirabelli, and minor league director John Farrell. Between them, they selected Eric Wedge as manager of the team. (Locals complain about Wedge, but his peers have chosen him as one of the coaches for the 2006 All-Star game!) There's a lot to be said for putting someone in charge and letting them have the actual means and power to do their best without fear of the axe falling. That's not to say they can take forever, but it takes time to find the best young prospects and nurture them to major league capability.

Next time you want to complain about the penny-pinching Dolans, stop and think about this for a moment. In 2000, they purchased the Indians for 320 million dollars. The entire team, the front office, the farm teams, the whole magilla. Then, (from page175) "Along with having the three highest payrolls in team history (2000-2002), the Dolans also paid $40 million during all of their ownership in revenue sharing, mostly because of the success of the Jacobs era." Today, even though they've cut back some, they've also greatly increased the scounting program in an effort to re-build the team.

Cleveland is a small market, with three major-league teams. (New York City has more teams, of course, but even with all the dollars spent there, NY teams don't win every game, all the time.) Even though the New York Yankees spend 200 million dollars PER YEAR on their team payroll! Anyone here have that kind of money to spend? Didn't think so. Folks here want the Dolans to sell. Not so easily done. No one says the Dolans want to sell, but just suppose they did. Who'd buy? Until that happens, maybe we ought to cut them some slack, and give the Dolans a chance to finish what they started.

Dealing is another fabulous book by Cleveland's owne Terry Pluto. His books always hit the mark and here he pulls no punches on the Dolan/Shapiro era of the history of the Cleveland Indians.

a great look at how mark shapiro learned on the job and, with a pittance of a budget as compared to the likes of the red sox and the yankees, has created a truly competitive team for years to come.

"Dealing" is a good read for Tribe fans, but probably not as interesting for the regular baseball fan. Covering the post-Jacobs rebuilding era, it describes how the mighty mid 90's teams fell as a result of economic changes, new ownership, and just a loss of novelty.

Its unusual to read a "historical" book thats so current (it takes you up to the Marte trade). More time has to pass to see if Shapiro's vision is a solid one.
The book works a lot better if the Indians were having the successful year we anticipated.

Dick Jacobs is shown to be a shrewd business-god who took advantage of the Dolans' anxiousness to own a franchise. The Dolans obviously took off more than they could chew, but I give them credit for being genuine Tribe fans. Jacobs apparently owned the Indians as a moneymaker and knew exactly when to get in and out. I also give the Dolans props for being anti-Steinbrenners and letting Shapiro do his thing. A lot of teams seem to have no plan about how to escape their losing ways.

John Hart gets somewhat rapped for his win-now manuevering, but when the Indians were a top team and the money was rolling in, I can't say I blame him.

Pluto repeats some points to pad out the book. I would've liked to get some more juice on topics like Milton Bradley's antics, Eddie Murray's firing, or Charlie Manual's abrupt dismissal.

For a baseball book, it was disappointing to see no photos inside. And an index is never a bad thing either. Overall, though, not bad.

Replete with insight, key quotes and a smooth flow, this book is an easy and interesting read for any baseball fan, but naturally for Fans of the Feathered.

Terry Pluto's wit and intriguing words/themes enabled me to finish this book in a few short hours on an international flight.

If you want to understand the history of Cleveland baseball --- past and especially present -- get ahold of this book. It truly explains how teams like Cleveland can be reborn and then rebuilt. It also disproves the lie about money buying wins in baseball.

Tremendous book. Well written and very enjoyable to read.
Terry Pluto does a tremendous job of explaining and helping the reader understand the behind the scene deals that have helped rebuild the Indians into the contender that they are today.

DEALING IS THE STORY OF THE CLEVELAND INDIANS RESURGANCE BACK TO A CONTENDER IN 2005 AND 2007. AUTHOR TERRY PLUTO GOES BEHIND THE SCENES AND HAS PROVIDED THE READER WITH NUMEROUS SCOUTING REPORTS, FINANCIAL DATA, OWNERSHIP INPUT AND TERRY'S PERSONAL INSIGHTS AND OPINIONS ON HOW THE INDIANS BECAME CONTENDERS AGAIN. HE BRINGS US BACK TO THE DAYS WHEN THE TEAM WAS OWNED BY DICK JACOBS AND RUN BY JOHN (SPEND ALL THE MONEY YOU CAN) HART. THE TRIBE DOMINATED THE CENTRAL DIVISION FROM 1995-99. THE TEAM WAS SOLD TO A DIFFERENT APPROACH OWNER IN FATHER AND SON MISERS LARRY AND PAUL DOLAN WHO MAKE SCROOGE LOOK LIKE GEORGE STEINBRENNER. THE PAYROLL WAS CUT, JOHN HART BAILED SHIP AND MARK (THE MIND) SHAPIRO BECAME GM AND HIRED ERIC (EINSTEIN) WEDGE AS MANAGER. THE TRIBE MADE SOME GOOD AND NOT SO GOOD TRADES DURING THIS TIME AND ALIENATED MUCH OF THE FAN BASE THEY HAD FOR MANY YEARS.(THE ATTENDANCE STILL STRUGLES EVEN WITH A GOOD TEAM) BUT EVENTUALLY THE TEAM HAS GOTTEN BETTER BUT LACKS CONSISTENCY. IF YOU ARE A TRIBE FAN, THIS IS A GREAT READ. IT IS ALSO A GOOD AND INTERESTING READ FOR ALL BASEBALL FANS WHO SEE HOW TO CREATE A CONTENDER ON A LOW TO MEDIUM BUDGET.