Rockin' and rollin' in Cleveland

Sports Illustrated baseball writer Mark Bechtel reports on the weekend's festivities at the Jake

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Posted: Monday October 12, 1998 11:32 AM

Cleveland Rocks: At Jacobs Field on Friday night the Indians unveiled a new skit on the scoreboard screen. Right before the Indians took the field, they ran a tape of a dude decked out in Yankees attire sneaking into the control room at the Jake while the theme to Mission: Impossible plays. He puts a CD in the sound system, and the opening strains of "New York, New York," start. (Tribe fans, God bless 'em, booed the Chairman mercilessly.) Then Slider, the Indians' amorphous mauve mascot, comes in with some kind of special Slider gun and offs the guy in slo-mo. Then he puts in his own CD, which plays Ian Hunter's "Cleveland Rocks." (It's The Drew Carey Show theme song.) Corny? Yes. Cool? Yep. It got the house rockin'.

Cleveland Rolls: Bartolo Colon benefitted from the raucous crowd Friday, as he threw the first postseason complete game by an Indians pitcher since Bob Lemon in the opening game of the 1954 World Series. The Tribe couldn't keep the momentum going through the weekend, though. For the Yankees, Orlando Hernandez and David Wells each pitched well, but neither had his best stuff. The Indians couldn't take advantage, however, because they performed abysmally with men on base. I haven't seen a worse clutch performance since my dad tried to teach my sister how to drive the family five-speed.

(A taste of) Cleveland (on a couple of) Rolls, Part II: The best thing about a trip to Cleveland is, hands down, getting a few hot dogs and slathering them with Bertman's Stadium Mustard, the finest condiment on God's green earth.

So's Your Old Man: Before Game 5, some Indians fans were really letting David Wells, the Yankees' starting pitcher, have it as he warmed up in the bullpen. Wells said after the game that the guys were really nasty, including making fun of his late mother. "It really bothered me," he said. When Jim Thome was asked if he has ever had any problems with fans in New York, he said, "I haven't run into any problems in New York, except for a laser beam on my chest." By the way, I almost caught Thome's homer off of Wells. He hit it into the auxiliary press box in right field. Some guy in front of me got a hand on it, then it skidded to a New York TV guy just to my left.

Cleveland Rocks, Part II: I finally got to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday morning. As I walked up to the building I saw a banner touting the featured exhibit, "Elvis is in the Building," as the stereo system played Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper. Something weird about that. Once inside, it was really cool to see a TV the King actually shot at (there was a .45 caliber hole in it) while my favorite Elvis song, In the Ghetto, played. Yes, In the Ghetto. It's true. I'm human. I'm not made of wood. When the King sings "And his momma cries," in that falsetto of his, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.  

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