The Indians will not finish first next year. Attendance will be down. Revenues will suffer. This isn't really even debatable - Mark Shapiro has already conceded as much. What is debatable is whether the rebuilding plan will return the Tribe to contention or send them spiraling into a Breweresque oblivion. You have argued that declining revenues leads to lower payrolls which leads to a less competitive team which leads to even lower revenues ... wash, rinse, repeat until the Indians are a single-A franchise. But the reason this logic falls apart is that next year's payroll isn't dependent on this year's revenues.

What induces teams to invest more in players is the potential increase in revenues that can be realized from the investment. In the New York market, the sources of potential revenue are so great that high payrolls (relative to the league) can be sustained and still be profitable. But for the Indians, turning a profit first requires a nucleus of players that outperform their salaries for a number of years. Only then can additional investments can be made in players like Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez, who are among the best in the game but must be paid like that as well.

What limits a team even more than the salaries paid out to superstars are those paid to the lesser lights, "veterans" whose production is essentially replaceable at a lower cost but get paid more because they are perceived as a known quantity.

perhaps i am overly pessimistic - however, i'm certain i'm not wrong. jacobs, bavasi, hart and company used all the tricks of the corporate trade to sell seats at the jake (as well as gund arena) - that is, in order to insure good attendance once the stadium and arena got built, there were deals made in backrooms all over the city of cleveland. since public dollars were used, there must be income projections and statements exhibiting how these new facilities will benefit the city as a whole. we know that what's good for business is good for business, so to speak, and it's been very clear that there were many seats sold to corporations (a complaint we have discussed many times before - the lack of access for the ordinary ticket buyer), thereby assuring few unsold seats. these agreements between businesses seem to sort of buckle under the weight of their obligation, and when economic times are tough, most businesses understandably stop doing so much frivolous spending (on things such as ballpark excursions, lunches at strip clubs, etc.), and the attendance began to wane last year at the same time as the tribe's performance began to become questionable. when the indians began their rise, tickets became almost impossible to acquire. really, it was hard if you didn't know somebody who had them. and scalpers made a fortune. the current situation is good for the ordinary (that is, not wealthy, non-corporate) baseball fan. it isn't however, great for the business side - REVENUES WILL BE DOWN. that is a fact. this will likely result in even leaner payrolls, and poorer teams on the field (until, of course, these prospects we acquired this year become solid starters - and there's no guarantee they will...), and as a result, even lower revenue. hopefully, the indians' marketing machine - almost non-existent for seven years - will get in gear and make jacobs field THE place to be again, somehow....though it seems to me the best way to market a team is to put a good product on the field. you're right about one thing, though - if the indians fail to sign jim thome, the fans may stay away in droves, hurt that the fans' favorite was let go. this is a critical test - in my opinion - for shapiro AND dolan. now is the time to show the fans that there is something to root for today, and next season - not just a distant and uncertain future.

I think you are being overly pessimistic. It has been proven conclusively that a team in Cleveland playing in a cavernous, decrepit, 60-year old stadium had better contend if they intend to draw fans. Yet this is the first year of the Jacobs Field era in which the Tribe hasn't contended all season, a year in which we traded away our two best pitchers before August, a year in which a labor dispute threatened the completion of the season and still an average of 32,000 per game have showed up. Not to take this for granted, mind you. Attendance will be down over 500,000 this season, more than a trifling amount, and it may well fall again next year. But I think the Indians will still draw greater than 2 million next season, good enough to put them in the upper half of the AL in home attendance, provided they resign Thome.

Now that I've said that, I know I'm setting myself up. At the trading deadline, Thome said all the right things about staying in Cleveland but rumor has it that he was very nearly dealt to the Giants. The Indians were in Oakland on July 31 and Thome sat out the game that day. Had Thome been able to negotiate a contract extension with San Francisco, he might well have been peppering the waters of McCovey Cove with baseballs instead of finishing the year with the Tribe. Now Larry Bowa says that the Phillies should make a run at Thome in the off-season, while in the same breath belittling his own first baseman Travis Lee. Wouldn't it be a perversion of everything revenue-sharing is supposed to represent if Philadelphia (the 6th-largest media market in the US) signed the Indians best player using dollars they received from the Tribe as revenue-sharing?

may i tell you how i feel about the twins clinching at the jake? distressed, yes indeed. a casual observer of baseball told me the other day that the tribe's current predicament certainly seems to put them in a pickle as far as revenue goes. i mean, what really will drive attendance next year? it has been proven conclusively that a team in cleveland (a baseball team, that is) had better contend, or fans will forget how to get to the stadium. it will be interesting to see precisely how many season tickets they'll be selling this year (a good time to buy, i'd say). tribescribe east is considering a move to bring himself closer to the friendly confines of the jake, as i'm thinking that the scalpers are going to need some love. in any case, the twins made a scene and a mess in the visitor's locker room yesterday, and the anti-climax of the season came at the conclusion of the twins' 5-0 win yesterday, and the end of the rain-soaked yankees' win over the white sox which mathematically eliminated the sox (finally) and brought the twins their first postseason berth since the glory days of kirby, kent hrbek, frank (101-stringed) viola, et al. good for them, i guess - here's hoping that bud selig's personal waterloo begins at the homerdome. (if the indians aren't contending, tribescribe has no choice but to root for the league's doormat, as this really seems like karmic circumstance that would bring the twins full circle from contraction to world series contention. what do you suppose the owners did to deserve this???) anyway, i hope the twins' players - underpaid or not - gave tips to the clubhouse attendants for cleaning up their mess. (i noticed tarps under their feet to prevent slipping - i guess it's too late to suggest sabotage....) anyway, at least it wasn't the salary-dumping white sox this year. (wait, wait - the indians were salary-dumpers...oh well.) well, in any case, it's back to the familiar refrain we indians fans had been using since the 50's....."WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR!!!"