Dealing
The Cleveland Indians' New Ballgame: How a Small-Market Team Reinvented Itself as a Major League Contender
by Terry Pluto
- Format: Softcover, 248 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 inches
- Illustrations: 25 color photographs
- ISBN: 978-1-59851-049-2
- Price: $14.95
- Also available in: hardcover: $12.48 (50%% off)
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Description
Now updated through the exciting 2007 season—with a new section of color photos.
For Indians fans who want to know what's going on inside the front office, this book tells all. It's an in-depth look at how the team was taken apart and rebuilt as a contender again in spite of Major League Baseball's current competitive imbalance.
Tribe fans grew accustomed to winning in the late 1990s. They had an owner with deep pockets, a brand-new ballpark, and a team of All-Stars who delivered a division championship nearly every year.
Then, in 2002, the team's new owners began a controversial plan to unload their popular but expensive stars and replace them with a steady stream of young prospects and veteran rehab projects. Critics scoffed, and fans stayed away. But by 2005 the plan showed promise with a 95-win season. And in 2007 it paid off, as the Indians beat the top-dollar Yankees in the playoffs and came within one game of the World Series—with a payroll less than half that of their competition.
How did they do it? Veteran sportswriter Terry Pluto (who was granted extensive access to top management, scouting reports, and financial data for this book) carefully analyzes each big decision and tells which ones worked, which ones didn't, and why. This rare behind-the-scenes look at a modern front office will intrigue any fan fascinated by baseball deal-making.
About Terry Pluto
Terry Pluto is a sports columnist for the Plain Dealer. He has twice been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors as the nation's top sports columnist for medium-sized newspapers. He is a nine-time winner of the Ohio Sports Writer of the Year award and has received more than 50 state and local writing awards. In 2005 he was inducted into the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame. He is the author of 23 books, including The Curse of Rocky Colavito (selected by the New York Times as one of the five notable sports books of 1989), and Loose Balls, which was ranked number 13 on Sports Illustrated's list of the top 100 sports books of all time. He was called “Perhaps the best American writer of sports books,” by the Chicago Tribune in 1997. He lives with his wife, Roberta, in Akron, Ohio. More About Terry Pluto