How many minutes of your life were wasted thinking up that comment?

Okay, I saw borderline profanity and borderline personal attack, so I went for the delete button.

Still have little idea what anyone is talking about here, but I think society will be well served if we all move on.

My girlfriend made a similar comment about my Cy Cy Bobble and my autographed baseball. Although, she has a point with the baseball. Its signed by CC and Lee (and Sowers, unfortunately). I might be selling high on that one right now, but I still doubt I’ll do it.

She won’t listen, because (a) the ladies all love Grady and (b) she’s a dog.

I think Adam’s post was sarc. Just a little bit.

Cory Snyder is your favorite human ever, huh? My favorites from that era have to be Brett Butler and Joe Carter.

This whole line of discussion is worthless. Nobody was comparing Lofton to anyone else anyway, but if you were going to, you certainly wouldn’t use OPS+, which gives no credit for the defense provided by a Gold Glove center fielder — not to mention five straight SB titles.

The same Rico Carty who always played with his wallet in his back pocket because he didn’t trust his teammates?

I don’t see why. 2000 and 2001 he was the CF for one of the best fielding teams I know of. Many thought it was the end of a spectacular and sometimes great career for Kenny. Then, he baffled everyone by playing the next SIX seasons with big time contributions to contending teams. Even with this extended career in his “down” years, he STILL has an OBP over .370 in his career and probably the best base stealer in his era.

It also doesn’t seem to matter that Belle was a total head-case and Manny was well…Manny. I loved (love) Lofton because he was everything I wanted to be as a baseball player. I’ll be the first to admit I never had any potential to hit for much power. But I prided myself on my ability to make contact, run the bases, and play defense. Was there a better player – from a die-hard Tribe fan’s point of view – to idolize? I think not. Well…maybe, just maybe, Willie Mays Hayes.

Nice analogy.

I think me and danvail are on the same page here.

Dude … did you even read the story that this whole thread is about? Go up there, click on the link and read it.

Yes, the purpose of this thread is to celebrate Lofton and his True Indianness. Responding with a dumb list of old complaints, and throwing up his worst season of stats, was just a dick move.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you were just oblivious to the story that is linked above, which is the whole reason we are taking a a moment to celebrate the guy.

I had to rec this, because I can imagine this scene so vividly.

He did a lot of public pouting in order to get a larger contract extension. The extension was unwise and a drag on team payroll, and he was terrible for the entire contract. And then there was all that nibbling … the guy drove me nuts. He also had the BenFran thing going where he was absurdly overrated, because he got run-supported to five straight seasons of 15 wins. Also … “losing pitcher,” 1997 World Series.

I just always hated Nagy because I was/am an impatient child, and he took forever to get through a game. Plus, kids always want to see their offense.

Kenny left the Indians because the Indians didn’t want him. In comparison:

-Thome left for tons of money after saying he wouldn’t.
-Manny left for tons of money to hated rival.
-Robbie Alomar isn’t hated by anyone that I’ve ever heard. But if he is, it’s because he was aloof and once spit in a dude’s face.
-Albert left for tons of money and was clearly a gigantic ass. That’s why he’s hated.

Isn’t it clear why Kenny isn’t grouped with those players? Lofton kept coming back to the Indians after they tried to get rid of him for chrissakes.

Literally the only bad memory anyone has of Kenny is of him going into a decline while in Cleveland. He did everything else right. All the other guys have created quite a few bad memories that are unique to them, not generic to old baseball players.

There isn’t anything useful about this discourse. Its entire effect is to annoy other users while gratifying its author. That kind of behavior makes you an anti-social narcissist, not a free speech martyr.

Chuck’s sturdy guys-in-a-bar analogy is useful here. If you were with a dozen people in a bar, and half of them had made a point of saying that you were being The Annoying Guy, would you (a) shut up for a little while, (b) at least change the subject, or © keep talking until everybody else left and/or you got beat up?

The way we run this forum is simple: We kick out anti-social people before everyone else gets annoyed and leaves the virtual watering hole. We don’t care about one person gratifying himself, we care about the whole group.

Bottom line: Stop annoying people. It serves no purpose.

For the record, I wasn’t thrilled when we traded Grissom (on a much cheaper contract) and re-signed Lofton, and I was pretty annoyed when we picked up that 2001 option. He clearly was past his prime.

I don’t think he had a real resurgence, although the fact he remained useful for six or seven more years was impressive. I think he was just protected by playing part-time, being put in platoon roles, and facing NL pitching for the most part.

Albert Belle is most definitely a signature player. Those Indians teams have I’d say at least 4 obvious signature players:

Lofton
Belle
Thome
Omar

And then a bunch more of which there are probably at least two more:
Manny
Sandy
Baerga
Nagy
Hershiser
R. Alomar
Fryman
Jaret

Now, some of those guys are not “true Indians” but they do represent players that are strongly associated with those teams by the general populace.

For a team that never won, I’d say that Indians team has a really high number of players that were and continue to be extremely closely associated with the club. Contrast to, say, the Dodgers of the ’90s. The Dodgers had one signature player: Piazza. Eric Karros and Nomo lag way behind.