Indians' Shapiro hailed for patient team-building
08.10.2007 03:00
Sport and Travel
- Source: USA Today
NEW YORK — When Mark Shapiro was growing up in Baltimore, baseball became his passion, but more importantly he learned there was something called the Orioles way.
"It was the way the game should be played," Shapiro, now the Cleveland Indians general manager, says. "More importantly, the Orioles way started in the minor leagues. The players learned it then and brought that philosophy to the majors." Shapiro's dad is Ron Shapiro, the highly respected attorney/agent who's represented premier players such as Cal Ripken and Kirby Puckett. Dad Shapiro, who wrote the best-seller The Power of Nice, has always preached an approach to negotiations that keeps them from becoming acrimonious, with no real winners or losers at the end of the day. I see these traits in Mark Shapiro, whose patience and respect for the game is a key reason the Cleveland Indians are one game away from playing the Boston Red Sox for the American League pennant. Shapiro's patience with this Indians team, especially the young players, is an ingredient that manifested itself into two consecutive victories against the outplayed $200 million Yankees, who fought back with a Game 3 win Sunday to extend the series. Even Brian Cashman, the Yankees general manager, sees what Shapiro has done. "I certainly admire the artwork that Mark Shapiro is doing putting that team together over the years and having it grow into something special right now," says Cashman. The Yankee won all six games against the Indians during the regular season. Those performances didn't carry over to October. "They're better than the 6-0 regular season numbers that we did," says Cashman. "They probably haven't gotten as much credit as they deserve. They're very well-balanced. They have terrific pitching." To me, this team is better than the 1990s Indians who won all those Central Division titles for GM John Hart and manager Mike Hargrove. Those teams would send Jim Thome or Manny Ramirez or Albert Belle to the plate and bash your heads in. They had more than adequate pitching, but I remember Hart always trying to get more. There's not a better one-two, lefty-righty punch now than C. C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona. Ask the Yankees. Reliever Joe Borowski has been a savior, too, with 45 regular-season saves. "What Joe Borowski has done for us this year has been tremendous," says manager Eric Wedge. "It's involved a lot of strength in personality as well as experience. I think any bullpen starts with the closer." When the Indians won just 78 games in 2006 after almost making the playoffs the year before with 93 wins, Shapiro could have made wholesale changes. The patience he learned from his father and growing up in Baltimore told him otherwise. "We thought we were a lot closer to that 93-win team than the one that lost 78 games," he says. "With our run-scoring and our starting pitching gave us two components that were among the best in the big leagues. We had some defensive problems and the bullpen was inadequate, but we fixed that." In a contrast to the bashing Indians, these new division champions practice small ball. In Friday's insect-hampered 2-1 victory, they bunted four times. Center fielder Grady Sizemore, the Indians' leadoff batter, stole 33 bases and scored a team-high 118 runs, fourth-best in the AL. And then there's catcher Victor Martinez, who drove in 114 runs, blasted 25 homers and batted .301. "Victor's been our most consistent offensive player this year," says Wedge. "I feel like we've got some great offensive players, but if you look at 162 games, I can't tell you how much he's meant to us. Not only that, he handles the pitchers very well." On the eve of a crucial weekend series against Detroit, Wedge told me how much respect he had for the Tigers, how good he thought they were. That hasn't changed, but the Tigers are home watching the Indians on TV.
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