Commentary: Glory days of Cleveland baseball started with a lineup that didn't stop slugging

The greatest lineup in the history of Cleveland's baseball franchise was birthed at the end of the 1993 season. "I talked to our players in their exit interviews," general manager John Hart said. "It was almost to the man. All of them said, 'John, get us some free agents. We're ready. We are ready. Don't be messing around." Hart was also ready, and there was NO messing around. In time, they won. Plenty of winning. Nonstop winning. Historic winning. There was so much winning that it spawned even more winning. Bankrolled by owner Richard Jacobs, Hart and sidekick Dan O'Dowd kick-started what would become one of the great roster rebuilds in baseball history. It quickly became a golden age of Cleveland baseball. Cleveland also had a new, young manager named Mike Hargrove and a minor league system that started churning out enough hitters and pitchers to guarantee a new baseball birth for a city and franchise desperate for one. The new ballpark was icing on the cake, while the new lineup was Hall of Fame-worthy from top to bottom: a perennial .300-hitting All-Star second baseman (Carlos Baerga), a future 600-homer Hall of Fame third baseman (Jim Thome), a savage, Ruthian slugger in left field who was so menacing he once refused to go to first base after getting hit by a pitch (Albert Belle), a speedy jackrabbit center fielder (Kenny Lofton), an All-Star catcher (Sandy Alomar Jr.) and one of the most outrageously gifted hitting machines ever produced by any team in any league anywhere (Manny Ramirez). Hargrove took it from there, and when all the pieces were in place, so was what would become arguably the greatest and most-feared lineup in Cleveland baseball history. It was such a loaded lineup that for a time, early on, when the players were still adjusting to American League pitchers, Hargrove's lineup had Ramirez batting eighth one day and Thome ninth, then Hargrove would switch and the next day Thome would hit eighth and Ramirez ninth. By the end of their careers, Thome and Ramirez had hit a combined 1,167 home runs. It was a dream lineup on a dream team that had no holes anywhere, and routinely scared the pine tar off pitchers throughout the league. Hargrove didn't have to do much managing, but he did get plenty of time to admire the swings and the results of his two sluggers, who at that time were just about impossible to pitch to. These were the golden years of a golden team, whose wonderous slugging simply overpowered opposing hitters. In one of those games Cleveland hitters were winning 8-0 before they made their first out. It only got worse for opponents when Cleveland acquired second baseman Robbie Alomar (Sandy's brother), who was just as much of a hitting machine as was his brother. The one player on those Indians teams that was more defensively oriented was the magnificent shortstop Omar Vizquel, who never saw a grounder he couldn't turn into an out. Hargrove tells the story of Seattle pitcher Chris Bosio, who had a no-hitter going with two outs in the ninth inning. The batter hit a soft grounder to Vizquel behind the mound. The hitter wasn't a fast runner. Most guys would run in there, catch it and throw it. Not Vizquel. He comes in, barehands it and throws the runner out. "Who does that?" said Hargrove. "Omar had the guts of a burglar. He's like, 'I am going to try this, and it has a 1 percent chance of working, but I'm going to go for it.' "He would do stuff like that and I would get all clinched up thinking, 'What are you doing?' ... And then: 'Oh, that's good. That's good.'" Those teams were utterly fearless, regardless of the position they played, the score of the game, or anything else that might disrupt their thoughts. They played 144 games in the regular season in 1995. They won 100 and lost 44. They were the best team in the major leagues and should have won the World Series. But they didn't. Oh, well. Wait till this year? Contact Jim Ingraham at Jingraham4@gmail.com.