It’s hard being a Cleveland Indians fan in central Texas, but it has its perks; I was able to get a Cliff Lee Rangers jersey for eight dollars off the discount rack at Academy Sports. According to a report from ESPN, my next adventure in “supporting great players who play near me but left my favorite team years ago” could be New York Yankees pitcher and former Cy Young award-winning Tribesman C.C. Sabathia.

The Texas Rangers, likely to lose starter C.J. Wilson to free agency over the winter, are preparing to make a strong bid to sign CC Sabathia if the New York Yankees ace chooses to exercise the opt-out clause in his contract, a baseball source told ESPNNewYork.com.

“I hear they’re going to throw a boatload of money at him,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

I’m going to take a wild guess and say the anonymous source was “a guy on the Internet who follows baseball”. It’d be great if it was A.J. Burnett, unfolding some grand Machiavellian plot to usurp the Opening Day starter position. Regardless, the source goes on to say “no but I think he’ll stay in New York”, but I didn’t put that in the blockquote because 1) it undermines the entire point of the story, so I don’t know why ESPN chose to include it and 2) I would really like C.C. Sabathia to pitch for the Rangers. Nolan Ryan loves workhorse pitchers, and when Sabathia pitched in Milwaukee he was a feedbag away from making that figure of speech literal.

Now all we need to do is bring back Cliff Lee, get Cleveland to unload Grady Sizemore for 20 dollars and some A-leaguers (extremely likely, if you follow the Tribe) and put something racist on the hats and we’ll be all set.

In news that could make me the happiest blogger who also runs a Jim Thome-themed baseball webcomic on the entire Internet, Minnesota Twins designated hitter Jim Thome was claimed on waivers by the Cleveland Indians. Jason Kubel was also claimed by the Chicago White Sox, but does anybody care about Jason Kubel, honestly? It’s all about JIM, the latest member of the 600 home run club, the man who spent twelve years, three All-Star Game appearances and two World Series Championship near-wins (okay, one World Series near-win) in Cleveland. He accepted a contract with the Phillies and everyone in Cleveland turned on him, but I am not going to care about that because CAPITAL LETTERS and BASEBALL JOY.

Of course, the deal isn’t official yet.

The claims do not mean that either player will change teams. The Twins can trade Thome and/or Kubel. They also can keep one or both or allow one or both to leave on a claim.

Thome, who holds a full no-trade clause, and can reject any deal. He prefers the Phillies to the Indians, one source said, but it’s doubtful he could circumvent the waiver process to land with Philadelphia.

The Twins must decide on Thome and Kubel by 1 p.m. ET Friday. The Indians are six games out in the AL Central, the White Sox 61/2 out. But Thome could fit well in Cleveland, and the same is true of Kubel in Chicago.

Of course, getting Thome to the Phillies (again, argh) would be a pretty complicated process — the Twins would have to pull him off trade waivers and place him on release waivers, and Thome would have to reject every team claim besides Philadelphia … and even then he’d have to give up 500-grand in salary, convince the Twins to let him do this even though they’d get nothing in return, and not piss off every rival team with wire manipulation. All he’d have to do to get to Ohio is hang out, switch back to brown mustard and renew his season tickets at the Cleveland Play House.

More on this story as it develops, possibly involving me jumping up and down and clapping.

Why I’m Happy: The Cleveland Indians are going to compete! The Tribe added Kosuke Fukudome (yeah 3 home runs YEAH .260 BATTING AVERAGE) and sorta-ace Ubaldo Jimenez to bolster the line-up and push them back ahead of the Tigers before it’s too late. Sure, we had to give up our entire farm system and our prized Pomeranian (and we got that farm system by trading away all of our good players a few years ago), but hey, it’s now or never. It’s Tribe Time Now Or Never!

Why I’m Unhappy: Friday was our July edition of Free Fantasy Baseball With DraftStreet, and as per usual I dropped about 20 spots to finish 91st out of over 200. I’m in the upper half, but still, I think the Indians get worse every time we do these. Friday they lost 12-0 to the stinking Royals, and the guy who won had Billy Butler and Alex Gordon on his team. Welp! Thanks again to everyone who played, and here are the readers who won money.

On to the links~!

Sports

We’re All A Little Jealous Of Philadelphia Sports Teams Right Now - I mean, I’M not, but I could see why YOU would be. Tomorrow they’re going to announce that the Philadelphia Flyers have invented time travel and come back through the wormhole with teenage Wayne Gretzky and some sort of weird future cyborg Gordie Howe. Why did the Phillies need to add All-Stars? They’re an American League team playing in the National League already. [Smoking Section]

#Podcast: The Patrick Willis Interview - Be sure not to miss Punte’s podcast interview with Willis, where he asks him what it’s like to play in the NFL and then suddenly quits. In all seriousness, I feel like I keep having to say goodbye to Josh and that sucks, because I shouldn’t have to once. Good luck in your future endeavors, Punter, you’ll be missed. [KSK]

Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Hendrson Live Results and Commentary - I should start doing The Best and Worst of MMA Pay-Per-Views. Best: Fedor getting trounced in the first round and saying the ass-beating was God’s Will. Worst: Literally everything else. [Cage Potato]

Lily Anderson - She counts as sports! Our last post on Friday was about her performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at an Atlanta Braves game, and after struggling all day to have something worthwhile to say they were nice enough to link back to me on her Facebook fan page. So go “like” it, because it’s probably the one thing you can like on Facebook that makes you a better person. [Facebook]

With Leather

The 2011 U.S. Air Guitar Championship - I can’t think of anything weirder or lamer than this and I’ve been watching pro wrestling for like 30 years. It’s like a bunch of guys got together and decided to act like The Darkness, but didn’t want to get paid. [With Leather]

The Montreal Expos Are Dead, Long Live The Montreal Expos - Montreal wants baseball again and I’m all for it, as I want baseball and stadiums and mascots all over the damn place. Also worth reading is Nick Dallamora’s The Mouse That Never Roared, written way back when the Expos spirited away to Washington. [With Leather]

Carmelo Anthony Holding A Panda Bear? Carmelo Anthony Holding A Panda Bear - I’m getting a hang of these UPROXX titles. [With Leather]

Jay Cutler Faked It - … or so says Kristin Cavallari. Linking this here because it’s been online long enough for weird girls who are oddly defensive of Laguna Beach to find it and start leaving comments like ONLY THEY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED WHY DON’T YOU GET A LIFE AND A REAL JOB AND STOP WRITING even though I just copy-pasted most of this from a gossip website. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Scarlett Johansson Declines Marine’s Invitation To Ball - which makes sense, because she’s declined my invitation to ball about a thousand times. Unpopular Opinion: Marines need to stop guilt-tripping celebrities into doing things. [Film Drunk]

Avengers Cosplay - More women should dress like Mockingbird. I’m a little disappointed that this gallery isn’t full of hot girls dressing like Ultron, but that might be a fever fantasy I’ll never live to see. [Gamma Squad]

Spoiler Alert: Parks & Rec Has Cast Tammy 1 - The only way I’m okay with this casting news is if they explain how Ron and Tammy met with “We found each other. We found each other in the dark”. They should’ve been like “Community” and stunt-casted the sh** out of this. Let Oprah or some lesser form of Wendy Williams be Tammy 1. [Warming Glow]

Internet Explorer Users Dumb, Says Science - What’s next, a study revealing that people still using their @AOL.com e-mail addresses in 2011 are functionally illiterate? Yeah, we know all this. Science used to be for important things. When I was growing up they were all SCIENCE CREATES SPACE SHUTTLES AND UNLOCKS THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE. Now science is just a more boring version of Encyclopedia Dramatica. [UPROXX]

But the question remains: Are the Cleveland Indians “for real”?

Okay, so a one-and-a-half game lead in the AL Central might not constitute “awesome”, but watching Travis Hafner crush a ball into right field to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays and give the Tribe their second walk-off grand slam victory of the season felt that way. Blogs great and small have been asking that “are the Cleveland Indians an actual baseball team” question since the first week of the season and chances are they’ll be asking it well into September. If the Indians are three outs away from winning game four of the World Series to sweep the Phillies (or the Pirates, or whoever) the announcers will be on their Twitters, asking followers if now is the time to consider Cleveland a contender.

IT IS TIME TO DO THAT NOW. It is five past Tribe Time.

I’ve been watching this video over and over for the last half hour, so I thought I’d put it up on my website, where I could at least get a little traffic, and maybe a disgruntled Toronto fan stopping by to point out how the Jays play in the AL East and the Tribe plays in a ball pit with some kids dressed like the Twins. That’s true. It’s also true that we’ve got three months left in the season, and Cleveland could still finish 14 games behind the Tigers. It’s true that Cleveland is a terrible town full of terrible sports fans who still aren’t supporting their team and won’t buy an Indians shirt until they’re in the ALDS, but I love them all, dammit, and I am totally and completely expecting four-to-five more walk-off grand slams before the season is over.

Now isn’t the doldrums of sports fandom, folks. Now is the best.

Hey, welcome back. How was your Independence Day, assuming you’re American? Mine was great. It’s so dry in Texas right now that a Bic lighter flick would set half of Austin on fire, so my fireworks experience was limited to what I could see on TV and what I could see glaring out of my window into the parking lot at like 11:30.

Sports

PoV: Bo Jackson Climbs An Outfield Wall - Bo Jackson’s legacy these days is basically Tecmo Bowl, but he was really something special in his prime. Imagine Albert Pujols, except super fast and scaling walls. That’s either the best baseball player ever or a terrifying nightmare. [Smoking Section]

Fausto Carmona’s Bogus Journey - If you were Away From Computer yesterday (and you probably should’ve been) we did a full day of updates, including this little gem about Fausto Carmona’s haphazard rollerblade trip to first base in Saturday’s Tribe game. As my good friend Davey Vega put it, “he should probably just retire”. [With Leather]

When Patriotism Goes Wrong: The Best of Fireworks Fails - We also covered “sort-of not sports” yesterday, including this gallery of people getting hit (or pretending to get hit) in the johnson with fire. [With Leather]

Welcome Back, Doomsayers - Kissing Suzy Kolber returns from its sexy vacation, so now there is 100% less of that busty Dolphins girl on my With Leather sidebar. [KSK]

Not Sports

Thor Sequel to Be Less Shakespearey - …which is too bad, because it’s going to be opening on the same weekend as Batman 3, Spider-Man negative one, Iron Man and Hulk Ultimate Team-Up, What If: The Movie starring The Punisher and probably Wolverine, six concurrent Superman movies, a Booster Gold mini-series and parts 1 and 3 of a Flaming Carrot trilogy. Picture of Kat Dennings somewhat related. [Film Drunk]

Man Who Unleashed Rebecca Black On the World Tries Again - I like that the guys who were so bad at music and videos it became a phenomenon are now saying they “masterminded” Rebecca Black’s rise to stardom. Sure, and I masterminded my toe into the coffee table this morning. [Uproxx]

Over 12 Minutes of Batman: Arkham City - I may have to stop blogging for a couple of weeks when this gets released. If you come to With Leather and it’s just two posts by Burnsy and gallery of me playing PS3, you’ll know what happened. Dear God, make this come out right now. [Gamma Squad]

The Ten Best Corgi Blogs On the Web - Arguably every corgi blog on the web is one of the best, except for that weird racist one. I’m just kidding, but you know there’s a racist corgi blog somewhere. If not, I’m gonna start one. [Warming Glow]

Sometimes a gif says it all. Faustio Carmona had to run to first base during the Indians’ 3-1 win over the Reds on Saturday, and … well, have you seen the gif of the two dogs having sex? The one where they’re going at it, and the one dog gets so into it that he pukes on the dog he’s humping? That’s what happened during Fausto’s first ever attempt at running as a human adult. Click the image below to watch the full sized gif (courtesy of Mocksession) in action, as I guarantee it will be the most poignant, second-hand embarrassment you’ll experience all afternoon.

Oh. Oh no. I think the worst part is that his helmet falls off before he goes down. Fausto strained his right quadriceps muscle and will miss his next start, but all of that pales in comparison to the full-on personal crisis of looking like that in front of people.

“I didn’t watch [the replay],” he said Sunday morning, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I didn’t want to see it.”

Compare and contrast: