Kind of quiet in the sports world these days – but for the fact the Indians lost two of three in Kansas City, which makes this season look more and more dismal. Let’s face it, a team that’s going to contend probably does not lose two-of-three to a team that started the series losing 11 in a row. The Indians? They’re in trouble. These days, they pretty much stink and if things don't change drastcially in a hurry, then the season will be lost. Then it will be time to start thinking about the future of C.C. Sabathia, and whether it’s best to trade him before the deadline.

Shared some thoughts in Sunday’s Beacon Journal about Kellen Winslow, a possible move that could help the Cavs and other random things. That story is here.

A fellow traveler named Jim posted his own photo of “The Bean” in Chicago. And it’s a good one, Jim. Thanks. Which gives me an idea of asking you all this summer to share your most interesting photos of your vacation. Now, this does not mean we pose with Grandma and Uncle Hugo in front of the Grand Canyon (ever see the Far Side with “The Holsteins visit the Grand Canyon”? Classic). That’s been done. These photos would be unique things, different things, interesting discoveries from your vacation. Perhaps the bottom of the Blue Hole, something like that. I’m not sure how to get this accomplished though, so let me do some checking. Until then, Bean photos are in the post after this one. And … here is some information on “The Bean.” (It’s actually called Cloud Gate, but folks in the know call it The Bean.) Click a few times on the page – the stinking Bean weighs 110 tons!!!

Found the new Scott McLellan book interesting. He’s the former press secretary for George Bush, and he came out and said he did not feel he did the right thing justifying the Iraq invasion with lies (that’s my paraphrase). I admire him, but this book also showed how the media went along with the stories it was told about WMD and the rest, and how it was complicit because it did not investigate things deeply enough. So I got to thinking about my profession, and about the accusations by some that media who question the decisions of the administration are unpatriotic or something like that. In fact, the exact opposite is true. It is the job and requirement of the media to question, to ask things, to investigate. The end result that is printed or broadcast has to be balanced and fair (like … umm … Fox News). But the questions have to be asked. It’s the media’s duty. Especially when the issues being discussed affect the lives and well-being of another nation and of our young women and men. They can try to sanitize a war by not allowing photos of flag-draped coffins, but that senseless cover-up doesn’t play in the long run. When lives are at stake, it’s the media’s job to probe. To my knowledge, there is one specific profession protected in the U.S. Constitution, and that’s freedom of the press. The most patriotic thing the press can do, quite frankly, is ask questions.

Now …for some sex.

Gotcha.

A friend of mine once posited (like that word?) that men do not hold women back, women hold women back. Why, I asked oh so intelligently. Because there are more women than men in the nation, he responded, if they don’t like something they can vote the men out. I thought of this during all the hubbub over the release of the Sex and the City movie, a real event if ever there was one. Now, let me say that I found this a pretty good show. It was clever and interesting, if only to give this Neanderthal a tiny peek into the female psyche. Not that I’d ever understand it. Not that any of us on this side of the ledger would ever understand it. But it tried. And I’ll probably see the movie. Well … I will see the movie.

All the stories about the movie detail how the theater is filled with women and the four or five men who are a) dragged their unwillingly or b) willing to go along because … well … arguing is really pretty futile isn’t it? But the thing that gets me about this show is that it’s about women, who for years have complained about the infidelities and quirkiness of men. And what do these women do? They sleep around. They do not commit to anyone. They hang out in bars (only they have Cosmos, not beer). They flit (especially in one case) from man to man. They cheat. They do all the things that men have done for decades. And they’re proud of it. Nothing wrong with sex, mind you, or with searching for fun in New York City. If you lived there and lived as wealthy a lifestyle as these four, it’d be interesting. But isn’t this the stuff men have thoughtlessly done for years?

Women in this and the next generation have a grand chance because many of the barriers that existed in the past have properly come down. They have the chance to erase some of the dumb things that men have done (we really have made a pretty big mess of the world, if you think about it). Just like men have a great opportunity to be more nurturing with their kids if they choose to stay at home with them more. Yet when women have a chance, they often/sometimes just go out and do it exactly like men have done for years.

Now, I have daughters, and I certainly try to teach them that they can do anything they want in life. I hope they understand that. One of my daughters was incensed that girls could not play football, so she thought long and hard about playing next year to prove girls could do it. I was concerned for her, but I’d be concerned if I had a son who wanted to play football. It’s a violent game. It’d be scary if she plays, but I think she’d be a pretty good running back. She’s blessed with determination and speed; she’s beat almost every boy in her class in races. So even with the considerable risks she might just have been able to pull football off – if she wanted to. She decided against it, but the point is there’s none of this “you can’t because you’re a girl” attitude in our home. No reason for it, really.

So women entering the workforce and the movie world and the sports world have a grand opportunity to set new standards, to erase the garbage men put forward for the years they were in charge. But I watch women coach basketball, and they act just like men do on the sidelines. I see Hillary Clinton campaign, and she’s just like her husband and every other man who’s ever campaigned. Same mannerisms, same expressions, same fake smile, same idiotic clapping. All that stuff. (Actually the last true campaign, where someone actually stood up for what he felt was right and not what he thought people wanted to hear, belonged to Robert Kennedy, but that’s a separate topic).

I see this movie, and it glorifies these women for doing all the ridiculous stuff men did. I, in my Neanderthal, not-so-smart male way, find this confusing. Because these career women could set a new standard for being single in New York. Yet it boils down to sleeping around, and either obsessing or making fun of the men they sleep around with – few of which are actually, like, good people.

How about this idea? This movie is about and largely for women. The main characters are women who are raking in gobs of money to make this movie. How about if all four of them said we’re donating two percent or three percent or something like that of our money from this movie and giving it to breast cancer research. They’d still go home with gobs of money, yet they’d be helping women. Maybe they’re doing it, but I haven’t heard if they are.

Women in sports could set a new standard for sportsmanship and behavior that men have lacked – a standard that Mia Hamm and the U.S. Soccer team displayed until Brandi Chastain decided to take off her shirt after she scored a goal to win the World Cup. Would we have celebrated seeing a man in a jockstrap after a winning goal?

Perhaps I should stick to the barbecue, but I just think that women could blaze new trails, set different and perhaps better standards. I just don’t’ get doing the same stupid things we men have been doing for so long.

For those of little faith, those who doubted the impact of The Bean (I wrote about it in the Blog a few days ago), here are a couple photos. Is this not worth a six-hour drive to Chicago?

Time for a sampling from the mailbox and online comments:

Richard Platt of Fairborn relates a rather obvious fact after reading what I wrote about the Indians in Friday’s Beacon Journal: The Indians have a maddening habit of being good one year, bad the next. Here’s the record:

2004 - 80-82
2005 - 93-69
2006 - 78-84
2007 - 96-66

“It would seem this trend has carried over to this year and another bad season has arrived. I believe it only confirms my opinion about the Indians' roster. They are simply a bunch of average to below average players. Good organizations with good players are usually consistent in winning from year to year. Their wins/losses will vary some from year to year, but they will at least have two consecutive winning seasons,” Mr. Platt wrote.

Interesting. Me, it harkens me back to spring training when I was talking to Mark Shapiro and posed the question who would save it Joe Borowski ever struggled. He said Rafael Betancourt, but it was a bit of an unknown. I asked if he was nervous about the bullpen, and he said he is always nervous about a bullpen because its nature is to be up and down from year to year. That fact held true in 2006, when the bullpen did the team in. And that fact has held true this year, as the bullpen has struggled, which when combined with the struggling offense has produced a 24-29 start.

I also must give credit where it’s due – it was Mr. Platt who suggested to me that the Indians need to win 60 percent of their remaining games to win 90 this year. It was a good point that led to Friday’s column.

The first online comment on that column stated: “The only number that is important is games back. It doesn't matter how many wins you get if you win the division. There is nothing special about 90 wins. Everyone starts the playoffs 0-0. It would be nice to see them play some good baseball though.” This came from Bubba in Akron. And he’s right. As much angst as there is about and within the Indians these days, Bubba is right. All that matters are games behind, and right now the deficit is manageable. As long as the Indians start to play real baseball, they can get back into things.There's just this matter of playing real baseball.

A very intelligent and insightful woman named Bernadette wrote about my thoughts on LeBron James and the team’s offense. She said: “Believe it or not, there is a community out there that understands that while Lebron James is an excellent ball player, he should use better judgment in utilizing his teammates. I've also noticed how his team mates defer to him and witnessed how he openly rebukes them if he's dissatisfied with their game performance. I, however, never see his teammates show any negative emotion toward Lebron when he makes a bad play, miss an easy layup or uses bad judgment during the course of a game. Office politics, no doubt. It should be stressed by the coaching staff and management, that there is no I in TEAM.”

Very true. But it does seem odd criticizing a guy who is such a great team player for not being a team player. LeBron does play team basketball; he just has to realize that there are times when the best thing for him and the team is continue to run the offense and get a good shot from the offense. That being said, I still want him to be on my team, and to stay with the Cavs his entire career.

Finally, Andy Harris of Akron wrote that I should stop calling LeBron James the best player in the league.

“Don't confuse ‘most physically talented’ with best. Unless and until LeBron improves his game to the point that he can consistently be a threat from 15 feet away from the basket and out, he is most definitely not the best player in the NBA. Players like Jordan and even a guy like Karl Malone, who was comparable to LeBron size-wise, were much better shooters than LeBron. Yes, he's young and definitely has a chance to be the best player in the NBA…..someday, just not now. Because of his erratic outside shooting, teams can still back off of him and pack the lane, thus making it difficult or even impossible to drive and score consistently. Players such as Kobe Bryant have a much more well-rounded game and are several steps ahead of LeBron at this point. To continually tout him as the game's best player reeks of blatant homer-ism.”

Well first of all, I don’t watch the Simpsons. Second, I stand by it. I don’t think another player in the league could have done with the Cavs what LeBron did this year. And he did it through a lot of team injuries and holdouts. LeBron needs championships to complete his career, but that will come with a better team. Right now, I stand by it.

Back from Chicago where the kids had a blast. Sears Tower and the Loop and all that stuff. A visit to Chicago makes a person wonder what exactly the geniuses in this area were thinking when they allowed industry and salt mines and an airport only the very rich use to be built on Cleveland’s most valuable asset – the lakefront. I mean, let’s be serious. Even putting the Browns stadium there was pretty silly. Perhaps, maybe, it could have been a park that people can use every day. Which is what Burke ought to be as well. A park. Chicago takes advantage of the lakefront it has, even if it is named Michigan. Cleveland’s has industry, Whiskey Island and a dumpy airport Dumbo would probably fly by. No, Akron does not have a lakefront, but it also does not have the life a downtown like Chicago has. Then again it’s only short a few million people, which can affect things as well.

At any rate, there is a kind-of new park in the southern part of downtown Chicago, and it’s on the lake, and located In this park is the newest tourist rage: The Bean. That’s right. The Bean. We were introduced to The Bean by my brother the history professor and nautical archeologist from Loyola University of Chicago (he got the brains in the family). He said we had to go.

The Bean is this sculpture thing that actually is not edible. It’s just shaped like a bean. Figured that might have been confusing. It’s not like you can walk up to it with sauce and knife and fork and start munching away. At any rate, it’s sort of shaped like a kidney bean. With the indent in the middle. So imagine this giant kidney bean that people can walk up to and see and then imagine being able to walk into and under the bean where the indent is. Cool, eh? Good enough for the whole family?

Now … here come s the good part … imagine it’s made of this material – like, oh, glass or shiny chrome or something like that – that reflects everything perfectly — right down to the pimple on the tip of your nose. So people can walk up to The Bean and actually SEE THEMSELVES! And they can see the city reflecting out of one side, and the sun depending on time of day and to the south they can see the disgusting smoke and smokestacks and giant ore piles from the steel mills in Gary, Indiana (Dah-da-dah-dah, dah-da-dah!)

You can take a picture of yourself in “The Bean.” You can wave to the kids. You can make faces like a goof. You can wave to cousin Edna standing a good ways from you but who is able to see you in The Bean. All in this giant kidney bean made of reflective material. And … it’s FREE! No tickets, no going through metal detectors to see it, no taking off your shoes to walk up to it.

Then, where the surface curves, the human form reflected in it takes on weird shapes. Short, fat, squat, long, thin, all those kinds of things. “The Bean” is many things, but most of all it’s like taking all those old funhouse mirrors and placing them in a curved surface on one spot and letting people go at it. Put a reflective bean in a public place and there’s no telling how long people will be entertained.

This proves a few things. One is that Chicago is way ahead of the curve with “The Bean,” because it’s actually pretty cool. Second is that every city, every square, every gazebo needs a bean. And third is that the human capacity to be entertained must require little thought or mental challenge. Thousands and thousands of people go to see The Bean on a daily basis. And they go back the next day. Just to see themselves in The Bean.

It’s also the talk of Chicago. We asked Danny, the waiter at Ballo, a very, very nice and family-friendly and reasonably priced Italian restaurant on Dearborn, what the attraction of “The Bean” is and he said: “I don’t know.” Then he took somebody their water and came back and said: “But people go to it all the time. It’s really pretty cool.” Moral of the story: All of us need a bean in our backyard.

As for sports … it was good to see the Indians won a game last night. You go on the road with the Cavs and lose sight of the baseball team and next thing you know they can’t score a run and they’ve lost 82 in a row or something like that. The Indians are not the 1927 Yankees, the Bronx Bombers of the Lakeshore Filled With Industry They’re a bunch of nice hitters who need to all be working well together for the team to succeed. That wasn’t happening much until last night, when they scored eight in a win. Which may be a good sign, or it may be one of those every-once-in-a-while-the-team score-eight games. What the Indians do have is excellent starting pitching, and because of that it’s waaaaaaay too early to start to panic on the season. Things need to get better, yes, but the pitching will keep them competitive. And let’s face it, it’s not like someone has run away with the division already.

I’ll have more on the Indians from Wednesday’s game.