Indians, Sport Will Really Miss Jacobs

This has nothing to do with nicknames. Richard Jacobs simply thinks the sale of his Cleveland Indians should match the $800 million that was paid for the Washington Redskins. A more realistic goal may be the baseball record of $311 million that Rupert Murdoch paid for the Dodgers. No one would have thought that possible a decade ago, but the Indians, like the city they play in, have risen from the ashes of cavernous Memorial Stadium and a long history of front-office ineptitude to become one of the industry’s most attractive franchises under Jacobs, who with his late brother David bought the unwanted team for about $45 million in 1986.

At the time, Jacobs reminisced, the Indians didn’t have a plan, a budget or much of anything else.

“I don’t even think they had a typewriter, let alone a computer,” he said.

The Indians have now had 308 consecutive sellouts at Jacobs Field, are among baseball’s top five in merchandise sales, pioneered the art of signing their best young players to multiyear contracts, which created stability and cost control, and appear headed to the playoffs for a fifth consecutive year with baseball’s most powerful offense.

Catcher Sandy Alomar Jr., a 10-year veteran, said Jacobs has to be credited for the revival of the team and city.

“All I can say to Dick Jacobs is, ‘Thank you,’ ” Alomar said. “He could have easily folded the team in 1991 when we lost 105 games. We could easily not have a baseball team in Cleveland today if he didn’t hang in there . . . and Cleveland wouldn’t be the comeback city of the century. The thing I like most is that he let his baseball people do their jobs. He believed in the people he hired and wasn’t in there saying, ‘Do this and do that.’ ”

Real estate developer Jacobs, 73, announced his decision to sell because he wanted to hand-pick his successor. Of course, if it’s a little bit of farewell motivation for a team that hasn’t won a World Series since 1948, so be it. Jacobs said he would love to have a ring, but added, “I’m not going to ask them to win one for the Gipper. They get more than enough pressure from [Manager] Mike Hargrove and [General Manager] John Hart.”

This may not be the answer for everyone, but when his wife gave birth to twins on April 22, Kansas City Royal outfielder Johnny Damon, hitting .169 at the time, ignited a 16-game hitting streak in which he batted .403, raising his average to .294. The streak ended Thursday when he went 0 for 5 against the Toronto Blue Jays, but the touted Damon doesn’t have the energy anymore “to worry about the game” because he’s too busy caring for the twins.

“You know how it goes: You play the game over and over in your mind after it ends,” he said. “Well, I don’t do that anymore. I don’t have time. I just want to get some sleep.”

There may be something to it. Last year, Luis Gonzalez became the father of triplets. The Arizona Diamondback outfielder has a 27-game hitting streak and a .383 batting average.

Cuban defector Rolando Arrojo, who received a $7-million signing bonus, justified it last year when he was an all-star rookie with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. However, he is now a 1-4 sophomore with a 6.69 earned-run average and has lost his “competitive edge,” Manager Larry Rothschild said after Arrojo’s drubbing by the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday.

“I don’t care if a pitcher gives me everything he’s got and we still get beat,” Rothschild said. “But when the drive to compete is less than that, it bothers me a lot, and I’ve been seeing that happen. We need to get to the bottom of this.”