Justice is served: 3 up and 3 down ...

THREE UP …

1. No one expected the Red Sox to remain idle this offseason, and the Sox didn’t. Looking up at the Yankees, the Red Sox needed to fortify their rotation, so they went out and signed free agent John Lackey. With Lackey, Jon Lester and Josh Beckett, the Red Sox have the strongest one-two-three punch in baseball.

2. What am I missing here? Everywhere I hear people talk about history and the importance of the Colts and the Saints going 16-0. But the only history worth making will come in February. Win the Super Bowl, and that’s the history that matters. Nothing else does.

3. Jake, Jake, Jake! Can you believe Washington quarterback Jake Locker, a surefire No. 1 pick, decided to stay in college instead of going into the NFL draft and collecting millions? Locker will hear people second-guess his decision, but he realized what others didn’t: He’s having a ball in college, so why give it up just yet?

THREE DOWN …

1. Call it the Tiger Woods effect, but advertising experts are wondering aloud if companies will ever again pour millions into having a celebrity’s name on their products. Image is everything; it always has been. A tarnished image has little value to marketers and corporate giants. A good-guy image can unravel quickly when infidelity, thuggish behavior or drug abuse attaches itself to an athlete’s persona.

Read more ...

Lee displays his talent on grandest stage

I remember when he arrived in the Major Leagues on Sept. 15, 2002. He had come to the Indians organization earlier that summer in the Bartolo Colon trade that brought the Tribe a handful of big league prospects.

And while the then 23-year-old Cliff Lee wasn’t the centerpiece of the deal, he was no mere throw-in. Brandon Phillips, a fast-talking, almost-ready-for-the-big-leagues infielder with a hip-hop swagger, was the blue chip, and Phillips did turn into the ballplayer he was expected to become.

The expectations on Lee were grand as well. He was a prospect on the rise, but the Indians didn’t need him to step into the rotation and take over for Colon. They already had an anchor for their starting rotation in left-hander CC Sabathia, so they could afford to wait for Lee.

He didn’t disappoint them. OK, so he had a misstep in 2007 when the Indians sent him back to Triple A. He didn’t like the idea of being back in the Minors.

What players do? Lee was 28 then, and his resume already included two 14-win seasons and an 18-win season. He wasn’t injured, and he hadn’t forgotten how to pitch. He was just going through one of those hiccups that players sometime have.

Lee picked the wrong time to have his, though. His struggles kept him off the ’07 playoff roster during a season in which the Indians came within a win of making it to the World Series.

No telling what might have happened had Lee pitched. He might have made a difference. He might have proved the arm needed to carry the Indians to where they hadn’t been in a decade.

One thing I remember well about Lee in the years I talked to him and wrote about him was that he didn’t live his life peeking over his shoulder. Few players I have met live totally in the present the way Lee always did. He never dwelled on what he couldn’t change, even if it was last night’s bad outing. He never revisited the stories that came out yesterday.

I also remember his confidence. To call it cockiness would be to call it wrong. He had a belief in himself that he was comfortable with, though not arrogant with. He seemed to know he was a cut above others who made their living throwing a baseball.

Believing and proving are two different things. No argument there, right?

And all the belief in the world, all the cockiness can’t mask a 5-8 record with a 6.29 ERA, numbers that got Lee sent back to the Minors in ’07.

But that 2007 season taught Lee, now 30, a lot about himself. His trip back to Triple A helped him relearn to pitch – to trust his fastball. And learn Lee did, as the Cy Young Award he won in 2008 proves.

In a few hours, he will showcase this talent for a national audience when he starts Game 1 of the World Series for the Phillies, who picked Lee up in a midseason trade with the Tribe. He will be facing the Yankees, a team that he has faced countless times.

He will also be going against an old teammate and his friend – Sabathia, himself a Cy Young winner with the Indians in 2007.

Two former Indians, two players who matured into staff aces in the same city and in the same uniform, pitching in a World Series opener at the new Yankee Stadium, performing under baseball’s brightest lights: Lee against Sabathia.

This is where I always thought Cliff Lee would be: pitching on this big stage. I just figured he would be doing it in Cleveland, not in Philadelphia.

Why did no contender pick up 'Doc'?

For all the talk you hear about teams wanting to win a title, I found it curious that no contender ponied up the talent needed to acquire Roy Halladay, as good a pitcher as any in baseball. For if any pitcher could have ensured a team a long run into the postseason, Halladay would be the one.

Before the July 31 trade deadline, I thought for sure the Phillies would swing a deal. They balked, calling the price tag for Doc Halladay too steep. So they chased and landed Cliff Lee, the reigning AL Cy Young winner. Lee has been a splendid pickup at a bargain price, and he has been a difference-maker.

Lee is no Halladay, though.

The window for picking up a player who can play in the postseason shut Monday night, but no team landed Halladay, who would have shored up any team’s playoff prospects despite his unimpressive performance in August. You always hear about the dangers of not mortgaging your short term for the long term, but the short term is what fills ballparks. No one cares about how deep a franchise is in Minor League talent, because that talent might never reach the bigs.

So when you’re close to making the postseason like the Red Sox, the Rangers, the Angels, the Rockies, the Brewers and the Astros are, adding a piece like Halladay could have been the difference between showering in champagne or watching October baseball on ESPN.

Halladay, who would have had to first clear waivers, was too dependable an ace for a team not to let the Blue Jays comb through its farm system and pluck its finest talent.

I have never favored foregoing now for tomorrow, which is why the Indians teams in the 1990s never won a World Series. Legitimate runs at a World Series don’t come around every season – unless you’re the Yankees and have a bankroll as fat as Warren Buffett’s. The timeframe for winning a title is always narrow for teams like the Rockies and Astros and Rangers.

I know the Blue Jays were demanding a king’s ransom in exchange, but isn’t that ransom worth shelling out when someone like Doc Halladay, a No. 1 starter who toiled for a team with zero postseason aspirations this season and next, can lead the way to baseball’s promised land?

A championship carries a high price, and fans of teams that fall short of winning this season should remember their team didn’t pay that price to make it happen.