Will Yankees buy another title? Some say yes ...

I met Ted, a venture capitalist and an Obama supporter long before I found a seat on the bandwagon, in Argentina early last year. Ted was taking his wife, his son and his daughter on a whirlwind tour around the world. They were seeing sites that would stay with a lifetime.

Part of their purpose was to take baseball to the unschooled. Every place he and his family went they left their love of the game there for others to share. Ted’s a Red Sox fan, unabashedly. So if you see a boy in Chile or South Africa in a Red Sox cap, blame Ted.

He loves baseball the way I do, and he infused that love of the game into his son Gibson, whom I watched play against a group of Argentine youngsters on a well-groomed ballfield in Buenos Aires.

I’m not trying to revisit the adventure in South America, although it's certainly worth sharing with people. I’m only mentioning Ted and his son now because of an e-mail he sent me the other day.

“He and I made it to Game 3 of the Red Sox-Angels series, and got to see our beloved Sox disintegrate in the ninth inning to get swept,” Ted wrote of he and Gibson. “And we thought about you all playoffs since Cleveland’s former players were so successful.”

Did you have to remind me, Ted?

I can’t dispute the role of formers Indians. I mean, how much better were manager Charlie Manuel’s Phillies after picking up left-hander Cliff Lee, a Cy Young winner, in a midseason trade? And the Yankees signed the best free-agent pitcher available last offseason when CC Sabathia joined them in a $161 million deal.

And where did Sabathia, a Cy Young winner, build his reputation?

In an Indians uniform, of course.

Even Ted’s beloved Red Sox had a high-profile Indian in catcher Victor Martinez, a linchpin in their journey into the postseason.

Ted was less concerned about the past than he was about next season. He looked into baseball's future and didn’t like what he saw. Not that he begrudged the Yankees and their success, because he didn’t.

What Ted lamented was the system that allowed New York to build the best team money can buy. With revenue streams from a new ballpark, the Yankees should become stronger this offseason as they jettison old pieces and add new ones, a point not lost on Ted.

“Some of the reporters stupidly argued that the Yankees’ World Series win wasn’t about the money, since they failed to win in the past when they made really bad signings,” Ted said. “That’s about as weak an argument as you can get.

“Take away Sabathia, (A.J.) Burnett, and (Mark) Teixeira, and the Yankees might not have made the playoffs again.”

He was right, despite what some sportswriters have claimed. The Yankees are a store-bought team, using the financial wherewithal at their disposal to outbid any team for a player they want.

I have long ago moved past decrying how the Yankees organization builds successful teams. It’s not the Steinbrenner family’s fault that it was blessed with a cash cow, and the family is willing to spend that cash to succeed.

That’s what seems to frustrate Ted and a legion of baseball fans elsewhere. It seems unfair to let deep revenue streams, not astute talent evaluation, decide which teams will be the most successful.

“Baseball sorely needs to revise its system, since the Yankees will now go out and buy two or three more All Star/future HOF players to get even better next year,” Ted lamented.

He’s right here, too. The Yankee dynasty is back, more prepared than ever to spend money and to bludgeon the competition into submission.

And what can anybody do about it?

Absolutely nothing.

Indians 'bad,' and that ain't good

I’m not sure what to say anymore. I’ve gotten so many calls and e-mails from people who are Indians fans the past few weeks that I’m utterly exhausted from talking about the team. I never figured out what to tell ’em about an organization that, a good friend said, is as dysfunctional as Ozzy Osbourne or the Addams family.

“I’ll bet Charlie Manual has a big poster of Mark Shapiro in his office with a big Sharpie and draws scars, beards and pirate eye-patches on it,” another friend e-mailed me. “I guess this is Shapiro’s way of saying ‘I’m sorry’ to Manual for the shabby way he treated him in Cleveland. Anyone want any Indians gear for cheap?”

He was talking about the Cliff Lee trade, but he could have been talking about the Victor Martinez trade or the whole mess.

His frustration speaks to what has emerged as the consensus in Cleveland this summer. Everybody who roots for the Tribe is as discouraged and as exasperated about it all as he is. Not much anger in it anymore, because Indians fans like my friend have spent all their anger earlier on a season that has turned into 10-car pileup on Interstate 90.

Fans have been left to listen to the talking heads on radio putting their explanation to what is without explanation. It’s just another season of disappointment in a city that has suffered as much disappointment as any baseball town in America. To call Indians baseball hopeless might overstate matters, but if things aren’t hopeless here, they are on the precipice of it.

I can’t tell people they are wrong to harbor such feelings. I can’t tell them that next season will be better; It probably won’t be. All I can tell them to do is what any consumer should do when a business treats them badly: boycott.

Don’t waste a dime on the Indians, who open a nine-game homestand tonight. Don’t shed a tear for the ballplayers who are left behind to play out a season that means nothing. Talk all you want about playing for pride, but what pride is to be found in playing for an organization that cares so little about winning it can put a Triple-A team on the field and expect to charge big-league prices?

Suckers might be born everyday, as P.T. Barnum once bragged. But even suckers should have their limits, and in Cleveland, they reached those limits in late July after watching Shapiro hold a garage sale for the second time this decade.

With 18 homes games left, what will be worth going to Progressive Field for in the final month that remains in this bad, bad season? Try fireworks and dollar dogs.

• "The returns so far on the Cliff Lee trade with Philadelphia has left something to be desired," wrote Plain Dealer sportswriter Paul Hoynes after watching right-hander Carlos Carrasco's debut Tuesday night in Detroit. Carrasco, fresh from Triple-A Buffalo, served as batting practice for the Tigers in an outing that showed what he might be able to offer the Tribe down the road.
• With center fielder Grady Sizemore likely to have his injured left elbow rested, Michael Brantley will get a heavy taste of center field, Anthony Castrovince reports in his MLB.com blog CastroTurf. The speedy Brantley, a big piece in the CC Sabathia trade with the Brewers last summer, made his debut in Carrasco's start.