MARK MILLER Losing Thome will cost Indians

Twenty six percent of the Major League Baseball teams lost 90 or more games last season.
The Cleveland Indians, with the fifth weakest batting order, a .249 average, finished with a 74-88 record.
It could have been worse and probably will be now that slugger Jim Thome has moved on to greener pastures.
The crowd-pleasing first baseman ripped the cover off baseballs during 2002 as he led the Indians in batting (.304), home runs (52) and RBIs (118).
Leaves Cleveland for Phillies
Thome, a Tribesman for 12 years, tested free agency and accepted an offer he couldn't refuse from the Philadelphia Phillies worth $87 million over the next six years.
During his Cleveland stay, he drove in 927 runs, which included 102 or more six out of the last seven years.
He was a player that could bring fans to Jacobs Field or for that matter to any ball park, much like Barry Bonds of San Francisco and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs. Fans love home run hitters.
Thome's six division playoff appearances produced eight home runs, including four against Boston in 1999, when he drove in 10 runs and batted. 304.
In the 1998 League Championship Series against the Yankees, he hit four home runs, drove in eight and again batted .304.
He batted .211 for the Tribe with a home run and two RBIs in the World Series against Atlanta in 1995, then hit three homers with six RBIs and hit. 255 in the series against Florida in '97.
Thome's attraction was a key reason that brought 2,616,940 fans to Cleveland in 2002 to watch 81 home games.
He was practically all that remained from the 1990s' awesome, fearful lineup that sold out tickets to the stadium several times before the season opened.
Crowds will drop
With Thome gone, the Tribe sellouts, even with promotional gimmicks, will likely be few, if any, and the Indians, reduced to what now seems be the equivalent of a Triple A contender, may be among those teams with 90 or more losses in 2003.
The Pittsburgh Pirates from 1949 until 1957 had some of Major League Baseball's worst teams of the 20th century, which included a 42-112 record in 1952 when they finished 541/2 games out of first place.
Surprisingly, the Pirates drew 686,000 fans to their games, not far off the league average of 782,000.
What Pittsburgh had that brought fans to its ball park was -- you guessed it -- a home run hitter named Ralph Kiner. He led the National League in home runs his first seven seasons, the last time in 1952.
Kiner felt he deserved a raise, but rather than do that Pirates' president Branch Rickey traded the slugger to the Cubs in a 10-player deal that also netted the Pittsburgh ballclub $150,000.
Pittsburgh's attendance really dropped the first two full years without Kiner (under 500,000) while the rest of the league attendance increased.
Back in the 1980s, the Tribe was a consistent last place team in its division and occasionally lost 100-plus games because it traded away many of its best players.
Hopefully help is on way
Cleveland owner Larry Dolan and Mark Shapiro, the general manager, can now take the $60 million, five-year offer they made to Thome and perhaps look for some players that can hopefully help the Indians and still keep their projected Tribe payroll at about $50 million a year.
The teams that attract huge crowds to their parks are those who pay big dollars for those athletes who produce wins.
Point in case, Thome going to the Phillies.
George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, gets the job done by buying the top stars and that's why the Yankees are always a threat to win the World Series.
The Indians haven't won a World Series since 1948 and it doesn't look like it will in the foreseeable future with rebuilding plans and a new, inexperienced manager.