yes, i'm happy he's on my fantasy team. but if this isn't the feel good story in baseball (or sports) right now, i don't know what is.
Not to steal Lester's thunder, but Indian pitcher Cliff Lee has a pretty hart warming story going himself.
Part of an article from a Cleveland's PD article....
Cliff Lee was in Class AAA Buffalo, N.Y., for seven starts at the end of last season, came back to Cleveland as a bullpen benchwarmer, was left off the Tribe's postseason roster and offered as trade bait during the off-season, he didn't lash out at the Indians or anyone else who lost faith in him.
"He simply used it as motivation to get back and prove that they made a mistake on him," said Lee's agent, Darek Braunecker.
Part of his coping ability, too, was knowing what real tragedy is, and that there is a difference between a minor setback and an earth-crashing catastrophe.
Tragedy was when Lee's son, Jaxon, was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 4 months old, an illness that led to chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant and more chemotherapy before the cancer finally was defeated. Or when daughter Maci was born three months premature, so tiny and fragile that she caused a world of worry.
Tragedy was not being relegated to the forgotten land in Buffalo - just a year removed from signing a three-year contract because he was viewed as a vital cog in the Indians' organization - while the Tribe succeeded without him.
"Last year was not awful," Kristen Lee said. "My family was healthy. He was healthy. Yes, he was having trouble pitching, but think about that compared to everything else in life. That is so minor. Sure, it's his career and it's our livelihood, but it's so minor compared to other things we've been through."
Kristen Lee even calls her husband's monthlong stay in Buffalo a needed "reality check" in their comfortable lifestyle, though she concedes that the four-game losing streak with the Indians, in which he allowed 26 earned runs in 20 innings, might not have been the best route there.
"The personal issues he's battled have kept this all in perspective," Braunecker said. "[But] he and I talked numerous times about it. I told him, 'The way you respond to it will determine your career.' "
What he did, then, was return to spring training healthy, win the starting spot over his former replacement, Aaron Laffey, and become an unbeatable force on the mound.