There’s a familiar thread throughout Cleveland baseball history where stars, or even just players that were good and loved by fans, end up leaving for more notable cities and make a name for themselves as legends of other teams, keys in the history of a different franchise.
Whether Manny Ramirez to the Red Sox, CC Sabathia to the Yankees, Dennis Eckersley in Boston and elsewhere, there has always been talent in Cleveland, it just hasn’t always made its mark on the history of the game while there.
Perhaps he’s not the first, but the first great, memorable example of this is Shoeless Joe Jackson.