Hello Tribe fans everywhere!

And how about those A.L. Central Division Championship Cleveland Indians! I swear I could taste the champagne and beer that was being tossed around the Tribe's victorious clubhouse Sunday afternoon.

The Indians own the divisional title in large part of their superb play down the stretch -- 27 wins in their last 36 games. Tribe General Manager Mark Shapiro caught some flak when the only move he made to bolster the club in late July was to acquire Kenny Lofton. It turned out, thanks to the contributions of Asdrubal Cabrera and a couple of young Cleveland hurlers down the stretch, the Indians had more than enough with Lofton. The 40-year-old outfielder, incidentally, proved to be a key performer for the Tribe, and Shapiro deserves a lot of credit for trading for him.

In fact, Shapiro, now in its 15th season with the Indians (7th as GM), did a great job this season. If anything, he might have doled out a bit too much money to sign outfielders David Dellucci and Trot Nixon, as neither player contributed much on the field in the second half. They did provide strong leadership in the clubhouse, though, and the good chemistry on this squad shouldn't be underestimated.

A division crown puts everyone in a good frame of mind, and I've even jumped on Tribe owner Larry Dolan's bandwagon. Dolan, who overpaid for the ballclub and later discovered that the various revenue sources had been maxed out, went back to basics and rebuilt the farm system -- under Shapiro's watchful eye, of course. The Indians have now reached the point where they could contend for the forseeable future.

The Dolans did their job by starting a profitable cable company -- Sports Time Ohio -- which generates enough revenue to help the club re-sign its top players. Now they plan to sell the name of the stadium, and though the park will always be Jacobs Field to me, I won't complain if they call it Quicken Loans Field, as long as the payoff goes toward re-signing C.C. Sabathia.
I know, I know. I shouldn't get too carried away.

What I like about Shapiro is that he's assembled a top-notch team, one that's so talented that his various assistants are of interest to other ballclubs. The Pittsburgh Pirates, for instance, seem poised to hire Shapiro lieutenant Neal Huntington as their new general manager.

Shapiro also offered few excuses for the mistakes he made. Letting Brandon Phillips get away remains a colossal blunder, but at least the Indians learned from it and refused to trade Ben Francisco for a broken-down reliever six weeks ago. And even though the Coco Crisp trade for Andy Marte and Kelly Shoppach turned out to be a bad one for the Indians, I liked the upside potential. Had Marte turned out to be the type of player the Tribe thought he was, we might be ready to nomimate Shapiro for a spot in Cooperstown.

A year ago, practically every move Shapiro made turned out to be a bad one, but it didn't make him timid. He just kept at it. Paul Byrd had a lousy year in his first season with the Tribe, but now he's a 15-game winner. The big question at this point is: Do the Indians make him the third starter in the playoffs, or go with Jake Westbrook? I have kind of mixed feeling on that one.

We attended Saturday's game in Cleveland and were pleased to see Cliff Lee throw two strong innings. By contrast, Tom Mastny got hammered, and I'm not sure he'll even make the post-season roster. If Jeremy Sowers has a strong outing against Seattle, I think I might keep him and Lee for the playoffs.

Those are the happy questions being debated today at Jacobs Field. Even the fans got into it by the end of the season, as the Tribe drew just a shade under 2.3 million for the season. Based on this year's strong performance, I would imagine they'll be back up close to 3 million in 2008.

Ah, it's good to be a winner again!

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Tribe trivia: Name the pitcher who doesn't belong among this group of Indians starting pitchers from the 1990s -- Dennis Martinez, Charley Nagy, Orel Hershiser, Steve Hargan, Jack McDowell.

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-- Kevin Cuneo