The Ghost and the Tribe

I'm a little late on this, but in case you missed it, Kelly Pavlik was invited up to the SportsTime Ohio booth during an Indians game over the weekend for an interview with Tribe broadcasters Rick Manning and Matt Underwood. He spent the better part of a half-inning in the booth and, as always, represented himself well. Of course, the fact that Pavlik is a Youngstown guy did come up, and Pavlik reiterated the pride he has in the city.

STO has been good to Pavlik, promoting him through this interview as well as through their recent documentary that aired shortly before his last fight. More importantly, though, Pavlik has been great for Youngstown. Others have already explored this topic better than I can, so I won't beat a dead horse here except to say that it's great to see someone represent the true spirit of the city and do so in a positive way. I've written a lot about Maurice Clarett in this space- and, unfortunately, Clarett is only one of many "coulda been" athletes that's come out of Youngstown over the years. Pavlik has emerged as a counterbalancing force, an athlete that people can root for without guilt or serious doubts about his background or his integrity.

Pavlik's image is being controlled well. As people like Kobe Bryant and Ken Caminiti have shown us in recent years, the fans can never really know an athlete, and an image can be wholly different from reality- so, as someone who doesn't know Pavlik personally, I can't say for sure that he's as great as he comes across in the press. At the risk of being proved wrong in the future, though, Pavlik does seem like one of the good guys and sounds like he really "gets it." He and those in his camp know what matters to the people in this area and know how important it is to represent us in a positive way. Although I don't want to sound too sentimental about this, I'm proud of Pavlik and thrilled about what he's doing for this area.