The Eric Wedge and Mark Shapiro era in Cleveland can be summed up pretty well from the well-known quotation from Charles Dickens "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". The Cleveland Indians were up 3-1 on the Boston Red Sox in the 2007 ALCS and looked poised to win their first championship since 1948. The Tribe pulled a major league choke job and lost the next 3 games, falling in the series to the eventual World Series Champs. It had at one time looked like the Indians would take the mantle as one of the top American League teams for years to come.

Artwork by Tom Galmarini. Click image to view larger.

We here at The Cleveland Leader an exciting new addition to our team. Tom Galmarini has agreed to do some drawings for the site. When I caught up with the old friend earlier this week, the big news around the Northcoast was Shaquille O'Neal coming to the Cleveland Cavaliers so the native of Middleburg Heights decided to draw portraits of Shaq and LeBron James to give a glimpse of what to expect of his work that will focus on Cleveland Sports.

The 32 year old Galmarini is now living in South Carolina but still proudly wears the (often painful) badge of being a Cleveland sports fan on his sleeve. He's a 2000 graduate of the Columbus College of Art & Design, where he majored in Illustration, and is currently working on a Master's degree in the field. You can find out more about him on his Twitter account @tgalmarini.