Red Right 88

and now for something completely different

2011-09-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

i guess this a blog

it started when i was the sports editor at west life
i needed a place to preserve my columns
at the time the paper didnt put much on the internet
i was allowed only one story a week to put on the website
thought it would be selfish if that was my column
so i put a link on the website and used here to archive my columns

when i was fired from there
i pouted for a while then started writing here
mostly about sports
i got linked on bunch of sites
but never did anything to promote it
or make money from it
didnt even bother to proofread or edit myself

it took over three years but i got full time job
this went silent the first few months
but when i started writing columns
this site went back
to being my column archive

i generally assumed no one ever visited
stumbled into finding out today
i actually get a lot of hits
even with nothing new in over a month

people from around the world stumble here somehow

strange

guessing it is mostly by accident
and older columns hijacked by some site for traffic

some jerk stole my red right 88 moniker last year
i asked him nicely just to be the red right 88 chronicles
or something slightly different since i had been using it for years
something he could have learned with one
google search

his response was to buy the website rights
and be a dick
if he used his real name it would be more understandable
but he uses a name he stole from roman history
and he sucks
bad
and it drive me nuts someone might think his crap was mine
dude said it was obvious i was corporate and he was a real fan
me corporate
how funny is that
he said people would not mistake his work for mine
i told him why would you want to use a name
that is already known
dont you want your own voice

sure enough months later
terry pluto
who i have met and interviewed
and occasionally cross paths with
wrote me a thank you email
for review that shithead wrote

i still put my morning journal columns here
even though they were archived at the papers site
earlier this year i thought i was back in the groove
and doing good work
no one noticed
except the good people of winnipeg

the first week of july
a stringer read his schedule wrong
went instead to where i was working
he showed up two minutes before first pitch
i had been there for an hour
trying to get a new company issued laptop to work
but it was a cheap piece of crap and wouldnt
of course i knew that it was going to happen
and went early plus brought my own computer

but i was a little behind getting a blog up and the lineups written out
the stringer acted like the unprofessional he is
he acted like a real jerk
started bad mouthing the company
i had to show him the schedule on my computer
and he still didnt believe me
hurt and embarrassed
and outweighing by double
he decided to be a bully
basically verbally assaulted and made a scene

i told him he was unprofessional and to go to his actual assignment
i didnt back down and got right in his face
he used improper language
i did not

shaking
i walked out called my boss
he asked me to not share this and he would take care of it
said we needed the stringer since we were shorthanded

a few days later he called me to say i was suspended
someone told his boss's boss
and it was out of his hands
lost a days pay and my beat

no one talked to me about what happened
and no one talked to anyone who was present in the press box
a witness on his own even emailed the paper
to vouch i did nothing wrong

i guess their silence when i returned to work
was supposed to be the apology

i emailed those who made the decision
saying i would accept the suspension but i believed i did nothing wrong
and that i was humiliated by what happened

silence

if you want to suspend me
talk to me
there was nothing in the handbook
that gave them the right to do it

my vacation was already scheduled in ten days
i took it
came back and told them
i would only stay if i got a raise

in 2003 with no experience
i made $450 a week at a weekly paper as a reporter
when i left west life in 2006 i was making $510 a week

my starting salary in 2009 at the morning journal was $440
in my time there
i took on many extra duties
i made more flip videos than anyone in the company not just the paper
being short staffed we had to work harder and do more

no raise ever
working for less then you are worth sucks
but you can do it
but constantly being treated with disrespect is a lot harder
working under or beside people
whose character is against everything you believe in
is even harder

i wanted and believed i deserved a bigger raise
but would have settled for quarter an hour
that would have been two dollars a day
or ten dollars a week

august is our busiest month
three guys were going on vacation
i was going to be asked to carry the load
getting the paper out
doing previews

what i really wanted was an apology
but i was willing to settle for 10 bucks a week
a bargain rather than bringing in someone new

the editor of the paper refused
so i left

if i couldnt get a 10 dollar a week raise then
i was never going to get a raise

they had spent the last year
overpaying a lazy radio guy to write an insulting column once a week
that provided us no extra readers
everyone in the department could have gotten a $10 a week raise
three times over instead

quitting a job with benefits in this economy
is stupid

i wasnt wrong
but it was stupid

yet i have not regretted it for a second
i heard that threats were made about me leaving
how i would never work anywhere again in the industry

guess i am ok with that

others can judge my work
i am pretty confident i worked hard and did more than was expected
but i am sure no really cares

i couldnt stay and just put in the motions
like others seem capable of doing
i cant work for and along side people i think are shitty human beings
it would have killed me on the inside
(not that everyone was shitty but all it takes is more than one)

i doubt anyone will ever hire me to work at a paper ever again
not sure i want to become a sports blogger
i mean who really cares what i think about jim thome
or the browns

thought i would write a novel
but i have been struggling

rather than going to work some min wage job
so i can pretend to be productive member of society
i am packing up my car and heading west

going to see all the things
i havent seen before

i know my limitations as a writer
i am not a wordsmith
i hate punctuation
grammar rules

but my biggest strength
has always been
i know my voice

i can connect
find that
dude it is like you read my mind and said better it then i would

my dream job would be to be a columnist
for the plain dealer

i maybe not so humbly think i am what they are missing
a cleveland writer with a cleveland voice
sports or metro

unfortunately i didnt go to journalism school
i didnt have the patience to pay to my dues
the foresight to kiss the right asses
basically i was lazy and didnt self promote
lots of people could have done what bill simmons did
to become the sports guy
but he did it
he put in the work
work i didnt

there is no one to blame for being not being a columnist
at the plain dealer but me

should have wanted it back in high school
and worked my ass off until i got it
i didnt

i dont know what i am going to do for a job when i come home
i am not sure i am coming home

i dont know what is going to happen
a complete blank slate

starting a new blog
will add the link here
when it is up
and i am on the road

the plan is to write two posts a day
one to go live each night or when i find an internet connection
another one to show up a year later
with some thoughts i may not want to be read just yet

if you stumbled here thanks
if you read this far
wow

email me if you want
i used to be good at writing letters

Final Morning Journal Column

2011-08-02T19:57:00.001-07:00

As William Goldman wrote in the Princess Bride, “Life isn’t fair ... We tell our children that it is, but it’s a terrible thing to do. It’s not only a lie, it’s a cruel lie. Life is not fair, and it has never been, and it’s never going to be.”

I like sports, always have. Despite my limited athletic ability, I played as long as I could. For most of my life, my favorite activity was to play pick-up basketball. I could relax and compete at the same time. Being on the court was freeing and most importantly it was fun. However there is nothing worse than playing in a pickup game and becoming a ghost. If you don’t get the ball passed your way, that’s bad.

But when the ball is never passed to the guy you are defending, that’s even worse. At one point, pickup becomes wind sprints and that is no fun. It is only human nature and at some point, you quit running hard and soon after you lose all interest.

I envy the grown-ups I meet that don’t follow sports. Those Indians commercials that STO has been running ad nauseam this year have had the opposite of the desired effect the Indians were hoping for.

What If?

What if I didn’t waste so much of my life following people who play a game I have no impact on? What if John Elway didn’t break my heart?

What if I spent a lovely spring day outside then watch Michael Jordan break Craig Ehlo’s ankles?

What the Indians were never around and I could pick heroes based on skill rather than location?

But I have an addiction — one I can’t seem to give up.

I like talking about sports but I am finding that I don’t like most other people who want to talk about sports. With the big Indians trade, I tried to listen to talk radio or watch “talk” TV. I never last long. Loud men yelling stupid things with no facts or basis in reality — and the callers are pretty bad too.

ESPN and Jim Rome have ruined sports talk. There is no exchange of ideas just shtick.

At a certain point with so many voices yelling so many things, you realize your opinion doesn’t matter.

Take this trade for Ubaldo Jimenez for example. Could I really write anything anyone else hasn’t already said? I feel no need to scream my opinion but honestly I want to watch it play out it.

We all start playing sports for fun. We play catch with our dads. We play whiffle ball with our brothers. We join organized sports and slowly have the fun strained out of it. Those with talent get to keep playing until their dreams get snuffed out.

Maybe it is when they start throwing curve balls, maybe it is that oppressive stage parent, maybe it the coach that can only keep so many. Most of us quit when it quits being fun. If you are lucky, someone pays you some day. Yet the majority of the professional athletes I have met and nearly all of the professional sportswriters I have met are miserable people.

Sportswriters cheer for the clock. They want quick games so deadlines can be met. I am sure they all started out loving sports and it is just human nature that turns watching games into a chore.

I starting to discover that there seems to be three types of people. Those who can live their lives happily without sports; those who can dabble in sports — enjoy the moment — and step back into their lives; and those who use sports as an excuse to act like a jerk. I wish I was the first, I strive to be the second. I fear becoming the third.

Sports are supposed to be fun. Escapism. Incredible thrilling moments that can’t be scripted.

Maybe this trade by Chris Antonetti fails spectacularly. Maybe Jimenez gets hurts and Drew Pomeranz and Alex White turn into David Wells and David Cone.

But for the next three years, the Indians have a real window. Maybe there is just a crack this year and maybe it doesn’t work.

But I want to watch it and enjoy it as a fan. No matter what happens. Not handicapped by a curse, by my anger of never having won before or limited by making a deadline.

zdzurick@MorningJournal.com

Mavs title is not ours

2011-06-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of six years living in southeast Michigan. It was my first real exposure to hockey.

At the time, the Red Wings hadn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1955 and every year I lived there, it seemed like the Red Wings would dominate the regular season and get upset in the playoffs.

Felt like home to me.

So it didn’t feel like cheating to start following the team since Cleveland didn’t have a franchise. When the Wings finally broke through and won the Cup in 1997, I took a group of my students to the victory parade.

It seemed like there were a million people there — all deliriously happy. I, on the other, hand had never felt more alone. It was obvious that this wasn’t my parade. It didn’t count. The Red Wings weren’t my team.

When Ken Dorsey’s pass hit the ground at the end of the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, my friends erupted around me yet that same sinking feeling hit me. This wasn’t my championship either. I don’t live in Columbus. I didn’t attend Ohio State.

That feeling of disillusionment multiplied the next day during the Browns fourth quarter playoff meltdown.

I didn’t have much interest in this year’s NBA Finals. Didn’t watch a single second of the first five games and only watched game six in passing since it was on in the office.

I have been perplexed by the reaction of many locals during these finals. I get laughing at LePippen. You want to mock the kid, go ahead he certainly deserves it.

Did I offer a sly smile at another choke job? Did I prefer anyone else but him win a title? Of course, but there is no joy in watching another franchise win a title.

We don’t get to share.

I heard someone call this one of the 10 best Cleveland wins of all time, and frankly that angered me. You have to be at the bottom of the bandwagon to truly believe that.

I thought the Cavs for Mavs campaign and shirts were stupid and embarrassing. The idiot governor proclaiming the Mavs honorary Ohioans was asinine.

If you want to applaud the Mavericks or admire them for their play, fine, but this was not our championship.

I have not won many fights in my life, but I have never asked anyone to fight for me. I can take a punch or even a beating, but I am not going to tag-in a stranger to battle for me.

The pandering part of the Cleveland fan base made us all look like fools, and the national media happily ate it up.

The healing began when the Cavs beat the Heat at home. Winning the lottery helped remove the scab. If Mark Cuban could keep his mouth shut for three weeks, I wish Dan Gilbert could have kept his for one night.

Gilbert did get one thing right: There are no shortcuts.

The Browns, Indians and Cavs may never win a title in my lifetime. It certainly seems that way. But I will accept no substitute, and shame on you if you did.

Winnipeg deserves their Jets

2011-05-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

Obviously I am against moving professional franchises. Especially if the main motivation is greed.

This is not a column about he that can’t be named in a family newspaper. I am not open for debate on his dastardly actions.

The best way to enrage me is to spout revisionist history that he had no choice. You always have a choice, and when you make a choice, there are repercussions.

Some wounds should never heal.

If there is any city in North America that can understand Cleveland’s pain at losing the Browns it is Winnipeg.

Hockey is a religion in Canada, and citizens of the Manitoba province are among its fiercest zealots.

It is common — and basically passé now — to see fans of a sports team all wear the same color shirt. During the Cavs recent playoff runs, the team would try to shame fans to putting on a one size fits all shirt but putting them on the JumboTron to be heckled into becoming a trained sheep.

I thought that was poor taste — hey let’s humiliate the guy who just spent two grand to go to our game.

Well Winnipeg fans were the first to embrace the White-out concept. They did it out of civic pride and the love of the game. Real people in love with a team and not just the only ones who could afford a seat.

The Jets started in the World Hockey League and signed legend Bobby Hull. They won league titles in 1976, 1978 and 1979. The WHL then folded and the Jets joined the NHL.

When Browns moved from the AAFC to the NFL, they were allowed to keep their team intact. The Browns defeated the NFL defending champion Eagles in their first NFL game and went on to win the NFL title.

The NHL forced the Jets to give up three of their top six scorers and in the reclamation draft forced to draft 18th out of 21.

They went 20-49-11 their first year in NHL and won only nine games the second. The NHL really screwed them. And it wouldn’t be the last time.

By the mid 1990s, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had this idea to Americanize the game. He water-downed the talent with too much expansion and wanted franchises in the American south.

Despite a loyal fan base at the end of the 1996, or one year after we lost our beloved Browns, the Jets were moved to Phoenix. It was travesty and without question a mistake like most of Bettman’s decisions.

There was talk in late 1990s that NHL was about to pass the NBA in popularity. Now in 2011 you have to work hard if you want to watch an NHL game on TV. The southern franchises are struggling.

The Coyotes not only stole Winnipeg’s team — they stole the white-out idea. That sight would make me sick to my stomach.

Watching my old team win a title in another city was bad enough, could you imagine watching some slob in Baltimore wearing a dog mask barking up a storm? I would not have handled it well.

The team eventually went into bankruptcy, and there were rumors they would be sold back to Winnipeg last season. That would have been a perfect circle, but it didn’t happen — mostly because of Bettman’s interference.

But the next best thing is about to happen.

Atlanta, one of Bettman’s expansion pets, claims to have lost $150 million dollars and True North ,who own the minor league Manitoba Moose of the AHL, are nearing a deal to bring the NHL back to Winnipeg for next season.

Despite the reported claims of a done deal, Bettman will try any backdoor maneuver he can to keep the team out of Winnipeg. Editorials are popping up all over how a return to Winnipeg is bad for the NHL.

Bad in the sense of money, of wives not wanting to live there, of there not being enough corporations to milk money out of, how TV networks won’t want to televise from there — all reasons that have nothing to do with fans that love the sport.

But if it happens here’s hoping common sense allows the team to become the Winnipeg Jets and not the Moose or some lame cartoony nickname with no history. But Bettman’s heartless villain, I bet if a team does arrive — they vindictively kill the Jets nickname.

If Winnipeg gets a team it will be justice and possibly the greatest underdog story of all time.

When it becomes official, I was going to say I would toast with another Canada’s favorite pastimes — beer. But all their breweries have been sold off to foreign investors as well.

So Crown Royal will have to do. Here’s to our Canadian brothers of Winnipeg.

Go Jets Go.

Ping pong balls

2011-05-19T20:42:00.001-07:00

I will never forget where I was on May 22, 2003. I was sitting in Jacobs Field along side the first base side foul pole.

After all those years of sellouts, it seemed like it was a really small crowd but everything is relative since there were over 18,000 in the stadium.

It was the last days before everyone had a cell phone. Those that did have them — well, they were merely phones. All the information in the history of the world wasn’t just yet at our fingertips.

It started slow but it spread quickly.

There was one loud yelp but in seconds the murmur grew. Within moments the majority of the crowd was partying as if Tony Pena had just ripped an extra inning home run into bleachers to win a playoff game.

The players on the field were perplexed and by the time the center field scoreboard proclaimed what everyone had already learned the celebration was in full swing.

The Indians won the game in 11 innings that day but I had to look that up. What I do remember is this collective feeling that things were going to get better.

One of our own was going to save us and this was going to be a day we would never forget.

Well, we all know how that turned out.

This year I had honestly I forgotten until the day before when this year’s lottery would take place. I no longer believe in saviors.

On the day of the lottery I was at a bar playing team trivia. The TV in my direct view had the Indians game on. They were winning.

Once again there was a yelp. I looked up and the Indians weren’t scoring so I assumed the Cavs got the top pick.

I continued playing trivia. There was no buzz around the bar. Everyone went on with their lives.

It was maybe an hour later when I checked my phone and saw that indeed the Cavs had won the top pick. I waited another 20 minutes before I clicked on the link to discover that it was the Clippers pick that snagged the top spot and the Cavs own pick was fourth.

So I missed all the awesomeness that was Nick Gilbert.

On that awful day last July, Dan Gilbert who many Clevelanders had seen as a carpetbagger earned his street cred.

The nation mocked his letter. Most of us thought he was nuts as well but it played well with the home base.

Gilbert was certainly not blameless for what transpired last year. He can come off as smug and arrogant. The dude knows how to make money but when you make your living on home loans and convince a state to give you a sweetheart casino deal — it is hard to pass yourself off as a man of the people.

I don’t know if Gilbert wants a title for the good people of Cleveland or out of spite. Frankly I don’t care if he is genuine or merely full of slick Madison Avenue theatrics. The man knows his audience.

Bernie Kosar. Joshua Cribbs. Joe Haden. His courageous and lovable son.
A few high draft picks aren’t going to make the Cavs championship contenders overnight.

In 1986 the Cavs drafted Brad Daugherty, Ron Harper and Mark Price and Hot Rod Williams was let out of purgatory. Still it took six years to get to a conference final and they never did get to the finals. The last lottery ball didn’t pan out either.

However Dan Gilbert is going to do whatever it takes and even if he fails — he isn’t going to quit.

As Clevelanders that is all we ask.

Gilligan preempted perfection

2011-05-15T18:37:00.001-07:00

I wasn’t there. In fact until yesterday, the only highlight I remember seeing was the final out.

My memories of May 15, 1981, however, are still pretty clear to me.
I was eight years old and already a pretty big Tribe fan. I was a wide-eyed innocent sports fan.

A few months earlier, my heart was broken by a Browns home playoff loss, but I thought a Super Bowl trip was only a matter of time.

The 1981 Indians team is one of my favorites. The team of your childhood always invokes happy memories. My favorite player was Toby Harrah. My brother’s was Mike Hargrove. My mom had a Frito Lay t-shirt with Rick Manning’s face on it. I owned a 45 record of “Go Joe Charboneau.” I loved Thundering Andre Thornton, Miguel Dilone, Duane Kuiper, Cleveland native Jerry Dybzinski and the rest.

And on the morning of May 15, 1981, my Cleveland Indians were in first place.
Yet on that famous Friday, I did not watch the game. My dad worked third shift and my mother and sister had control of the sole television. The only channels available were 3, 5, 8, 43 and the brand new 61, which became pay per view at night. They decided to watch the world premiere of “Harlem Globetrotters visit Gilligan’s Island.”

You can imagine my horror during the climatic basketball game between the Globetrotters and the Robots when the following scroll ran along the bottom of the screen: “The Cleveland Indians’ Len Barker has just thrown a perfect game.”
A piece of history missed and the real Ginger wasn’t even in the movie.
After my anger subsided, I thought for sure the Indians would win the World Series later that year. A few days later the Indians fell out of first place and the players would go on strike less than a month later. The NFL players would go on strike the year after that.

My sporting innocence would evolve into disappointing cynicism.

So yesterday was the 30th anniversary of Large Lenny’s masterpiece. I turned on my television which now features several hundred channels to watch the Indians play the Mariners. Because of the rain, STO instead showed the perfect game. It was a lot of fun to watch.

The Indians haven’t had a no-hitter since that day. Those that are superstitious often blame Indians radio announcer Tom Hamilton. While Joe Tait never uttered the words, “Perfect game” until Manning catches the ball, Hamilton starts saying perfect game as many times as he can if a pitchers gets through the lineup unscathed the first time. Regardless, like most Indians fans, I still adore Hamilton.

On Friday I was out with friends. Since there was a break in the 40 days and nights of rain, we ate outside where there was no television to watch the Tribe game.
After we left, I checked the score on my phone. I saw the Indians were down 4-3 with a runner on third. We put the game on and arrived at our destination with the game still going on. We stayed in the car to listen to the end. His call of Hafner’s hit was more subtle than normal – “A swing and a high fly ball, deep center, Saunders back …”

I said to my friend, “It’s going to be short. Hamilton isn’t going nuts.”

But Hammy finished, “At the track, at the wall, it’s gooooooone”

Hamilton, bless his heart, had the presence of mind to stay silent for the next 32 seconds. He let the faithful fill the air. The roar of the crowd brought me right back to the 90s and Hamilton let listeners revel in it until he screamed, “The magic is back at Progressive Field.”

It is why he is the best in the business.

Tribe making NBA playoffs irrevelant in Cleveland

2011-05-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

The only reason I am aware that the NBA playoffs are taking place is that I work at a newspaper, and sometimes they ask me to proofread some pages.

So yes I heard that the Lakers got swept and head coach Phil Jackson is now going to have to take his public complaining to the monthly board meetings of his home owners association.

I have vague awareness that some lower seeded teams are making life uncomfortable for TNT, ESPN and ABC with the prospect of the lowest rated conference finals and NBA Finals in quite some time if all the big markets are eliminated.

Simple math indicates that LePippen and his boys have a paved path to the title which thereby will justify their actions.

And I don’t really care.

I haven’t watched a single game. If I happen to be in room with a game on, it has become merely background noise.

All that publicity of Cleveland fans forming temporary fan clubs of whoever was playing that team from the deep south has faded away.

I think that would have been the case regardless but our baseball team has made everything much easier.

I love football and my mood madly fluctuates on whether the Browns win or lose. Nothing makes me happier or angrier depending on what happens every Sunday. However there is nothing more fun than a winning baseball team.

Every game is appointment television. If you can’t watch, you devise ways to hear Tom Hamilton’s call and if that isn’t possible you drain the battery on your cell phone because of constant updates. You can’t wait to read the newspaper in the morning and you surf the Internet looking for highlights at night.

The first 33 games of this Indians season have been like watching the first season of really good but low-rated television show. You are hooked. You follow every episode and you are starting to fall in love. More and more people are hearing about the show and you are hoping it will get renewed and get keep going. You tell your friends but they have been burned before. They fell in love with a show like “Freak and Geeks” or “Terriers” but it got cancelled and they don’t want to go through that pain again.

You understand but you try to explain that maybe this time it will be different.

Before the season, I — like most people — tethered my optimism. It seemed lunacy to speak up and risk ridicule. Am I Charlie Brown once again with Mark Shapiro playing the part of Lucy? So many ifs. If Sizemore? If Hafner? If, if, if.

The remarkable start has been great fun to watch and it’s hard not to fall in love with this team. Even if this season falls apart — there are real building blocks.

The pitchers throw strikes.

The batters follow a game plan.

Every game is close and Manny Acta actively takes a part rather than wait for something to happen.

At the spots where there are stop-gap veterans playing over their heads — in Columbus there are talented players (Lonnie Chisenhall, Jason Kipnis) gaining experience.

The once barren farm system is starting to produce talented young arms (Alex White, Tony Sipp, Vinnie Pestano) and there are more waiting in the wings (Drew Pomeranz, TJ House, Joe Gardner, Hector Rondon) plus the extra bounty from the Cy Young trades (Jason Knapp, Nick Hagadone).

The future really does seem to have a silver lining. So yes there is real possibility the season will go up in smoke. Our hearts could be broken again. But if this team is the real deal, like “The Wire”, you want to get in on the ground floor and not end being one of those people who had to watch every episode on DVD.

So take a peek, it is worth the risk.

Drink it up Tribe Fans

2011-05-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

National and local media have piled on Indians fans about attendance (or the lack thereof), which is ridiculous. I saw one headline that said the Indians were in first place but no one was noticing.
Let’s not equate attendance with being oblivious. In fact, I can’t remember people talking this much about baseball, and the Indians in particular, for a long, long time.
Tribe gear is now a common sight in public, which hasn’t been the case the last few years.
Being an Indians fans is a lot like Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. A long time ago it won an award, then over time it was forgotten and just thought of something only old-timers drank.
It had brief spell when it became chic, and it seemed like everyone who was cool was drinking it before there was a backlash — when PBR returned to just those who liked a cheap, simple beer.
For those of us who love baseball, we are going to watch the games no matter who is watching. Just like how the taste of PBR hasn’t changed 1893. But at the same time, watching winning baseball is always better, just like drinking with friends is better than drinking alone.
The Indians were world champs in 1948, but after 1954 there wasn’t much to cheer about. But from 1994 to 2001, the Indians spoiled the city. The expectation became the Indians would win every home game and it seemed like a World Series title would be just a matter of time.
As the economics of baseball changed, fans now with a taste for winning baseball didn’t want to hear that money was the reason the Indians couldn’t compete every year.
The early 2000s were spent in preparation for a run, and the Indians dropped the ball in 2007 when they had their opportunity. The last two years have been the worst the Indians have ever been record-wise.
Fans had their hearts broken and after watching back-to-back Cy Young winners traded.
It’s understandable that people aren’t going to spend money in sit in the cold and rain. Regardless people are excited about the surprising Indians.
If you became an Indians fans during the Jacobs Field era, the one thing you missed is just how much fun 1994 and 1995 were on a day-to-day basis. Those of us who grew up in the 60s, 70s, 80s couldn’t stop smiling.
I am aware my PBR analogy has a lot of flaws and is rather stupid. It is just rather than dissect whether the Indians are for real, Maybe it will be short, sweet fling or it could be the start of a beautiful summer-long love affair. Regardless I want to savor every day of first place baseball. It is fun again to be a Tribe fan.
Drink it up.
Over-analyzing the draft
For me the NFL draft is a lot like the band Rush. It’s not that I don’t like it but it just doesn’t excite me as much as it does some other people.
If you then added in the overly enthusiastic non-stop talking about it by its hard-core fans that thumb their nose if you don’t agree it is the greatest thing EVER, it really gets annoying.
Sure I would like to hear some information about potential draft picks of the Browns but the overload of analysis by people whose information is mostly watered down versions of someone’s less than in-depth work gets old quick.
So yes, I listened to Moving Pictures in high school and I enjoyed the VH1 documentary on the band but I have no interest in you telling me again why the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame is a joke because they haven’t enshrined Neal Peart and the boys.
The aftermath of the draft is even worse. You can’t even win (or even worse, you are unbeatable) at Madden but you know the Browns messed up drafting Phil Taylor.
The Browns spend millions on scouting for the draft but you read Taylor gets fat and has inoperable bones that grow together. Hey, you never saw Taylor play or met the kid, but that doesn’t stop you from railing about how the Browns are stupid.
How many people this weekend moaned about the Browns trading down and passing on Julio Jones yet couldn’t tell you what number he wore at Alabama?
The reason Mike Holmgren was brought in by Randy Lerner is so that there would be a football man in charge of making football decisions. Holmgren cast his lot with Tom Heckert who bought himself some good will after last year’s draft.
Did Heckert do a good job? I don’t know, and frankly neither do you. More importantly I don’t care what you would have done. I will just take my chances that Heckert knows more than you do.
Flashy wide receivers are nice but often cause more headaches than they score touchdowns. I will gladly take some mean defensive players — thank you very much.
zdzurick@MorningJournal.com

NBA season is over so is my interest

2011-04-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

It’s been a long time since the Cavaliers were finished playing basketball in the month of April. In fact, back then you could still buy a gallon of gas ($2.28) cheaper than you could a gallon of milk ($2.50).

Someone named Gwen Stefani topped the charts with Hollaback Girl. America was transfixed by a little TV show called Lost and eagerly awaiting the opening of Spiderman 3 at the box office.

Yes sir, 2005 was the last time the Cavaliers didn’t make the playoffs. All of these years of exciting basketball and Cleveland fans just have no idea what to do with themselves with no NBA basketball going on downtown.

Much of the media somehow seem convinced in order to fill the void of all those tradition filled spring days of playoff basketball, Cavaliers fans needed to assemble together to cheer against LePippen and his merry band of hired guns.
That sounds like the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. And yes, this is coming from a guy who’s second favorite NFL team has always been whoever was playing the Steelers. I have hated the colors yellow and black since before I got the training wheels off my bike.

I still automatically make a certain gesture whenever I see a bumper sticker for the team that wears those colors, and every time I meet someone from the city of Pittsburgh, there is always an awkward silence after the initial introductions.
Hating the Steelers is a birthright and I was glad to discover recently that people that actually live in the city of Pittsburgh really do still hate Browns fans.

Apparently it is only the media and bandwagon Yellow and Black fans that live in Northeast Ohio that claim there is no rivalry left.

In fact I have much more in common with born and bred Steeler fans than I do with LeGarfunkel who was born in Akron. He grew up cheering for whatever team happened to be the best in their sport at that time.

Even though we considered him one of our own, from early childhood he painted and carried himself as an outsider. LeEdMcMahon never had any loyalty to Cleveland and I suppose it was silly for me to think that he would.

So now LeSanchoPanza has taken his talents to South Beach, I am supposed to what live vicariously through whoever happens to be playing the Heat. I know Evan “The Villain” Turner plays for the 76ers but I really could care less who else is on the roster. I would rather put hot coals on my eyes than cheer for Kevin Garnett, Carlos Boozer or Kobe Bryant.

I am not going to waste any breathe and time watching LeJazzyJeff play basketball.
I am certainly not going to get all worked up on whether LeConstanza wins or loses.
As I wrote a few weeks back beating LeBiden in Cleveland help give some closure. The Cavaliers have the third highest attendance in the NBA this season.

Only Chicago and Portland had more. Yes — nearly all of those tickets were sold before The Decision, but I salute all the fans that still showed up this season. Beating the Heat at home and closing the season out with winning basketball is a just reward for those people, even at the cost of a few ping pong balls.

Bryon Scott appears to be the right coach and after this year’s draft, the Cavaliers can start rebuilding the team into something Cleveland can be proud of.

Listen I am not saying that I won’t boo LeChewy for the rest of his life, that I won’t chuckle every time his mom gets arrested, that I won’t smile every time I watch a highlight of LeBarneyRubble missing a game-winning shot or get knocked on his behind.
I will still immaturely come up with less than clever put-downs of his name. When the Heat get eliminated from the playoffs, I will raise my beer to toast their demise but in truth I don’t really care.

One day, I suspect LeGoose will win an NBA championship. I suspect he will act like everything he did to get it was worth it. He will laugh and cry alligator tears of joy. He will say everything his publicist pre-wrote for him with fake humility.
But as that former owner of the Cleveland Browns found out, the celebration of a title is quick and fleeting. At a certain point, a trophy becomes just a door stop. However once you betray your family, it is never home again.

That kid who would be King gave up his birthright to party with his friends. That was his choice, he gave up chasing Jordan and being beloved to be a second fiddle and to win a title as fast and as easy as possible. Good for him.

Meanwhile, how about that Tribe?

A crash course on your first place Tribe

2011-04-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

Shhhhh. The first rule of the Indians’ fast start is you don’t talk about the Indians’ fast start. The second rule of the Indians’ fast start is you don’t talk about the Indians’ fast start.

Sure you can head down to the basement and dig out the old Tribe gear you packed away around Halloween back in 2007. Now I’m sure you packed on a few pounds but that’s all right. The player whose jersey you owned is probably long gone.

Your cap should still fit although the Indians have already gotten rid of the script I. But the good news is the C cap you had from back in the day is back in style.

Dig out your glove and head outside for a game of catch. Of course tonight and tomorrow’s games won’t be on until after your bed time while the Indians are on the West Coast but it will be good to get some exercise.

Don’t talk about contention let alone mention the “P” word. Instead put in your VHS copy of Major League and remember when this town got to pretend to be a baseball town.

Want to look like a tried and true Indians fan and not someone ready to jump on the bandwagon just because the Indians are in sole possession of first place? Here are some handy facts to share around the water cooler to those causal Indians fans that populate your office space.

No, Hammerin’ Jack Hannahan is not a former zoo keeper, but he is in fact from the state of Minnesota where he played for the Golden Gophers. He went to the same high school as Joe Mauer, who you may know from those MLB: The Show commercials. He spent the last season in the minors playing for Tacoma and Pawtucket. But this year has obviously ingested the spirit of Buddy Bell.

Vinnie Pestano is not that catcher we used to have with the cool Fu Manchu mustache. In fact, he was actually a relief pitcher who was on the team briefly last season and picked up a save in September against the Royals.

Travis Buck won a gold medal at the Olympics and was at one time considered the top prospect in the Oakland organization. No it is not true that he was once shot by Barbara Hershey, but yes he does make his own bats.

No, Shin-Soo Choo is not a free agent after this season or the next. He is not scheduled to be traded to the Dodgers until July 30, 2013. So feel free to take your kid to the May 21 game against the Reds when the team is giving away his jersey. Your son will grow out of it by then.

Asdrubal Cabrera and Orlando Cabrera are not in fact related. But yes, Rafael and Chris Perez are twins.

Yes, the Indians got Carlos Santana in a trade for Casey Blake. No, he actually is really good. He even wears the same number that Victor Martinez had, so a quick trip to fabric store and you’ve got a jersey you can actually wear in public.

Sure the Indians were fortunate to play Boston which is stumbling around with expectations and Seattle which is dutifully fulfilling expectations. And yes the Indians missed the Mariners best two starters but this team so much more talented than the team that had Jake Taylor, Ricky Vaughn, Roger Dorn, Pedro Cerrano and Eddie Harris.

That team started the year in front of empty crowds and we love them to this day. This real team is young, they play the right way and should be a blast to watch grow up — regardless of what happens the next few months.

So embrace the moment and wander on down the corner of Carnegie and Ninth on Friday when the team comes back home to play the Orioles. Heck there will even be fireworks.

Unless its cold. If it’s cold, stay home. Because frankly the only people that will tell you have to buy a ticket for a cold weather game in Cleveland are media guys who never have to pay for ticket and sit in a heated press box. So if it’s cold watch the game on TV. The team will still be there in May.

Go Tribe.

Win was needed for healing process

2011-03-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

After the embarrassment that was December 2, I imagine that most people — like me — pretended to downplay the importance of the Cavs’ matchup on Tuesday against the Miami Heat.

The date wasn’t circled on a calendar and plans weren’t altered to make sure there were no distractions in watching the game.

In our heart of hearts, we desired vengeance but it seemed silly to ask for, let alone expect.

Someone in the Cavaliers organization held hope and used a scriptwriter’s touch to have the game be Baron Davis’ first start as a Cavalier.

If Cavalier fans are going to identify with a player on this roster, it will be Davis. He has a chance to reinvent himself and the Cavs were hoping this game would cement a love affair waiting to happen.

More karma hung in the air; Joe Tait was back where he belonged in his radio perch. It was his first chance to call a game where LePippen was the enemy.

Tait really has no business being back at work but he refused to let his health end his career. He made a commitment to retire at the end of the season and not in the middle. Tait worked hard to go out on his own terms instead of quitting at the first sign of adversity. Something LeQuitter could have learned from a true Cleveland legend.

A legend which we discovered only after the defection that LeMoron spent the last seven years snubbing.

And then the game started and Davis hit a three. For the rest of the game it was everything Cleveland fans wanted back in December.

Ryan Hollins knocked LePippen to the ground. Some guy named Gee threw down highlight reel dunks. J.J. Hickson showcased his potential. Davis and Anthony Parker provided leadership.

The best part was not the 23-point lead. No, it was the Heat making a run to tie the game at 85 and having the Cavaliers respond down the stretch to win by pulling away.

The best way to describe the afterglow of the victory was that it felt like a Browns win. Even more it felt like a Browns win over the Steelers.

In baseball and basketball, regular season wins lose individual importance. Often the next game is just 24 or 28 hours away.

But with a Browns win — everything becomes better for the rest of the week. Food tastes better. Air smells better. Nothing anyone does can bother you.

It has been a long time since a Cavalier win felt like that. Not since games five and six of the Pistons series in 2007. After that glorious high point, no regular season win for the Cavs could compare. We knew the post-season was the real test.

In 2008 and 2009 the Cavs fell behind early in the playoffs to the Celtics and Magic and it was always about catching back up.

In the grand scheme of things, the Cavs win over the Heat doesn’t mean much. It is just one of 15 wins on the season. Yet on the other hand, it may be the most important win in the history of the franchise.

I heard someone say Tuesday’s win wasn’t big deal because December 2 happened the way it did. I will argue the opposite.

This was better for the city and the franchise. The team needed to be embarrassed. Management needed to wake up and see this as a total rebuild and a not fix on the fly situation.

Bryon Scott looks to be the right choice to lead this team into the future. The team will be young the next few years and they will still lose more than they win. But this win got the fans back on their side. They won’t have to do it alone. The community will stay with them.

The humiliation of this season’s long losing streak will fade fast. A top three draft pick will soothe that pain. But the city of Cleveland needed this win to allow the healing process for the fans to truly begin.

We will always boo LePippen, but watching him slither onto the bench in darkness instead of being introduced will tame the hatred some.

The would-be king had another empty triple-double. He will pile up the money and stats for the rest of his career. He may win a title — thanks to help of others — but he will never be loved. Not like he was. He is to be pitied for that, not hated.

The city, the franchise and the fans got some closure. Hurt will always linger but we are now ready to fall in love with someone else.

Long, harsh winter nears an end

2011-03-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have written a column. The reasons should be obvious. I have no desire to write the same thing over and over, and I doubt anyone wants to read that as well.

There is not much worse than a sportswriter complaining. It accomplishes nothing and I have no desire to wrap myself in the deep-seated cynicism needed to make it entertaining for you the reader.

Winter is never good in Cleveland, but I can’t remember a worse one. Here in Northeast Ohio, we can handle the cold, the long gray skies and the constant bombardment of snow. Helping pass the days is sports. We love to complain about sports here in Cleveland but this winter it really quit being funny.

Winter started with a vengeance on December 2 when LePippen and his traveling circus rolled into town, and the Cavs laid down without a fight. In an instant, the Cavs reverted to the Stepien Days.

There was a lot of bad basketball in my youth, but none of it prepared me for the dreadfulness of this team. They are unwatchable. Even having the Heat struggle at times has brought little joy. Basketball just isn’t fun anymore.

Cleveland State seemed poised to jump into the void, and the Vikings fell flat on their faces. This was the weakest NCAA field in many years. The Vikings had a marketable star in Norris Cole yet could not get the job done. The conference was theirs to take and they folded down the stretch.

Cleveland could have become a college basketball town, and the opportunity was lost.

But hey there is always our beloved Browns right? They stumbled down the stretch, fired another coach and brought in a unknown quantity to be the new coach. Another new offense and new defense will have to be installed.

The Browns want Colt McCoy and Co. to learn a new offense but the coaches aren’t allowed to teach it because of the lockout. The Browns want to start running a 4-3 defense but only have one defensive lineman who can play it and the front office isn’t allowed to sign any new players.

The longer the lockout goes and it is going to go on throughout the summer, the better the chance the Browns win even less games next season.

But in baseball hope always springs eternal right? My entire childhood was immersed in losing baseball yet I still loved my Tribe.

However — and this stat stunned me, it is so unbelievable — until last season the Indians had never lost 92 or more games in back-to-back years since 1915.

In fact the franchise even back to the Blues-Bronchos-Naps days has never lost 90 or more games three years in a row ever. In1977-1978 the Indians lost 90 both years and in 1914 as the Naps lost 102. They became the Indians in 1915 and lost 95.

So in 2007, the Cavs shocked the Pistons and made the finals. The Indians were one game away from the World Series. Now the Cavs are back to being a punch line and the Indians are on the verge of historic badness.

That it would be this bad less than four years later is inconceivable to me.

But as is said in Princess Bride, apparently that word doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.

I don’t really want to write about this every week so I took a break. But winter always ends.

The first Thursday of every NCAA tournament has always been one of my favorite days of the year. Wall-to-wall basketball but my sports appetite was been diminished. I wasn’t nearly as excited for the tournament as I once was. This year the first Thursday fell on March 17 and I worried amateur hour would ruin it.

Then a St. Patrick’s Day miracle happened. The weather was perfect and all of the places I wandered around downtown Cleveland were filled with happy people glad to freed from the bounds of a heartless winter.

I watched maybe 15 minutes of basketball after being prepared to watch 12 hours worth.

As a life long Clevelander, all it takes is one perfect day of sunshine to forgive the harshest of winters.

So Grady Sizemore still isn’t ready to slide. So Travis Hafner still doesn’t have his power back. So the zoo director that brings the animals onto David Letterman is our starting third baseman.

The team is full of unproven youngsters and several more stashed in the minors year or too away from the majors. There were no major signings in the off-season. Our best player, Shin Soo-Choo’s agent has a countdown calender in his office until free agency.

But I like this team. I think the offense will be better than most expect. The bullpen should be the strength of the team and the starting rotation isn’t that far removed from what the rest of the division.

So I bought my ticket for Opening Day, and I am back on the bandwagon. Call me an optimist but I think the Indians will contend for the playoffs this year.

So when is Opening Day? April 1st.

Well that’s a little too on the nose now isn’t it.

Shurmur's fortunes now in the hands of McCoy

2011-01-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

What do you think of the Browns hiring Pat Shurmur?

I’ve been asked that question a lot the last few days and I was a bit surprised to discover that I don’t care.

I know nothing about Shurmur. I have no idea how he will project to being as a head coach.

And frankly what I think means nothing. It wasn’t a hiring that will excite the fan base, but seriously what the fan base thinks of a head coach hiring should mean nothing as well.

I’ve heard people say you have to trust Mike Holmgren. I suppose, but how many times have I heard someone in the Browns front office say, “We have to get this right. We can’t afford to do this again.”

But that really isn’t true, is it?

Browns fans are still going to go the games. Browns fans are still going to watch on TV. The Browns can get it wrong again and again and again and they are still going to make money. Randy Lerner is so stinking rich he doesn’t blink at paying people not to work for the Browns anymore.

If you want financial security in life, all you have to do is convince the Browns to hire you, screw up as quickly as you can, and they will pay millions for you to sit at home.

I heard people give examples of coaching hires that didn’t excite the fan base and how great they turned out, including names like John Harbaugh, Mike Smith and Sean Payton. Of course I can counter with Rod Marinelli, Cam Cameron, Scott Linehan and countless more.

In today’s NFL the head coach only means so much. Why are Harbaugh, Smith and Payton successful? I would say Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan and Drew Brees have more to do with the success of their team than the head coaches.

Is Bill Belchick the greatest coach in the NFL because of his defensive genius or because he has Tom Brady?

If you have a star quarterback in the NFL you have a chance to win. The success of Shurmur’s coaching career will be tied directly to who starts under center for him.
Shurmur is getting credit for helping Sam Bradford’s development this season for the Rams. While I am sure that was true, it certainly had to help that Bradford was a No. 1 overall draft pick blessed with great athletic abilities.

Colt McCoy is not Bradford.

But Shurmur comes armed with the West Coast Offense, which is supposed to get the most out of McCoy’s natural abilities. If McCoy develops, then Shurmur will keep his job. If McCoy doesn’t, he won’t.

What does interest me some is how Shurmur got the job. While Holmgren is the man who pulled the trigger, one would hope that Tom Heckert’s fingerprints are all over this choice.

Heckert worked with Shurmur when he was in the front office of the Eagles and Shurmur was an assistant coach. If years ago Heckert identified Shurmur as his guy (if he ever got a chance to hire a coach). That would make me a lot more comfortable.
If the two men have a shared vision on the type of players they want in the specific systems they want to run — that can only be good for the Browns.

Good friends working in concert is a good thing, right. Wait, wasn’t that you what we were saying about Eric Mangini and good buddy George Kokinis? Well, at least this time, the general manager picked the coach and not the other way around. The man picking the players should believe in his coach.

However, if Shurmur got hired because he ended up being the only name left on the list (because the big names said no thanks) and even the middle names weren’t interested in franchise with the most players in the NFL over 30 and no history of winning — well then I am not so excited.

Holmgren did not interview nearly as many coaches as he led us to believe. One hopes it is because Shurmur was so convincing and not because no one else was interested in the job.

Either way Shurmur is the new head coach. How long he stays will depend on McCoy.

Once promising season turns back into a pumpkin

2011-01-03T22:07:00.000-08:00

I’m sure you remember the moment.

It didn’t last long but it was one of the few seconds of complete joy Browns fans have experienced since the return. For however long it lasted, one, two maybe three seconds, I would argue it was the only moment when I actually believed the Browns had a real future. Sure there have been signs of hope; here in Cleveland we always feign hope. But for those precious seconds, I honestly believed the Browns were for real.

And then of course Chansi Stuckey fumbled the ball.

The win over the Saints was awesome. I felt more shock than joy. A bunch of things went right for the Browns but for most of the game I was waiting for Drew Brees to lead his team to a comeback victory. The win over the Patriots was the most fun I have had during a game as a Browns fan since before Bernie Kosar was unceremoniously sent packing. It was a perfect storm and pasting Belichick and Brady was pretty awesome.

I rationalized the Jets game before it started. I just wanted to be competitive. Winning three weeks in row against the NFL elite seemed to be asking for too much. For most of the game that is exactly how it played it out then Colt McCoy led the Browns down the field for the game-tying touchdown. He even attacked the seemingly unbeatable Darelle Revis during the drive.

In overtime when Stuckey broke free — ever so briefly everything I ever wanted as a Browns fans seemed to be right in front of me. A defense that could stand up to the best the NFL had to offer. A young quarterback unafraid of any challenge who his teammates believed in. A coaching staff that looked to be getting more than was possible out of their team.

Stuckey is not responsible for the free fall that has occurred since then. He was trying to make a play. He stretched past his capabilities and fell short.

But the truth remains that it has been all downhill since then. Even the two Browns wins weren’t a lot of fun. The Browns actually lost the game to Carolina but the Panthers were ever so nice to regift it. The Browns did not play well in Miami but the Dolphins seem to be allergic to winning at home this season. Embarrassing losses to pitiful Buffalo and Cincinnati followed and the season came to a close with our regularly scheduled beatings by Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

A season that at one time seemed to be a road map to a brighter future ended with the same exact record of last season.

A four game winning streak saved the coaching staff last season and it seems only fair a four game losing streak should seal their firings this season.

A Browns fan told me that Browns should have won at least eight games this season and maybe even 10. I would argue that could just easily have won just two or three.

Everything that was once good about this season is now left with a huge dark cloud filled with questions.

Is McCoy the confident quarterback he was against New Orleans and New England or is he the quarterback flinging interceptions against Baltimore and Pittsburgh?

Are our rookie defensive backs the real deal or the two guys that watched Mike Wallace waltz past them?

Is Peyton Hillis the battering ram we all came to love or will his style lead to injuries that will lead to short NFL career?

Ditto for Joshua Cribbs?

Is Scott Fujita really that important to the defense? Can losing one guy destroy a unit like that?

Is Joe Thomas the real pro bowler he was in past seasons or just the sieve that led to three injured quarterbacks? The offensive line was the strength of the team and by the end of the season we saw what happens when a power rushing football team can’t run the ball anymore.

So the Browns season ended just like most of us expected it would back in training camp. The resulting double-digit loss season was no surprise for Browns fans. The way it unfolded however was far from expected.

The Browns started slow losing three straight games they actually led in the second half.

Injuries forced McCoy into the lineup and what followed was probably the most memorable stretch of football since the return. Be honest the year Butch Davis snuck the Browns into the playoffs, they really weren’t worthy and it was readily apparent that Derek Anderson’s miracle season was a house of cards.

That taste of a bright future is what made the beat down from the Steelers even more painful.

For moment, I actually believed in this team. The moment ended quickly and we are back to where we always seem to be in early January — watching other franchises in the playoffs while our Browns are left full of questions and doubts that they will ever be answered correctly.

My thoughts on the Browns ...

2010-12-26T15:56:00.000-08:00

bah humbug

Circumstances tough for embattled Mangini

2010-12-20T11:21:00.000-08:00

I have made no secret of being on the Eric Mangini bandwagon.

Sure, he did a few things last season that made me waver but with how the team finished and how hard they played for him, I thought he deserved to return.

Mike Holmgren obviously agreed as he surprisingly kept the embattled Mangini on board and paired him with a talented general manager in Tom Heckert.

The Browns’ offseason moves were positive. The team with three new quarterbacks got off to a slow start. When the season seemed lost the Browns coaching staff found ways to beat New Orleans, New England and give the New York Jets all they could handle with rookie Colt McCoy at the helm.

After McCoy was injured, the season sputtered. A loss to Jacksonville that could have been a win was followed by two ugly wins that could have been losses and was topped off with back-to-back pathetic roads losses to teams with two of the worst records in the NFL.

The hot seat is on fire. The assumption is that Mangini will be fired and replaced by Jon Gruden or maybe even Holmgren himself.

My belief is Mangini is a good football coach and that he gets the most out of his talent. Most of the complaints about Mangini have centered on his perceived personality and his choice of offensive coordinators.

Mangini basically acted like a tyrant last season. He was given absolute power and it did not go well. He made a lot of public relations mistakes and many of his personnel decisions did not go well. However it seemed obvious he could coach.

This year Mangini has changed. Able to focus on coaching, his interactions with the media have been solid. He may play some games on naming a starting quarterback but a lot of the Belichick Jr. routine is gone.

As for Brian Daboll, I agree his playing calling has conservative at times and strange at others but you can’t make filet mignon out of bologna. I can’t blame Mangini for refusing to throw his coach under the bus — at least during the season. The team lacks playmakers at receiver and the once strong offensive line has played like crap the last few weeks.

On defense, Rob Ryan used some magic tricks early in the season to hide the defense’s flaws. With the injury to Scott Fujita, the defense lost their quarterback.

The Browns’ problem now is the same it was before the season started. They lack depth to withstand injuries and they lack playmakers that can change a game. The one game-changer they have is Joshua Cribbs and injuries have neutered his effectiveness.

I still think Mangini is a good football coach but I can’t really complain if Holmgren wants a change. I am tired of constantly changing coaches and systems. What the Browns need is stability. Constant and stable leadership is what all of the best franchises in the NFL have. I fear a new coach will have to start things completely over once again.

Jon Gruden seems to be the popular choice to be the new coach. He won with Tony Dungy’s players in Tampa Bay but he won’t be inheriting that kind of talent here. One draw is that he could help McCoy’s development and he has experience with a Peyton Hillis type of running back. But does Gruden really want to coach? If he doesn’t and Mangini is fired then what?

At least if Mangini is fired, the general manager and the scouts would remain and it would not be a complete switch like the last two failed Browns regimes.

Browns owner Randy Lerner has handed the keys to the franchise to Mike Holmgren. The Big Show has mostly stayed behind the scenes this season letting Mangini and Heckert do their jobs.

It has been hard season to evaluate. Many fans believe the Browns should be 9-5. They could easily also be 2-11. The truth is the Browns are what their record says they are — which is 5-9. A team that on their best days can compete with any team in the NFL and on their worst days can lose to anyone.

So it doesn’t matter what sports radio callers or I think, all that matters is who Mike Holmgren believes is the best choice to coach our beloved Browns.

As fans we have no choice but to trust in Holmgren’s pedigree and hope he finally builds in the Browns into a franchise we can be proud of once again.

Despite the past two turds, the future is still brighter than it was two years ago.

Browns take a giant step backwards

2010-12-14T00:33:00.000-08:00

There is a quote from former Tampa Bay head coach John McKay that seems appropriate for the Browns’ loss on Sunday.

When asked about his team’s offensive execution, McKay didn’t hesitate and replied, “I am in favor of it.”

I would say Browns fans everywhere know the feeling.

If a team that is below .500 can have a trap game, this Buffalo matchup was one.

I was worried heading into this matchup and I have nothing good to say about it now that it is over.

The whole team with the possible exception of punter Reggie Hodges played like utter crap.

The first drive started out beautifully. The gameplan was to hand the ball to Peyton Hillis and it worked until the drive sputtered inside the 5-yard line and the Browns had to settle for chip-shot field goal.

The defense, however, made a big play and the Browns got the ball back on the 25-yard line.

There has been much to say this season about the rise of Hillis. Given away by his former team for Brady Quinn, Hillis has become a folk hero in Cleveland.

Fans have fallen in love with his bruising style of running. Special attention has been given to his tendency to leap over opponents. Writers and fans alike have waxed poetic about Hillis’ super hero traits.

And, well, apparently Mr. Hillis has been reading about himself.

How else can you explain his stupidity that followed the Browns recovering a fumble? The Bills entered the game 2-10. Hillis had run over them on the first drive.

If they Browns pounded the ball in for a touchdown, maybe they would have rolled over.

We will never know because Hillis lost his mind. He tried to leap a defender standing straight up.

It is one thing to jump over a defender diving at his feet but Hillis tried to impersonate Michael Jordan and fly over a man standing tall.

It led to a fumble and changed the game.

The Buffalo defense smelled blood in the water and dominated the Browns offense for the rest of the game.

Later Hillis would fumble two more times, and luckily, both times the ball wasn’t lost. But if Hillis were any other running back, fans would be running him out of town.

It doesn’t matter how hard you play if you can’t hold onto the ball. Hillis has to be better. And part of being better is playing smarter.

Not that anyone on the Browns offense played well. The play calling was mind-blowingly bad. How many times can you attempt one-yard pass routes?

Delhomme’s mobility is gone. If he had been the Browns quarterback in 2007 with all of those weapons, the Browns would have made the playoffs. But those weapons are gone and so is the sharpness of Delhomme’s skills.

At least all that stupid talk of the playoffs is dead. I don’t even want to hear about should’a, could’a, would’a from the Browns’ early season losses.

The Browns don’t know how to win. They don’t deserve to be in the playoff race.

The defense was just as disappointing.

They let the Bills own the football in this game. When a stop was needed, the defense fell short. T.J. Ward may occasionally hit like Jack Tatum but he tackles like Tatum O’Neal.

While the Browns offense was putrid, at least you could sense the Bills defense rising to the occasion. The Bills saw an opening and took advantage.

The Browns defense, in contrast, was never able to make a game-changing play in the second half. And on the last drive, they rolled over.

For most of the season, the Browns have played hard. Against the Bills, the Browns were flat. It was disgusting to watch and you could sense it from Hillis’ fumble on.

All of the good feelings the Browns built up this season among fans dissipated against the Bills. On Sunday, the Browns were back to being the Browns.

And that sucks.

Since Cavs quit, fans will soon follow

2010-12-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

The Browns won on Sunday, but the Cavs have stolen local conversation way from the Browns — maybe for the last time ever.

To say Cleveland sports fans tend to overreact to the ups and downs of their teams is obviously an understatement.

However, I think it is only a slight exaggeration that the Cavs’ humiliating loss on Thursday to the player who left and his new team could, one day, be pointed to as the beginning of the end of the franchise in Cleveland.

Sure it was only a regular season game, just one of 82 and all the significance was only in the hearts and minds of the Cleveland fanbase themselves.

We like to name our losses in this town, but this was something more. We understand losing what we don’t accept is quitting.

It is why fans took LePippen’s game five against Boston last season so personal. Many were ready to say just leave after that game, but having to watch LeBum rub our faces in leaving was too much.

Thursday’s laydown has been the subject of conversation ever since, particularly among people who barely watch sports. Sure there is anger and disgust, and as that fades it is going to be replaced by apathy.

The Cavs did not even need to win against Miami. If they would have played hard and fought the Heat until the final minutes and still come up short, the bandwagon would have swelled.

All of Northeast Ohio was prepared to fall in love on Thursday and instead fans left that game feeling betrayed.

We can understand an egomaniac mega-millionaire thumbing his nose at us and taking his talents elsewhere but how does our team — a group of players thrown under the bus by this punk superstar — roll over with smiles and hugs.

The business model this season for Dan Gilbert was risky enough. Most of the tickets for this season were sold before ‘The Decision’ was made.

Gilbert needed his team this season to play scrappy, earn one of the final playoff spots and hope that this town’s love of the underdog would lead to tickets sales for the 2010-2011 season.

That dream is over. Even if the Cavs would make the playoffs, which seems very unlikely, a large portion of the potential fan base won’t notice because they quit caring.

The Cavs are fortunate that there was a road trip scheduled following the debacle that was Thursday.

If there wasn’t, it seemed likely they would be booed out of the building by their own fans.

I don’t know if irony is the right word, but the only thing that could reduce some of the flames of hatred towards LeFraud was indifference and passivity of his former teammates. Maybe reduce isn’t the right word but at least some of that disgust was transferred.

The last few years outside the Lyin’ King the most popular Cavs among fans were Sideshow Bob and Boobie.

Fans ignored the shortcomings of Anderson Varejao because he played hard. He flopped and took charges. He fought for rebounds, but he exposed himself on Thursday.

I doubt he remains a fan favorite going forward.

His giant hug and playfulness with his former teammate instead of competing woke up a lot of fans to the new reality of the NBA. Players don’t care about winning. They care about their friends.

Well at least on the surface. Daniel Gibson learned a lesson of his own on Thursday. He thought LeJerk was his buddy but learned he was only a pawn.

One would have thought Gibson would have figured that out with how LePunk handled his last week in Cleveland playing pickup downtown while the whole time plotting to embarrass the city on national television.

Gibson tried damage control on Friday but if he wants to remain the most popular Cav, he better step up and show some fight. But frankly, it may be too late.

The Cavs were recently on a verge of a championship. Instead the Chosen One quit in the playoffs. He jumped ship in the off-season branding his teammates as losers.

Those teammates lived up to the moniker on Thursday. They kissed LeVillian’s butt and rolled over and quit without a fight.

Now the fans are going to quit on them.

Apathy is going to blanket the Cavs and soon it will be like the days of Ted Stepien all over again, except with loud music, an obnoxious announcer and various types of groups aiming to pump up the crowd.

So it will be a lot like the player who left, a lot of hype but utterly unsatisfying. However if the Cavs decide to leave town, there won’t be nearly as much anger.

A Browns win that feels like a loss

2010-11-28T20:37:00.001-08:00

For the first time in three weeks, the Browns won a football game. Yet, it still felt like a loss.

The Carolina Panthers, the team with the worst record in the NFL, rolled into town with a rookie quarterback, Jimmy Clausen, that missed last week’s game with a concussion.

The Browns did their best to lose the game, but won thanks mostly to Panthers kicker John Kasay missing two makeable field goals and the Panthers self-destructing with stupid penalties to extend Browns’ drives.

Once again on a final drive, Browns defenders forgot how to tackle and Clausen put his team in position to win the game. Honestly, the Browns lost the game but Kasay gift-wrapped it back into the win column.

A loss would have been devastating and perhaps all the goodwill Eric Mangini and his team had built this year with the fans would have vanished. Sure the Browns won, but it doesn’t completely mask my disappointment in how the team played.

The game started full of promise. On the Browns’ first four possessions, we caught a glimpse of what the Browns brain trust was thinking when they signed Jake Delhomme to be the starting quarterback in the offseason. The offense looked crisp as the Browns marched up and down the field. Facing the team he once led to the Super Bowl, Delhomme found a way to get the Browns young receivers into the flow. Invisible man Brian Robiskie was a real contributor as he caught seven passes after entering the game with only nine catches in the season and only 16 in his so far ill-fated NFL career. Delhomme was able to use the entire field and that opened up running lanes for Peyton Hillis. The bruising running back from Arkansas scored on three of the Browns first four possessions. The Browns were poised to score on the another possession as well, but Evan Moore was stripped of the ball inside the 5-yard line after catching a pass for what would have been a first down.

But then with the Browns seemingly in command with a 21-7 lead, the dark side of Jake Delhomme came out. As his former team and its fans can attest, there are two sides to Delhomme. He is a nice charming guy. He is a leader in the locker room and on the field. He can still make plays as evidenced by the Browns first four drives of the game. But his dark side is sometimes he just can’t help himself. He thinks he can make every play and that confidence gets him in trouble. It started slowly. Early in the game on one play all Delhomme had to do was throw the ball out of bounds but instead inexplicability Delhomme just tossed it forward. It could have been a disaster instead it was just a dumb grounding penalty.

Late in the half, after Carolina had crept within eight with a pair of field goals, conservative wisdom said the Browns should just run the ball up the middle grind out the clock and a take a lead into halftime. But armed with three timeouts, aggressive wisdom said go get some more points. Mangini let Delhomme try and it almost blew up in his face. Faced with a strong Carolina pass rush, Delhomme just couldn’t help himself. Rather than throw the ball away, he tried to force things. He was stripped of the ball and but fortunately a teammate fell on it.

At halftime, Hillis had 70 yards rushing on only 10 carries. So to start the second half, Delhomme came out gunslinging. His first pass was an interception but the Panthers failed to capitalize because Kasay missed a field goal.

After one Hillis rush, Delhomme went back to the air and Captain Munnerlyn, yes that is his real name, had an easy pick-six. Just like that, the Panthers were back into the game, down 21-20.

One of the reasons fans have attached themselves to Colt McCoy as the quarterback of the future is that despite his youth, McCoy plays smart football. Like all rookies, he makes mistakes but his mistakes haven’t been fatal ones. Delhomme is a veteran quarterback that takes too many chances. When the Browns found themselves down 23-21 with less than seven minutes to play, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll showed his trust in Delhomme opting to pass than run. Delhomme drove the Browns down the field but every time he dropped back to pass, I, and I imagine Browns fans everywhere, held their breathe. But Delhomme got the Browns in field-goal range and the points somehow held up.

Delhomme is a capable quarterback. We saw that in the first half. But it is hard for a player to change his stripes. The Browns aim to be a running football team. They want to pound on and punish defenses, and they need a quarterback that plays it smart. Not passive but intelligently aggressive. McCoy with his accuracy looks to be that kind of quarterback. He has surprised me with his moxie and ability to lead. The keys to the offense should be his once he heals. Delhomme’s dark side confirmed that.

Without Cribbs Browns lack playmakers

2010-11-22T23:01:00.000-08:00

I admit, over the last few seasons whenever Josh Cribbs would bring his contract squabbles public, I wasn’t that sympathetic.

Here was a undrafted free agent who wanted security and signed a six-year deal making a million dollars a year. Complaining about being underpaid when you are cashing big checks is never something you want to hear. As much I loved watching Cribbs exciting style of play, I wasn’t sure it was worth playing a special teams player big bucks. He may have been the Browns best player, but if your best player is a special teams player, that team is in trouble.

I was wrong.

In the second half of the Jets game last week and again this week against the Jaguars, Cribbs absence totally altered the game. While Colt McCoy again showed he is the future of the Browns, even a great quarterback like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning needs some weapons. McCoy just didn’t have enough bullets on Sunday against Jacksonsville. Without Cribbs in the game, the Jaguar defense was able to key on Peyton Hillis, and McCoy’s favorite weapon Ben Watson was banged up early and wasn’t much of a factor. Brian Robiske was again mostly invisible and no one is going to mistake Chansi Stuckey and Mo Massaquoi for Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie or even for that matter Kevin Johnson and Darrin Chiaverini.

When the opposing offense turns the ball over on five straight possessions and six times overall, you have to find a way to score points. The offensive line wasn’t much help to McCoy as the Jaguars sacked him six times and was in his face all game. With Hillis put in check in the second half and no go-to-guy to throw it to, the offense sputtered. Even the usually reliable Phil Dawson couldn’t bail the offense out.

The result was the Browns again lost a game they should have won.

No one on the Browns team is blameless. Without Cribbs, the special teams lost a lot of what makes them special. The Jaguars didn’t have worry about giving up field position. They could just kick it as far as they could without fear of a big return. As for Dawson, 51-yard field goals are never automatic, but man he is paid to make those and by missing both the Jaguars were allowed to stick around.

The defense dominated the third quarter and the start of the fourth as they harassed David Garrard and his mates into five straight turnovers. Abe Elam had an interception in the first half and then made a heads up strip and fumble return of a touchdown that produced the Browns only touchdown of the second half. But for the second straight game missed tackles cost the Browns a win as failing to lasso Maurice Jones-Drew allowed the Jaguars to steal the win.

The NFL is about wins and once again the Browns fell short. But the game also showed promise that the Browns may have finally found a winning front office that knows how to use the draft to change the teams fortunes. First-round pick Joe Haden had a strong game with several great pass defenses and an interception. Second-round pick TJ Ward had two interceptions and is leading the team in tackles. With a little coaching Ward may learn at big moments you have to tackle with both arms and not always go for the haymaker. And third-round pick Colt McCoy again with the game on the line played well. With another draft like this, the Browns will finally close the talent gap that keeps them from being among the NFL’s elite.

How many times over the years have we watched a quarterback barely escape the clutches of a defender and use his feet to keep a drive alive? And how many times was it the other team’s quarterback that did it?

McCoy was great orchestrating a 16-play, 10 minute, 92-yard touchdown drive in the first half. He eluded the rush and pitched it forward to Hillis for a touchdown. It has been a long time since the Browns had a quarterback capable of pulling that kind of play off. But McCoy shined after the Browns had given up the lead. Despite what had been a dormant offense in the second half, McCoy found a way to make plays. He scrambled and found Evan Moore down the sideline and then used his legs to get the Browns into field goal range.

Even after the Browns defense gave the lead back up and left him with no time outs, McCoy got the Browns into a position to win. The young quarterback from Texas calmly led the Browns down the field and his final throw was on the money to Watson, but skipped off him into a defender.

So the result was a disappointing loss. A loss because the Browns lack playmakers on offense. Heal those toes Mr.Cribbs, the Browns need you.

Browns are a team to be proud of despite loss

2010-11-14T16:55:00.000-08:00

I am not going to second-guess any decision the Browns coaching staff made in the overtime loss to the Jets. I am not going to blame Chansi Stuckey for the letting the Jets rip the ball of his hands after fighting to get into the field-goal range.

I am not going to rant and rave or throw things around in anger.

Why? Because I have my football team back.

The Browns are relevant again. For the third straight game, they went toe-to-toe with a Super Bowl contender. And the pain that comes with a close loss is welcomed after years being overmatched and out-classed.

It is all right to be disappointed with a loss that could have easily been a win. It should hurt to lose a football game.

However, at the same time, once again I am proud of my football team. Hard-nosed and tough, resilient to the very end, the Browns took the best effort of a very good football team.

The Browns fell short and they got beat. And I would wager they are really ticked off about it. That’s the fight I am looking for.

You could feel the rekindling of a love affair this week. People who never talk about the Browns were talking about the Browns at grocery stores, at water coolers and with random strangers on the street. Despite being 3-5, there was talk of the playoffs.

National pundits started giving the Browns respect and were picking the Browns to beat the Jets, which would have sounded ridiculous at the start of the season. CBS sent their No. 1 announcing team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms to call the game instead of the bottom of the barrel announcers usually assigned.

Typical of Browns fans, this made us nervous. How would the team respond? Were they primed for letdown?

Instead, the Browns and Jets played an entertaining football game. In fact, the Jets are exactly what the Browns aim to be — tough as nails on defense a with bruising ball-control offense. The Jets happen to have more playmakers on both sides of the ball, but Browns were worthy adversaries.

While the Browns are well coached and play hard, what they are not is deep. Losing three starters in the first half looked like it would spell doom for the Browns. With cornerback Sheldon Brown and linebacker Scott Fujita out, the Jets opened the second half with 19-play, 10-minute drive but no points.

With Josh Cribbs out, the Browns offense went stale. The Jets could line up nine in the box and take away Peyton Hillis.

But the Browns didn’t back down. The defense got abused most the second half, but found ways to keep the Jets out of the end zone.

After doing nothing in the second half on offense, Colt McCoy drove the Browns down the field in the final minutes to get the tie and force overtime.

The Browns’ quarterback search is over. The kid has earned the right to be the man. I think Eric Mangini knows this as well but will continue to mess with the beat reporters, and I think he also has earned that right.

This is Eric Mangini’s football team. He has built it in his image and what he wants as a coach. He has given the Browns an identity and it is one that fits this town perfectly.

The Cleveland Browns are a flawed football team. They lack depth, playmakers and they need to play perfect to have a chance to win.

But they are tough, they play as hard as they can and fight to the end. The safe thing to do at the end of overtime would have been to run the ball three times into the line and take the tie. The Browns dropped McCoy back to pass twice because they wanted to win.

They didn’t. It allowed the Jets to get the ball back and gave them enough time to make a play and win the game.

I can second-guess that play call, but I respect it. The Browns played to win the game and isn’t that what we have been asking for the last decade?

Welcome back, Browns. Next week is Jacksonville and the Jaguars know they are in for a fight.

Browns now believe they can beat anyone

2010-11-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

Belief is a powerful tool.

The Cleveland Browns now believe they are a good football team, and that can carry a team a long way.

I don’t want to hear the words “shocking” or “upset.” The Browns win over the New England Patriots, the team with the best record and supposedly best coach in the NFL was a beatdown. An upset implies luck or fortune — that if two teams played 10 times that this was the one time and probably only time the underdog would win. The Browns did not squeak out a win. They were the better football team as they out-gained New England 404 to 283, dominated possession and were the aggressors in every faction of the game.

End all talk about head coach Eric Mangini’s job security. The Browns can now confidently line up on any given Sunday against any team in the NFL and believe they will win the game.

For the second game in a row, the stars of the Browns’ win were Eric Mangini and his coaching staff. The Browns won all four aspects against New England. Their offense, defense, special teams and coaching was better.

In the first three games of the year, the Browns had second half leads and lost. They were lacking two key ingredients. The Browns did not have a culture of winning to fall back on and they did not have a quarterback who could make plays when needed.

Colt McCoy has firmly entrenched himself as the Browns quarterback of the present. The rookie from Texas was 14 of 19 for 174 yards but most importantly he was mistake free. Three separate times flushed from the pocket, McCoy rolled and on the run threw a perfect strike for positive yardage. We know the Browns are lacking playmakers at receiver but when guys believe in their quarterback, they give maximum effort and the Browns wide outs did just that on Sunday.

McCoy’s 16-yard touchdown run was the type of play that fires up an entire football team. The locker room is now McCoy’s. And how about that block from Joshua Cribbs on McCoy’s touchdown? Cribbs finds ways to help this team week in and week out.

So while McCoy is now the face of the franchise, Peyton Hillis is now its heart. In just eight games, Hillis has become the most beloved Brown since Bernie Kosar. Hillis rumbled for 184 yards on 29 bruising carries. From his first carry where he tried leaping over a New England defender to his back-breaking 35-yard touchdown run, Hillis pounded the Patriots defense into submission. He was also McCoy’s safety valve as a receiver to pick up huge first downs.

Most importantly, the Browns had drives. McCoy and the offense had the ball for 16 minutes more than New England. The media and fans have brutalized Browns offensive coordinator Brian Daboll during his tenure but he had a perfect day as a play caller. He trusted his rookie quarterback to make plays. He went into his bag of tricks for a huge touchdown with the Chansi Stuckey play call. Daboll’s emotion on the sideline showed how much this game meant for him.

While it was Mangini’s gutsy call to go for it on fourth and one early in the game, it was Daboll who designed the right play to get it done.

The special teams set a tone early in the game by recovering the ball on a short kick that confused the Patriots. All game the coverage was perfect and with the lead, Cribbs was smart enough to play it safe on returns.

There is not much more you can say about Rob Ryan and his defense. It is obvious how much his players adore him. For two weeks in a row, Ryan and his staff have perplexed two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. The Browns held the Pats to 68 yards rushing and made Tom Brady look mortal.

When Mike Holmgren was hired, everyone assumed he would clean house. Once he retained Mangini and his staff, the assumption became Holmgren would bid his team and ride in on his white horse to take over as coach to save the franchise. It’s not needed; the Browns have a great coaching staff. Holmgren was smart enough to hire Tom Heckert who already has had an impact on this team with the Brady Quinn for Peyton Hillis trade, the pickups of Chris Gocong and Scott Fujita at linebacker and the drafting of T.J. Ward and Joe Haden in the secondary.

Holmgren is smart man and he knows he has a good thing going. The offensive and defensive systems may not be his but he knows they are working. The key will be knowing when to interject himself like he did when he insisted the Browns draft Colt McCoy. Holmgren was right on that one.

A good thing is happening in this town. Browns fans can now replace hope with belief.

And that is a powerful thing.

Play underdog or rollover

2010-10-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

On paper this year’s Cavaliers team seems built for my wheelhouse.

It has all the makings of an underdog sports movie

On the verge of a championship, their superstar teammate quit on them. He took his talents elsewhere and basically called his former teammates a bunch of losers.
What is left in the locker room is collection of role players who are now missing the linchpin. There are a few aging all-stars, some hungry young players with a lot to prove but mostly filler.

They have been written off and disrespected.

Enter a coach who knew what it took to win a ring as a player. As a coach he took his former team to the finals twice before his star player betrayed him and got him fired.

Rather than stand around and watch the hyped chosen one, the new coach is preaching a team concept. Constant movement. Relying on each other as brothers. No one is bigger than the team.

Gone is the flash. No more lighting it up like Las Vegas. It is blue-collar time for a hard knock town.

While Mr. Primadonna is hanging with his new South Beach pals and turning into a complete villain, the team scraps and fights and aims to sneak into the playoffs where they will meet their former foe.

That is the Cleveland sports dream isn’t it?

It is a story that we can certainly buy into.

One national pundit from the largest online sports site has predicted that the Cavs will win 12 games. For a point of reference, the Cavs won 17 games in the 2002-2003 season in a year they tanked in order to get the most ping-pong balls to draft the player formerly believed to “The Chosen One.” Last season the Cavs won 12 or more games in a month three times.

A prediction of 12 wins for a season — never has there been bigger bulletin board material.

This is the type of team Cleveland rallies around.

The truth, however, is I haven’t watched a single second of the Cavs preseason and I watched just about every game of that 2002-2003 season. I spent most of my youth watching really bad basketball.

I am hoping that Wednesday night when the season starts for real, the passion of and grittiness of Byron Scott’s team will spark my enthusiasm.

The 1984-85 Cavs were the favorite team of my youth. They started 2-19 but rallied to make the playoffs where they gave the Boston Celtics all they could handle before losing.

The Cavs have no chance to win a championship this season but I think this season could one where fans fall in love with a team. Gone will be the hype, the fancy handshakes and posturing. There will be no chants of MVP but hopefully a deep respect for a team that doesn’t quit.

Yahoo’s Kelly Dwyer is the writer who made the prediction of 12 wins and if you read the whole article he shared the reason for his prediction. He really believes the Cavs are a 28 or so win team. He believes the Cavs need to blow it up completely and trade Mo Williams and Antwan Jamison. That the best thing the Cavs can do as an organization is waive the white flag and play like it is 2002-2003.

They don’t make movies about quitters but Dwyer isn’t wrong. In NBA you need to be contending or at the top of the lottery, the mediocre middle is a wasteland.

So what would you prefer? Blow it up, lose as much as possible and pray the this time the ping pong balls produce the real deal and hope the front office can find the right pieces parts for that superstar? Or have a team of Spartans that give everything they have and die on their swords knowing for certain the season will end with a loss and delay even longer any hope for a crown?

I have lived my whole life without a championship. Rolling over and hoping everything breaks right may be smarter but I don’t like the taste.

Lace ’em up and pass the manual for the Princeton Offense.

Browns coaching staff propels team to victory over Saints

2010-10-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

How can one tell when the warm glow of the honeymoon between fans and franchise after a Super Bowl win is over?

When the lowly Browns kick their butt.

For the third straight season, the Cleveland Browns took the defending Super Bowl Champions to the woodshed.

Two years ago, the Browns ambushed the Giants on Monday Night Football. Last season, years of frustration were alleviated on a Thursday night when the Browns took it to the hated Steelers ruining their playoff hopes.

Yesterday, the Browns went into the Superdome and made a loud statement with a road win over the Saints.

Why did the Browns win this football game?

Because Eric Mangini and his coaching staff out-coached the Saints coaching staff.

Special teams coach Brad Seely proved why he is one of the best in the business. Teams have keyed on Josh Cribbs all season. He has found return yards tough to get. With his return from a concussion, everyone thought Cribbs would be keyed up to make a big return. So Seely pulled a trick from his bag and had Cribbs throw across the field to Eric Wright. Nearly a touchdown, it set the Browns offense up with great field position and an early lead.

Later deep in their own territory ready to punt yet again, Seely’s video work paid off once more. He called for a fake punt. Reggie Hodges saw I-90 open up in front of him and scampered 68 yards to set up another field goal. Taking that kind of chance only comes after long hours watching film.

Drew Brees is known for being one of the NFL’s most cerebral quarterbacks. He can carve up some of the best defenses in the league. Browns defensive coordinator Rob Ryan and his staff came up with a game plan that thoroughly confused Brees.

Ryan took the pieces he had and found ways to hide what the Browns wanted to do. Often standing nearly the entire defense at the line scrimmage, Brees had no idea where the rush was coming from and who was sliding into coverage.

Former Saint Scott Fujita set the tone early with a sack and interception. Fujita led the team with nine tackles and has emerged as the leader the unit has been looking for. David Bowens was in the right place at the right time twice. After watching Browns defensive backs drop interception after interception all season, the grizzled veteran Bowens showed what you do when the ball comes your way and took it to the house twice.

The Saints out-gained the Browns 392 to 210. New Orleans had the ball for 11 more minutes, but the Browns offense did their job.

Rookie Colt McCoy did not have impressive numbers. He completed 9 of 16 passes for 74 yards, but most importantly he didn’t turn the ball over.

Peyton Hillis found the rushing yards difficult. Until the very end it seemed like Hodges would be the Browns leading rusher. The Saints scored their first touchdown to make it 20-10 with 13:29 left in the game. The game was in the balance. Eric Mangini and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll put the game on Hillis’ shoulders.

Six straight times Hillis blasted into the New Orleans defense gaining 31 yards. After a one-play breather facing third and 6, Hillis took the direct snap and fired a perfect strike to McCoy for a 12-yard gain and a Browns first down. It would lead to another field goal and increase the lead to 13.

I have made no bones about how I like this football team. I like the coaches. I like the team’s character and toughness. The one thing they have been missing is wins, which is all that matters in the National Football League.

The Browns schedule remains the same. Because of their talent limitations, the Browns are going to need to play mistake free football to win every week. This one win doesn’t change that challenge.

But lets end all talk about firing Eric Mangini and his staff. This is a well-coached football team. As Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert continue to gather talent, Mangini and his staff will coach them up.

Rock bottom is over. The climb back up is underway.

McCoy bright spot on gloomy day

2010-10-18T15:24:00.001-07:00

Like most, I braced myself for the worst: A talented and mean Pittsburgh defense fired up to play at home.

So when that goon James Harrison did what goons do and knocked Josh Cribbs and Mohammad Massaquoi out of the game with dirty helmet-to-helmet hits, I was more than prepared for an ugly performance from the Browns offense.

A wet-behind-his-ears Colt McCoy making his first NFL start looked around the Browns huddle and he didn’t find many weapons at his disposal.

The Steeler defense was sure to key on the human wrecking ball Peyton Hillis who was valiantly playing through pain.

Other than Joe Jurevicius’ spirit possessing the body of Evan Moore, McCoy was left with a receiving core of Brian “The Invisible Man” Robiskie, Chansi “Stone Hands” Stuckey and Ben “Gator Arms” Watson.

I was not a fan of drafting McCoy in the third round. I was not convinced he was anything more than Brady Quinn 2.0.

The kid won me over.

It did not take long for McCoy to get his jersey dirty. The Browns offensive line in the first half looked like a chain-link fence trying to hold back a tsunami. McCoy was on his back after every passing play.

With Cribbs out, the Browns’ game plan was put into the shredder. No one would have blamed McCoy for panicking. No one would have blamed him for failing.

Instead McCoy showed something that has been missing in this endless parade of young Browns quarterbacks since the parade — moxie.

McCoy showed leadership. He threw strong accurate passes. In the second half, the Steelers knew McCoy had to throw the ball.

The offensive line played a little better and McCoy stood tall threading passes into tight spaces.

I’m not saying McCoy is the answer. But you have to admire how the kid handled his first big test.

McCoy completed 23 of 33 passes for 281 yards. He had a touchdown and two interceptions — neither as ugly as the ones veterans Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace threw in the first two games of the season.

McCoy’s throw to Evan Moore down the sideline in the fourth quarter was a thing of beauty.

It was the type of throw that in a lost 1-5 season that makes you consider letting the kid keep the keys to the offense even if Delhomme or Wallace gets healthy.

No matter how hard he was hit, McCoy dusted himself off and went right back to the fire.

You have to believe that McCoy won over the locker room with his performance. Something Brady Quinn was never able to accomplish.

During the fourth quarter I was frustrated — frustrated because the Browns seemed so close.

At the start of the game, a blowout seemed inevitable. But while a win was never likely the Browns held their own against a team ranked No. 1 in many power polls.

Before Stuckey’s bone-headed fumbled punt, the Browns were close enough to at least daydream of a lucky bounce leading to a stolen victory.

Despite the losses, I like this Browns team.

There is a serious talent gap and few players who need a kick in the butt (looking at you Eric Wright) but overall this team plays like I want a Browns team to play. They are tough and disciplined.

I think Eric Mangini and his staff is doing a great job. Brian Daboll rightfully takes a lot of abuse, but after losing Cribbs I thought he opened up the playbook just enough to protect McCoy yet let him be an NFL quarterback.

This Browns team is not that far away. Other than a lack of wins, I like what I am seeing. This is not an embarrassing 1-5 team with no future. The Browns are getting closer.

While that is not satisfying now, count me in on the Holmgren-Heckert-Mangini Kool-Aid. There is a light at the end of this decade-long tunnel of darkness.

I really believe that.

Could be all downhill from here

2010-10-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

As sad as it sounds, I think we witnessed the apex of the Browns 2010 season.

You can measure the Browns relevance by my blood pressure. In the first half of the Browns game against the Falcons, the women and children needed to be hidden.

It has been a long time since my television took such abuse. Bad football teams are not worth getting upset over. But in the first half — for the first time in a while — you could call the Browns prescription strength beta-blocker worthy.

There was tough defensive football. Helmet rattling hits, strong coverage and good pressure.

There was a real identity on offense. As Peyton Hillis demanded the full attention of the defense, Seneca Wallace could pick and choose to find young open wide receivers.

Special teams continued to prove to be one of the best units in the NFL. For the second straight week, a field goal was blocked. The Falcons were giving up field position to avoid Josh Cribbs.

This was a Browns team to be proud of and one worth getting riled up about. Each play was intense. Any small mistake from the home team led to an explosion of expletives. Every good play had me ready to hit someone.

The Browns had me fully engaged. A corner had been turned; the Browns were once again a real NFL team.

And then …

I can’t really be that upset about what turned out to be a Browns loss. There was a reason Jake Delhomme did not start the game at quarterback. The NFL is hard enough to play in on two good ankles. You can’t beat an NFL defense with one leg. I am not going to boo an injured guy for gutting it out.

The Browns were in the game in the fourth quarter and both their quarterback and running back could barely walk. When Wallace went down, I am not sure what choice the Browns had. Colt McCoy is not ready for prime time and I love Josh Cribbs as much as anyone but the man is not an NFL quarterback.

As fans it is easy to say, “run the Flash for the rest of the game,” but you can’t expect Eric Mangini to look at his players in the eye in the locker room by running a gimmick instead of trusting a veteran quarterback who is a leader in the locker room.

I feel bad for Delhomme. He has always been a fighter. Undrafted after playing at Southwestern Louisiana, at one point he was a backup to NFL Europe behind a former grocery bag boy named Kurt Warner.

He deserves better than to limp out of the game this way.

Delhomme fought and scratched his way to a starting position in the NFL. He led the Carolina Panthers to Super Bowl XXXVIII and then an appearance in the 2005 NFC title game. His career was threatened by Tommy John surgery but he bounced back to the lead the Panthers to the playoffs in 2008. But on his 34th birthday he threw five interceptions against Arizona.

That bad mojo followed him into the 2009 season. It was a disaster. This was supposed to be his chance at redemption. It is easy to daydream at how different this Browns season could have gone if he hadn’t hurt his ankle on that interception return against Tampa Bay.

And as thrilling as Hillis has been, a human body can only take so much abuse. The man will forever have my undying respect but he is never going to last a full season at this pace.

I am proud of the Browns but without a healthy quarterback or running back, this 2010 season is about to get ugly. Up next on the schedule are four legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

The truth is I will always be a Browns fan no matter what happens but despite the losses, I actually like this team. That hasn’t been true for a while. However I get the feeling that Sunday’s blocked field goal is going to be the high water mark of the season.

Another double-digit loss season is on the way. I have confidence in the Browns coaching staff so I don’t think this Browns team will quit. They will win just enough games to fall out the Andrew Luck sweepstakes.

And you know the saying about luck.

Browns show up in fourth quarter this week

2010-10-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

I felt it and I am sure that Browns fans everywhere felt it as well. The Browns entered the fourth quarter of their game against the Bengals with a 10-point lead.

At high schools and college campuses across this nation, players and fans hold up four fingers at the start of the final quarter — in Wisconsin the band goes nuts and Camp Randall Stadium shakes with Richter scale moving force.

In Cleveland, we are left with the foreboding sense that we have seen this movie before. That unshakeable déjà vu has been reinforced this season. The Browns have led in the fourth quarter in their first three games this season and were left with zero happy endings. They became the first team in the NFL to lose their first three games after leading in the fourth quarter since the 1954 Green Bay Packers.

So, despite being armed with a double-digit advantage, Browns fans were nervous and for good reason.

Sure enough, the Bengals marched right down the field, the Browns committed a couple penalties and only nine plays into the fourth quarter, the lead was only a field goal.

The Browns offense responded with a quick three plays and out — and depending on his or her stomach, Browns fans reached for pepto or whiskey.

Sure enough, it did not take long for the Carson Palmer and the Bengals to get back into field-goal range.

In the Browns three heart-breaking losses to start the season, the fourth quarter has not been not kind. The Browns failed to make plays when they were needed. That changed on both sides of the ball.

After Chad Ochocinco got his hand caught in the cookie jar, the Bengals were pushed just outside the edge of Mike Nugent’s field goal range. After being burned repeatedly on blitz packages, Browns defensive coordinator Rob Ryan played it safe and dropped extra bodies into coverage.

To me, it seemed in slow motion, Browns linebacker Matt Roth was in the frame and Palmer was just within his grasp. As one nation we yelled, "Hit him," while thoughts of the pass just getting away in time for a first down played in our heads. However, this time Roth got his man and Bengals were knocked out of field goal range.

I was a bit shocked by the Browns play action pass on first down. Seneca Wallace did not play poorly in this game, but he is not a playmaker. Run clock run. Thankfully, the Bengals defense made a stupid mistake and the Browns got a fresh set of downs. After two bruising Peyton Hillis runs, the Browns faced third-and-one with just more than three minutes to play.

Heading into that play, the Browns had been 0 for 10 on third-down conversions. Several times spanning those games when the Browns faced a third and short, Wallace threw long down the sidelines with no success.

This time the Browns lined up with Hillis and Lawrence Vickers and pushed forward. The Cincinnati defense knew what was coming and Hillis absorbed several hard shots, but he fell forward for the first down.

Head coach Eric Mangini had offensive coordinator Brian Daboll threw out the play book at that point. Hillis rolled forward for 3 yards on first down and induced the fat lady to start belting out show tunes with a 24-yard blast.

After the game, a reporter asked Browns offensive lineman Eric Steinbach what was different in this fourth quarter. His answer was direct, "We won."

The Browns are the same team they were the first three games. Wallace is a caretaker and not the answer at quarterback. While Chansi Stuckey had a good game, the Browns passing game is basically limited to tight ends. The defense is solid but doesn’t match up well at cornerback. For the Browns to win they can’t make mistakes and they have to take advantage of their opponents mistakes.

They are not a bad football team and they are not a playoff football team. They are a flawed but hard working team with almost no margin for error.

The difference between winning and losing is about making plays in the fourth quarter. Against the Bengals, the Browns made those plays. If they can do that in a few more fourth quarters, maybe as Browns fans we can face those final 15 minutes with confidence.

The Browns are getting better and now finally they have a mark in the win column to show something for their efforts.

Calls for Mangini's head should be muted

2010-09-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

Football is about wins. With the Browns’ third straight loss to start the season, I expect the calls for the firing of head coach Eric Mangini to grow louder and fiercer.

The Browns opened the season with losses to two teams that had worse 2009 seasons than the Browns did. Halftime leads evaporated and in each game a huge interception cost the Browns.

Browns fall 24-17 to Baltimore

This loss – although just as painful – was a bit different.

Before the game started, I expected the Browns to be shut out. The Browns talent at the skill positions is thin to begin with and they were without their starting quarterback, starting running back and someone who is supposed to be a key receiver. Add to that, the Browns most explosive talent Josh Cribbs entered the game banged up.

Just what you want when you enter the home field of one of the best defenses in football – a Ravens defense that held the Jets and Bengals without a touchdown.

It had all the makings of an ugly blowout.

Mangini and his offensive coordinator Brian Daboll take a lot of heat. But it is difficult to grill a perfect steak if all you have is bologna.

So Mangini had his team man up and take it right to the Ravens. Peyton Hillis and his personal body guard Lawrence Vickers powered straight into the heart of an angry defense. Nothing fancy but just old time get dirty football, 22 times Hillis ran forward for 144 yards. What made it more impressive is that the Ravens knew the Browns were one-dimensional. The only other players they had to worry about were Ben Watson and Josh Cribbs.

Side note No. 1: Someone alert Dairymens they need to run an ad for Mohamed Massaquoi.

Side Note No. 2: Can you believe the Browns got Hillis and draft picks for Brady Quinn? I wonder if Denver head coach Josh McDaniels has filed a police report yet.

Hate Daboll’s play calling all you want – trust me the throwing long down the sideline on third and short baffles me – but there aren’t many options available. For those who want more razzle-dazzle or Wildcat – the Browns can’t afford to make mistakes.

Playing conservative is their best option.

For the Browns to beat the Ravens or any other team – they have no choice but to play a perfect game. Seneca Wallace played well but there is a reason he has never been a starting quarterback in the NFL. He struggles at the throwing the long ball down the sideline. Add in he only had three weapons to use; the margin for error is paper-thin. One mistake on a handoff and the Browns opportunity for an upset was over.

As for the defense, Rob Ryan is also getting the most out of his players. He had no one who could cover Anquan Boldin. With no true playmakers at linebackers, Ryan was forced send big numbers on blitzes and he got burned. What other choice did he have? Eric Wright may wear 21 but he is not Deion Sanders.

The media has documented Eric Mangini's shortcomings quite well. He has been a punching bag his entire tenure as the Browns head coach. As the losses pile up, his critics vehemently call for his head.

I think firing Mangini during the season would be a mistake. I say that even though I expect the losses to continue to mount up. Yes the NFL is about winning football games but I think it is a mistake to fire a coach that hasn’t lost his team.

The Browns are bad football team because they don’t have much talent. They don’t have many playmakers. Mangini and his staff, in my opinion, are getting the most they can out of the talent they have.

The Browns play hard but they don’t have enough to finish games. Canning Mangini isn’t going to change that.

Mangini hasn’t done himself many favors. His cloak-and-dagger coaching style grates on some. His player personne decisions last season were questionable. But I think the man can coach.

Even as the Browns enter into the most difficult part of the schedule, I think they are going to get better. It may not translate into wins but a foundation is being set.

I believe Mike Holmgren believes this as well. It is why I don’t expect him to panic and fire Mangini.

It is up to Holmgren and Tom Heckert’s to stock the cupboard and until that happens not even Paul Brown or Bill Parcells could win with this team.

Browns' effort not worth celebrating

2010-09-19T23:41:00.000-07:00

NFL Sundays are one of the great communal days of this country. Fans gather hours before games to tailgate and afterward fill stadiums throughout the country to enjoy professional football. Millions pack bars and gather in homes to partake in the shared experience.

For many, football is just as much about community as it is about results on the field.

I have taken to watching the Browns alone in a dark room. Like an addict that needs a fix, I can’t stay away even though I know there isn’t going to be a happy ending.

The easy answer is that the Browns lost to the Chiefs Sunday because two instant replay reviews inexplicitly went against the home team.

A truer answer is the offense once again didn’t move the ball in the second half. Seneca Wallace threw a pass in the flat he shouldn’t have and Phil Dawson missed a field goal he shouldn’t have. As fans, we like how Peyton Hillis rumbles forward and beg for Jerome Harrison to get more touches, but both made some big mistakes. The defense played well enough to win as the offense was no help, but when they needed a big play late, they fell short.

The Browns are exactly what I thought they were — not ready to win. Who are the difference makers? 11 years back and still no quarterback, still no play-making linebacker and little reason to believe either is on the roster in any form.

I became a Browns fan when I was 4 years old. My uncles fascinated me as they surrounded a television at my cousin’s christening. They yelled, they cheered — mostly they swore the refs were cheating for that evil team wearing black and yellow.

Soon after the Kardiac Kids were born, I was hooked. I bought the vinyl record (45) of the Browns 12 Days of Christmas. I cut out every photo from the newspaper and draped my bedroom walls with them.

Brian Sipe was my first hero and later Bernie Kosar replaced him. Two flawed NFL quarterbacks that maximized their God-given talent and left everything on the field.

The Browns have never had a star running back since Jim Brown, but Mike and Greg Pruitt beget Ernest Byner and Kevin Mack. Each of them fought for every yard.

The Browns of my youth were tough, hard-nosed players I could identify with. Both lines were physical.

Jerry Sherk and Lyle Alzado became Carl Hairston, and Bob Golic became Michael Dean Perry and Bubba Baker. Doug Dieken and Cody Riesen beget Mike Baab, who became Steve Everitt and Tony Jones.

The Browns always had linebackers who could play — Dick Ambrose, Clay Matthews Sr., Chip Banks, Eddie Johnson and Mike Johnson.

Since the Browns have returned, try counting on one hand players that fit into the category of those players. A decade-plus with nothing to show for it.

There was a time when the Browns fan base was the best in the NFL. That hasn’t been true for a very long time. Browns games are now more of an excuse to drink and act like idiots in public. As if what happens on the field was of no consequence.

The Browns have mostly only themselves to blame. A series of bad front office hires making bad drafts picks have made for a horrible product. The enemy is now allowed to walk freely among us.

Seriously, what does a young Browns fan have to hold onto other than having a reason to drink on Sunday? They don’t know why they bark.

Hanford Dixon has been retired for 21 years. Frank Minnifield has been retired for 18 years. It is time to take off the masks and quit acting like puppies.

Football should be about more than kielbasa and beer. It isn’t about cornhole and playing dress-up.

As Herm Edwards once said, “You play to win the game.”

I will forever be a Browns fan. I will continue to watch and hope. Maybe the building blocks are starting to fall into place. The left side of the offensive line is a place to start. Rookies Joe Haden and T.J. Ward have strengthened the secondary.

Browns fans should always dream things will get better, but I don’t understand treating Sundays like Christmas when you know the perfectly wrapped box with the bow is empty.

If Mike Holmgren and by extension Tom Heckert and Eric Mangini are the answer, I understand it is a process and it isn’t going to get fixed all at once.

I have waited a long time for a winner and I can wait a little longer. But I refuse to color my face, douse myself in alcohol and chant, “Here we go Brownies” like everything is OK. It isn’t.

I am not going to abandon the Browns — they are my team, but I refuse to look like an idiot while they continue to embarrass themselves on the field.

To each their own, enjoy your tailgate. For me right now plus much of the last decade, Browns games aren’t kegger parties. They are wakes and it’s silly to have orange hair or a dog mask at a funeral.

Browns not ready to be the team we want them to be

2010-09-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

It was everything I feared it would be.

This was the one game on the Browns schedule that every fan and media member circled as winnable.

Despite the fact that every year, except one, since the return the Browns have opened the season at home with a loss — opening at home is powerful advantage for most NFL teams. For example through the early games in week one, only Miami won on the road against lowly Buffalo.

Nothing in the NFL is handed to you. While the Vegas odds-makers wisely had the Buccaneers two and half point favorites, if anyone picked Tampa Bay to beat the Browns I wasn’t aware of it.

Browns fans felt entitled to this game and I was afraid maybe the players would be as well. I expected the Browns to lose this game and my worst fears came true.

Throw out the four-game winning streak from the end of last season. Winning in the NFL when you are expected to win is an entirely different animal.

This Browns team still has to learn how to win. It is why, despite the Browns talent being upgraded, I doubt the Browns record will improve much this season.

If somehow Jake Delhomme became a steady influence ... If the Browns young receivers and backs develop into playmakers ... If the infusion of young talent in the secondary allows the pass rush that extra second to get to the quarterback … If, if, if ...

For a few brief moments in the first half, Browns fans were able to dream. The team was looking good.

Delhomme was threading passes. Peyton Hillis was running over people. Jerome Harrison was running past people. The defense was making plays and forcing threes and out.

With a minute and half remaining in the first half, Mike Adams intercepted Josh Freeman averting what looked to be a Tampa Bay scoring drive.

My first thought was that Eric Mangini would run the ball up the middle a few times and head for the locker room with 14-3 lead. No one would have blamed him.

When the Browns instead opened up the offense, I admit I thought it was a good thing. I even said aloud, "Mangini must really believe in his offense."

Belief is a powerful weapon. It can help one rise to a higher level but it can also lead to bad decisions.

Of course a few plays later, Jake Delhomme returned to his gunslinger roots. Under pressure, he forced a throw and just like that the Bucs got new life and the entire storyline of the game was altered.

I don’t blame Mangini at all. The Browns were not that far from Phil Dawson’s range and frankly, Mangini needed to show faith in his quarterback. He was not rewarded.

Jake Delhomme let down his teammates. I am sure he will be the first to say it. Delhomme is a standup guy but his reckless take-chances nature always to seem to find a way out. Carolina fans know this all too well.

Delhomme is a double-edged sword. He is the grizzled veteran the young kids on the team need but at the same time his young team isn’t talented enough to overcome his aggressive mistakes.

The Browns allowed a young Bucs team to stay in the game, and as the game wore on Tampa Bay seized control.

The Browns didn’t take care of the ball, and on the road in the NFL, that proves costly. The result is a loss to a team that will probably end the NFL season with one of the worst records in the league.

The two guys Browns fans love most also did not have great games. While Hillis thrilled Browns fans early with his bowling ball running ability, he fumbled twice. We all love Josh Cribbs for his fearlessness, but it is not smart football to not call a fair catch when an opponent is standing next to you. While only one of those plays became a turnover, it showed the delicate balance between guts and stupidity.

We will see this a lot this season. The Browns will show flashes of what Browns fans want them to be — but the Browns are not quite ready to be that team for four quarters, let alone a weekly basis.

So the opening game was a disappointment and that was nothing new. But I am not ready to say these are the same old Browns. Progress is being made. The talent is better. Many of the mistakes were correctable. The Browns will be much more competitive this season.

It just does not appear that the Browns will able the measure that progress in wins — which of course is where it counts.

Media’s reaction to Brown’s comments overblown

2010-08-29T20:45:00.000-07:00

Sportswriters around these parts have launched an open season on Jim Brown. I don’t get it.

The local media has gone out of its way to sway public opinion toward the Cleveland Browns and away from the greatest player to ever don an Orange helmet.

The facts appear to be these: When Mike Holmgren was hired, he stripped Brown’s Executive Advisor title, which came with a six-figure salary and cut funding to Brown’s Amer-I-Can program. When the team announced it was adding a Ring of Honor to Browns Stadium, Brown’s wife Monique told the Plain Dealer, “He won’t be able to make it. He tried to move a few things around [his schedule], but wasn’t able to.”

Brown was then interviewed on a Syracuse radio station, The Score 1260, when he said the following:

“I’m a very sensitive person. I do like to be respected. I’m very loyal. I like it to be a two-way street.

“I’ve been very quiet about the situation in Cleveland. Sometimes when you comment on things, all you do is create problems. The last thing I want to do is create problems for anyone or disrupt the team or ownership or the plans of other people.

“On the other hand, as an individual I have plans of my own. I have a dignity and character of my own that I also protect. I don’t really need to comment on where I go, why I go, why I don’t go. All the people involved are doing all the commenting. They’re the ones with the power. I’m just an individual who played football and worked for the Browns for a while ... My main work right now is to help the players pension plan and health care situation. ... Those of us well enough off financially should chip in and start the ball rolling so that these players can be given the respect that baseball and basketball give their players.”

The local media’s response includes the following:

• One of the best reporters in the area Tweeted, “Browns Ring of Honor a great, overdue gesture. Too bad Jim Brown is making it all about him.”

• A columnist suggested Brown only sees things, “through the prism of race. It is not the ‘60s anymore,” and decried Brown’s defense of Maurice Clarett and LeBron James.

• Another columnist tried to guilt Brown into showing up because it was for the fans.

• Yet another columnist asked if there was “anyone on Jim Brown’s side in this disconnect between the greatest player of all time and two people in the Browns organization, Randy Lerner and Holmgren?”

I am on Jim Brown’s side. What exactly has Brown done to deserve this criticism? What has he really said that has the local media outraged?

I can’t help but think the media would be on the other side if this story had it happened a year ago. The media would have gleefully thrown Eric Mangini under the bus for removing Brown from the front office, but Holmgren is the new franchise savior so he doesn’t get criticized. The honeymoon is in full effect.

I do not agree with everything Jim Brown said over the years but I greatly respect he has never changed who he was. He has spoken his mind since his playing days. Ask Brown a question and he will share his opinion regardless of the answer you were looking for. He speaks for social causes and stands firm in his beliefs. He doesn’t have a Heisman just because of the color of his skin. He walked away from the NFL because he was disrespected. He doesn’t really care what other people think. He walks in his own skin and to his own beliefs. He owes no man anything.

Also, Jim Brown is not one of those athletes that will do anything to stay in the spotlight. He doesn’t schedules press conferences, but merely answers questions when asked. The media created this firestorm, not Jim Brown.

During the last few painful years Randy Lerner used Jim Brown’s credibility when his team’s front office had none of its own. Holmgren arrived and Brown wasn’t needed. Brown doesn’t care about a title or even the money, but apparently Lerner has no people skills and his silence disrespected a living legend. Jim Brown is too proud to be a puppet to roll out to get a few cheers.

I don’t buy Jim Brown owes it to the fans to show up. Brown is the greatest running back in NFL history. He averaged 104.3 per game for his career second only to Barry Sanders’ 99.8. His name should have been on the stadium walls the day it opened. The fact there is not a statue of Brown in front of the stadium like the Indians did back in 1994 for Bob Feller speaks volumes as well.

Any time Jim Brown shows up to Cleveland Browns Stadium, he should be given a standing ovation. And if he doesn’t, the mention of his name should get the same respect.

Good trade gets even better

2010-08-26T11:35:00.001-07:00

I still remember March 14th as clear as if it was yesterday. I called my friend and delivered the news that the Browns had traded Brady Quinn.

“Great trade!” was the enthusiastic reply. “What did we get?”

Can you believe the answer to that question sounds even better now?

For a quarterback seemingly destined to hold a clipboard for the rest of his NFL career, the Browns have Peyton Hillis plus at least one future draft pick, maybe two.

Of course on the surface that trade would appear to be tilted the other direction. The Browns traded a first round draft pick, who some declared a franchise quarterback for a seventh-round draft pick. Outside of the most hardcore fantasy football players, very few Browns fans had ever heard of Hillis.

Quinn also cost the Browns a second-round pick as the Browns traded up to pick the Notre Dame quarterback who had dreamed of playing for the Browns as a child.

He was in a perfect position to start the 2007 season, but he listened to his agent — who, hopefully, he has since fired.

Quinn missed much of training camp for a contract that may be the worst one ever signed by a quarterback taken in the first round.

So rather than starting from day one for guaranteed money, Quinn came in behind with a incentive loaded contact and watched Derek Anderson blow up during the 2007 season.

The Browns offense never again during Quinn’s tenure had the weapons they had that season.

It was Jamal Lewis’ last hurrah. The loss of Joe Jurevicius took away a safety blanket from Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow. By the time Quinn got under center, his weapons were limited and his skill set wasn’t enough to overcome that.

The new Browns regime of Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert owed no loyalty to a high draft pick who wasn’t theirs.

Enter Peyton Hillis.

If you didn’t watch the game, you may be wondering why I am so excited about a third string running back. If you did watch the game, you know exactly what I am talking about.

I am still absolutely giddy about the thought of Hillis and Lawrence Vickers running behind the left side of the Browns offense line of Joe Thomas, Eric Steinbach and Alex Mack.

The left side of the Browns offensive line is the best it has been since the return of the franchise. Vickers is a heat-seeking missile who obliterates linebackers and Hillis is a human bowling ball.

Others can have their beautifully thrown passes and precision-minded offense; I will take hard-nosed smash mouth football every time.

The Browns have struggled at the goal line over the years but I seriously doubt that will be a problem this season.

Hillis has real potential to help the Browns offense take the step forward to legitimacy. He showed off his hands with a great catch last week against the Packers.

Even if he doesn’t supplant Jerome Harrison and the yet-to-be-seen Montario Hardesty, short-yardage situations should be Hillis time this season.

Hillis became a bit of a cult hero in Denver his rookie season in 2008. The Broncos were decimated by injuries at running back. Hillis scored two touchdowns in his first start and two weeks later ran for 129 yards and a touchdown against current head coach Eric Mangini’s Jets.

The following week, Hillis scored a first-half touchdown and then made an acrobatic catch and got blown up by two Kansas City Chiefs. He tore his right hamstring and was out for the season.

With him of the lineup, the Broncos lost their last three games and missed the playoffs. Head coach Mike Shanahan was fired and Josh McDaniels was hired.

The boy genius took one look at Hillis and declared him a fullback only. Hillis barely played last season and McDaniels thought so little of him that he threw him in the Quinn trade.

The signature play of the Browns game against the Rams involved Hillis and Vickers wasn’t even in the game.

Hillis went to the right and bounced off five Rams defenders and they never did take him down. The refs had to blow the play dead because Hillis stood his ground and would not fall down.

After the play, Hillis stomped his foot, flexed his arms and roared to the crowd. Browns fans everywhere roared back.

Welcome home, Peyton Hillis. Welcome home.

Win provides Kool-Aid taste test for Browns fans

2010-08-15T19:46:00.000-07:00

I couldn’t help myself. As that first drive unfolded on Saturday night, it became harder and harder to hide the smile my face wanted to form.
As far as the regular season goes, of course the Browns 11-play 80-yard touchdown drive to start the game in Green Bay means nothing. One drive — a preseason one at that — does not a season make. But as the extra point sailed through the uprights after Jerome Harrison’s touchdown, I turned to my friend and said, “And they pull me back in.”

Some of those among us like to refer to the passion Browns fans have as “drinking the Kool-Aid.”

A preseason win doesn’t me I am ready to stand in line for playoffs tickets but as a Browns fan — the preseason opener was almost everything I wanted it to be.
Like most Browns fans I am easy to please. Give me a team I can identify with. Play hard, cut out the dumb mistakes and I am on board regardless of their record.
When Eric Mangini was first hired, I admit I was intrigued. When the national media started calling for his head after one game, I admit was drawn to his side. The national media are like piranhas. They just want someone to devour. As the season wore on, it became harder and harder to back Mangini, but maybe just maybe Mike Holmgren knows what he is doing.

Absolute power corrupts. You can’t give anyone complete control, especially someone raised in the Cold War Russia-like system of Bill Belichick.

Now that Mangini can just coach and not worry about espionage and all the other spy games, he can concentrate on coaching the team.

Last year was a miserable season. By the end of the season there wasn’t much talent left. But what Mangini did achieve was a team that played smarter than any since the team returned. They limited penalties and played fundamental football. That doesn’t provide wins but it is a strong foundation when the talent catches up.

All you have to do is look at the Browns’ schedule to have your enthusiasm altered. There are some very talented quarterbacks ready to carve up a Browns defense that seems to still have some holes.

But at the same time all you have to do is remember the embarrassing nature of the first quarter of the preseason opener against Green Bay in 2009 and compared that to what was on display Saturday night to feel better.

I expect the Browns to be competitive and be in every game this season, whether there is enough talent to translate that into wins, I am not sure.

But at the very least Jake Delhomme looked like a real NFL quarterback. He looked confident. He looked a leader and he moved the chains. Delhomme completed six of his seven passes including three to Mohamed Massaquoi, two to tight end Evan Moore and one to Brian Robiskie. Three young offensive weapons that need to develop.
Seneca Wallace also looked as good as advertised. A confident back up with real skills. His touchdown throw to Robiskie was a thing of beauty.

His second to Ben Watson reinforced that Watson could fill the role of a possession threat missing since Joe Jurevicius left.

Colt McCoy getting hurt may be the best thing for him. He is not a NFL-ready player. Those two interceptions should get the idiots to calm down and stop asking for him to play. An injury should allow McCoy to do what he needs to do — watch and study. Maybe now we can ignore the fact that he is on the team for the rest of the season. There is no need to even mention his name again in 2010.

At the end of the game, I was surprised Mangini allowed Phil Dawson to try that 58-yarder but that is why he is the coach. A kick like that gives confidence to an entire team. The Browns need to learn how to win. Sometimes the seed of that can be learned in the preseason.

Honestly, six wins seems to be the ceiling for this team but you have to like that Mangini isn’t settling for that.

In the end, a preseason means nothing but the warm feelings it produced is far better than the alternative.

Pass the Kool-Aid.

Steriods have devalued the home run

2010-08-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

More than any other sport, baseball has worshiped numbers. Even casual fans knew what 755, 61 and 56 meant.

And more than anything other play in any sport, nothing is sexier than a home run.

There is anticipation, the roar of the crowd as the ball takes flight, the ecstasy of the crowd when the ball clears the fence and the slow trot around the bases before the player is greeted by his teammates at the plate.

The bigger the moment, the bigger the roar and the bigger the reward. Walk-offs and playoff home runs are talked about forever. But even if the home team is down nine runs, the crowd celebrates the solo shot of journeyman like it is a holiday.

The home run is as American as it gets. Someone challenges and you deliver. You swing as hard as you can you can and try to hit it as far as possible.

In all other sports, the game is confined to the field, with the possible exceptions of field goals, but the NFL puts up a net to keep those in play. In baseball, the point is to explode past the boundaries. As a fan what could be sweeter than catching your team’s home run? We love it so much that if we catch a visitor’s homer, we extort the fan that captured it to, “Throw it back.” Home runs are for the home team.

For this week’s series against the Yankees, the focus is on Alex Rodriguez. The Yankee third baseman is on the verge of that was once sacred ground — 600 home runs.

When I was a kid in the late 80s, people thought the home run was starting to become diluted. Smaller parks, lighter bats — some even suggest Major League baseball was messing with the baseballs winding them tighter so they would fly farther,

That was just an appetizer for what would happen after the Players strike of 1994. Players started taking steroids in earnest and everyone from the commissioner, to the press to us as fans looked away.

For the longest time, there were only three men who hit 600 home runs. Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.

When Roger Maris hit 61 homers in 1961, only three men hit 50 in a single season again before Albert Belle reached 50 in 1995 and after that 50 became so common that now it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

From the late 90s on, it was an arms race. In our thirst for bigger and longer home runs, their integrity went away. It is almost as if these sluggers are Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. We wanted them to hit home runs and now we question how they did it.

Sometime soon A-Rod will join the 600 club. Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa have already doubled the club. Bonds and Sosa have disgraced the number so much that even if Griffey is as clean as we pray he is, his accomplishment seems shallow.

There is talk that one day A-Rod will surpass Bonds and what a joyless march that will be. Two gifted men who in their quest for home run prowess who went too far. They gave us what we asked for and now we condemn them for doing it.

Don’t misread that as condoning steroid use, it’s just an admission of my own guilt in the matter.

So on a daily basis we stood and screamed our approval for what we lusted for — a smash over the fence. Our appetites were never whet. But now we are so fat on the long ball, the history of our national pasttime has been made irrelevant. Numbers don’t mean what they used to.

Up until Dave Kingman retired in 1986, every player who hit 400 home runs had made the Hall of Fame. He was the first to not. At the time, there were only 21 men who had done it. A century of baseball produced 21 men. There are now 49 and many of the new ones won’t make the Hall of Fame.

There is talk that A-Rod’s 600 home run ball will be fetch over $100,000 which is the price his 500th sold for. Collectors say the ball hasn’t been devalued.

So, Cleveland fan, if you catch number 600, find a Yankee fan and sell it on the open market for all you can get. The ball may be valuable on E-Bay, but it is worthless everywhere else.

We got what we asked for — more — and it made every that went before it and after it worthless.

Cleveland gets sadder

2010-07-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

The world is a sadder place.
Cleveland sports fans have lost a true icon and beloved figure.
Lou Brown, the greatest manager in Cleveland Indians history has passed away.
Naturally I understand that Lou Brown wasn’t real. He was just a character played to perfection by James Gammon.
Gammon, who passed away on Friday at age 70, played mostly cowboys and cankerous sheriffs plus he was Nash Bridges’ dad but he will always be Lou Brown to me.
As someone born in the city of Cleveland in the early 70’s, most of my childhood was spent watching losing baseball. I believe I attended a dozen games before I saw my first win in person.
The powerhouse teams that would arrive during the Jacobs Field era were completely beyond my imagination.
To me the Indians were what they would always be — a losing baseball team. Sure every April hope would spring eternal but by Memorial Day the harsh reality of baseball by the lake would return.
I admit it the room always seems to get a bit dusty during the finals scenes of Major League. The Indians only make the playoffs in a fictional world but they beat the Yankees. I can live to 100 and beating the Yankees in cinema, a video game or in real life will never get old to me.
I have another attachment to that movie as I made my big screen debut in the film. I just finished my freshman year of high school and my mother said I had to get a job to help out with the bills. The thought of working during summer vacation sounded not cool so I suggested somehow working for the Indians.
Two days later I was standing in a huge herd of people being ushered in to work as vendors. I sold peanuts that first night and it just happened to be the night they filmed the crowd scenes for the movie Major League.
So no you can’t specifically make me out in the overheard shot of Municipal Stadium but I am down there somewhere.
Lou Brown was the perfect manager for the city of Cleveland. He stood up to prima donna ball players and protected his players from idiot ownership. He didn’t make excuses for poor facilities. He taught fundamentals, he held his plays accountable and rather than blindly following the book, he went with his gut.
“I’m not much for giving inspirational addresses, but I’d just like to point out that every newspaper in the country has picked us to finish last. The local press seems to think that we’d save everyone the time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves. Me, I’m for wasting sportswriters’ time. So I figured we ought to hang around for a while and see if we can give ‘em all a nice big shitburger to eat!”
That’s a manager I would run through a wall for.
Rest in Peace Lou Brown. A city turns its lonely eyes to you.

What Red Right 88 means to me

2010-07-09T11:45:00.001-07:00

So personally it has been a tough week. My freshly repaired car overheated and died minutes after my six-day vacation started. I drove overnight in my parents’ car to Wisconsin where I was greeted by my bright-eyed niece with, “You are allergic to feathers!”

Guess what all my sister’s new furniture is made out of.

And I discovered that some upstart has started blogging under the name, Red Right 88, which is a moniker I have used to write about Cleveland sports at two newspapers and on a blog for over five years.

I emailed this person who writes under a pseudonym questioning it and he said he was sticking with it because he worked hard building up a Google search hits the last few months which struck me as odd because a Google search would have shown the name was taken. He also said it might not matter because if a certain someone left, he might quit Cleveland sports which told me he didn’t understand what Red Right 88 really meant.

At my old paper I had a second political column called Half A Glass of Water. It came from a job interview where the interviewed actually poured water into a glass and asked me how much was in it. I knew what she wanted me to say but instead I told the truth – that there was half a glass of water in it.

She pressed on for the answer she wanted and I resisted. I get the urges to be positive or negative but sometimes you just have to be factual.

That is what Red Right 88 means to me. I choose the name so instantly those who were of my age and background would have idea of where I was coming from. But I have found that the name doesn’t mean the same to everyone else.

The name isn’t just about heartbreak. It isn’t cry for sympathy. Yes being a Cleveland Sports fan is about those terms and clips the networks have to roll out over and over and yes I have flash points of anger.

The new guy at work once asked, “So how did it feel when the Browns left town.”

My fists clenched and I rose out of my chair and noticed every Cleveland area native was doing something similar.

But it is also about knowing I will always come back for more. I will believe again.

I was born in Cleveland. My first job was as a vendor at Cleveland Stadium. A Steeler bumper sticker or Yankee cap makes my blood boil.

I have never trusted Dan Gilbert because well he is a carpetbagger from that state up North. Yes he invested a lot into this community and frankly he has profited well. While we all enabled that Kid, he was at the top of the list. But have to stay that Gilbert’s open letter was the perfect antidote. It rallied the troops and it got Cleveland fans ready to fight back.

The truth is Mr. Gilbert as bad as I thirst for a title you don’t have to deliver on your madman promise. As a Cleveland fan all I ask for is that you rebuild this Cavs team the right way. Take your time, I have waited all my life and I can wait a little more. All I ask if that you demand one thing of your employees, your coaches and your players – Don’t ever quit.

Every season, it is just expected that sometimes NBA players don’t show up and they walk through the motions. Don’t tolerate that. Play hard for every minute of every game. Play to win but if you play hard even if you get beat this town will embrace you.

Red Right 88 is the two sides of being a Cleveland fan – there is the heartbreak but there is also eternal optimism. Someday, one day Lucy will hold on and keep the ball still.

The point is in the middle of all that is the simple fact that we don’t deserve to win anything and we won’t always lose because we are cursed. One day a team will figure it out, the breaks will go there way and they will get the job done because they did it right and all this will be worth it because we didn’t give up.

The King surrenders birthright to be Wade's LePippen

2010-07-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

The city of Cleveland will not burn.

I have heard over and over that “The Decision” is the worst thing to ever happen to Cleveland and will destroy the psyche of the town.

Seriously?

How quick people forget?

One may remember that the Browns did leave town.

And that was an entire team in sport we actually care about.

Before “The Chosen One” graced our presence, there were only a few thousand Cavs fans in town and even less than that before Price, Daugherty, Nance and the boys showed up.

But the media is portraying this as the end of the world and there are plenty here in town willing to play the part.

I don’t care how talented you are, one player is never bigger than the franchise and especially the city.

I watched the Cavs play before LBJ and I will watch them after.

I am not saying it hasn’t been fun.

It was a compelling story. A native son was to be the one to end our title drought. He was going to remove the sting of decades of losing.

Hollywood would have rejected the script. The expectations were unreasonable for a kid right out of high school and yet it looked like he would exceed them.

The fourth quarter of game five against the Pistons in 2007 was moment I never thought I would experience. It was breath taking. It was so unexpected and so beyond what I thought possible – I almost didn’t remember to enjoy it. I was in pure shock. Which of course made game six of that same series so much fun.

As Boobie dropped shot after shot, it was the best party of my life. It was such a magical night that promised so much more that the loss in the Finals to the Spurs didn’t hurt at all. I believed a title would one day be won.

The pain of losing him to another team was definitely dulled by another game five and six. Again I saw something I never expected. “The King” quit. His teammates took his lead and they quit too.

In that moment, I quit on him too.

I have been mad the last several weeks. I wanted to write a column telling him to leave town forever. I want to vent and stew and say just go. But I resisted mostly because if he resigned, I knew the first time on the court he did something no one else could do I couldn’t help but forgive him.

Over the last week, I really softened. It seemed for a while that his staying wasn’t only possible but probable. There were plenty of reasons for him to stay. He could make more money in Cleveland. The organization and the press have protected his mother and family, something that won’t happen as easily in other towns. And this was home, how could he turn his back on his home?

I figured he would make an announcement at the end of his camp in Akron and accept the massive love his local fans have for him.

But then he started to twitter and when it was announced the decision would be made live on ESPN, I knew he was gone.

I don’t hate LeBron. After all he is just a basketball player but I don’t respect his choice and the manner in which he did it.

He didn’t have to drag out this process. He didn’t have to have a one hour special. He ripped the hearts out of many in this area and he did it in an unbecoming way. And frankly he doesn’t care.

He says this is about winning championships but not all championships are created equal. People don’t talk about how Scottie Pippen won six titles in Chicago as the lead. And frankly that is what he has chosen to be. Which is why to me forever, I will now refer to him only as LePippen.

The simple truth is he wasn’t who we thought he was. And that is more our fault that his. We gave him the title of King before he won anything. He is just a pretty good basketball player. The best ever? Not even in the conversation. In fact, he quit on that contest too. He has abdicated his false throne to be a prince in the court of Dywane Wade.

The ironic thing is if this experiment of putting together two superstars in Wade and LePippen plus a above average player like Bosh with no one else on the roster actually works, Wade will get the credit and if it doesn’t LePippen will get the blame and possibly get downgraded to LeBarkley as in All Entertainment and No Titles.

As for the city, we will be fine. I may actually be able to afford to go to more games as the bandwagon will have much more room.

And while no NBA titles may be in our future, rather than a long and fruitless regular season paired with pressure filled and ultimately disappointing playoff run, I expect next year’s Cavs to be fun to watch.

There will be no expectations and those are always easily exceeded. (And yes I am going through the stages of grief, this is called bargaining.)

Plus we still have the Browns, and despite all the witness shirts around town, that’s the team we really care about.

Calm down everyone

2010-07-07T16:31:00.001-07:00

Did you enjoy the Indians fifth straight win yesterday?

Chances are you didn’t?

Most of you have probably given up on the Indians. Trading two Cy Young winners two years in row and fielding a lineup of quadruple "A" guys will do that to a fan base.

If you are fan with a iron stomach that watches no matter what, you likely missed the game because, despite owning its own network, the Indians and their marketing geniuses refused to televise a home game and instead pushed three innings and lunch to the corporate crowd of downtown Cleveland.

Regardless a four-game sweep of the Blue Jays has invoked big dreams from the Pollyannas among us. I heard a local radio host discuss with a Tribe player about how in this division the Tribe "can" get back in this race.

I instantly turned off the radio with a "Child please" and later, when I went to mock the outrageous of it at the office, our office’s fearless leader sheepishly rolled his eyes and stated that just earlier he was discussing the same point.

"They are only 12 games out," he tried to bargain.

I looked at our assistant fearless leader for help.

"Don’t worry," he assured me. I got up and walked out of the room before he finished his point.

It was just four weeks ago when the Indians won four in a row, including two against the mighty Red Sox. Ears perked up and people looked up from their bar stools to say, "Hey how about that Tribe?"

Then, the National League made the Indians their interleague red-headed whipping post.

Despite the five game outburst, the Indians still have the second-worst record in the American League and that is only because the Orioles are such a joke.

Sure, Matt LaPorta has homered in three straight games, Carlos Santana appears to be the real deal, the starting rotation have each put up a solid start in succession and the bullpen has saved five straight, including Kerry Wood mowing down batters three days in a row.

But before you dig out your Tribe gear from the Goodwill pile, as our assistant fearless leader likes to say in the office, "You need to check the schedule."

After this weekend’s holiday tilt with the just-below .500 Oakland A’s, the next time the Erie Warriors play a team with a losing record will be August 10 and by then, the Browns will be just days away from their first preseason game and the Tribe will be pushed off the front page for stories about Mangini’s practice regiment.

So, if you are expecting a exciting summer of young talent and thought to be washed up veterans making an inspired run for a division title, you better get in the basement and find your VHS copy of Major League.

This is not to say there is no hope. Watching Santana, LaPorta and other young Tribe players grow together this summer could be fun. But it’s hard to have confidence in an Indians front office that has blocked LaPorta with retreads and continue to play players with no future in Cleveland rather than letting kids have a chance.

The putridicity of the division is what convinced the Tribe "brain trust" to sign Branyan, Austin Kearns and the like. The pipe dream of contending stunted the youth movement. You are in last place, it can’t get worse playing prospects.

When Valbuena was mercifully put to pasture, the Indians decided to play Anderson Hernandez and Jayson Nix, rather than let a young kid, Cord Phelps, who is tearing it up in Columbus, have a chance.

This makes little sense to me. I could care less how productive Kearns or Duncan can be. They won’t be here if the Indians one day contend for real. Let’s find out if Michael Brantley will.

No one should care if the Indians finish ahead of the Royals this season. Don’t let a bad division fool you into thinking you can contend, forget the final record and play the young kids with no thought of wins or losses.

In the words of the Astrodome crowd in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, "Let them play."

Why the three columns?

2010-07-07T16:27:00.002-07:00

So tomorrow the Morning Journal has rather early deadline. There will only be two people working in the sports department so it will be crazy putting up the paper. I am working on the Sports Today agate desk and I have written three columns in advance so I can just plug and put one in.

I have posted all three. I also noticed I forgot to post an Tribe column so I will add that next.

If LeBron stays

2010-07-07T16:27:00.001-07:00

I have imagined this moment many times over the last few years. And it is nothing like I expected.
During the majority of that time, I always knew LeBron James would resign with the Cavs and this would be much ado about nothing.
Yet I relished the thought of taunting those in New York and the mainstream media that assumed Cleveland had no shot at retaining “The King.”
They believed New York was the end all and be all. In fact that was the only argument they had. Well it’s New York.
Of course had the Cavs actually won a title, in my mind he would have been free to go. More than I once I have said if James had brought one title to Cleveland, I would drive him to New York himself.
Today was supposed to be a day of unbridled joy and a little vindictive payback.
Instead I have an empty feeling and the thought of be careful what you wish for.
For me LeBron’s tenure in Cleveland is tale of two pairs of game five and sixes.
The fourth quarter of game five against the Pistons in 2007 was moment I never thought I would experience. It was breath taking. It was so unexpected and so beyond what I thought possible – I almost didn’t remember to enjoy it. I was in pure shock. Which of course made game six of that same series so much fun.
As Boobie dropped shot after shot, it was the best party of my life. It was such a magical night that promised so much more that the loss in the Finals to the Spurs didn’t hurt at all. I believed a title would one day be won.
But the contrast of that was game five and six this year against the Celtics. Again I saw something I never expected. “The King” quit. His teammates took his lead and quit too.
In that moment, I quit on him too.
I have been mad the last several weeks. I wanted to write a column telling him to leave town forever. I want to vent and stew and say just go. But I resisted mostly because if he resigned, I knew the first time he did something on the court no one else could do I couldn’t help but forgive him.
The frank truth is LeBron’s ego has been the biggest detriment to Cavs returning to the Finals. His desire to be wined and dined by New York, Chicago and Miami has hurt this team. LeBron has seemed to be more about drawing media attention to himself than winning.
Danny Ferry lost his job because of LeBron’s inability to commit to the future. It forced Ferry’s hand in Shaq and Jamison trades and led Mike Brown to a roster he was uncomfortable with. Any fault with the construction of this current Cavs team starts with LeBron wanting to test free agency.
Contrast that with Kevin Durant’s quiet announcement to resign early with Oklahoma City. Durant’s lack of ego will help his general manager Sam Presti form a roster to move the Thunder closer to the NBA elite.
LeBron painted the Cavs into a corner but I think he did himself no favors. By flirting with the big markets, he has lost a lot of credibility.
New Yorkers will say he couldn’t handle the bright lights and the pressure cooker press they have.
Chicago will say he couldn’t fill Jordan’s shoes, as they believe they have a roster that gave him the best chance to win a title. Miami will say he doesn’t care about titles because he would have won multiple titles there if wasn’t afraid of giving Wade the credit.
And had he left his hometown on national TV, the entire world would have viewed him as a heartless fiend of the worst order.
Because of his choice to be wooed and his desire to the most famous person in the world, LeBron gave himself no good choice.
Whatever his decision, outside of the team he played for and bandwagon fans that follow the famous, he has made himself the most hated player in the NBA.
In the end he took the money and stayed home. We don’t know if it was because he didn’t want to be the second banana. We don’t know if it was because he couldn’t bear to be hated at home.
But I doubt it is because he wants to bring us a title. I am not sure it is something he is even capable of.
I hope I am wrong. And I hope come November the first time he throws the hammer down, I am back on board because right now I have my doubts.

If LeBron goes to New York

2010-07-07T16:26:00.001-07:00

The city of Cleveland will not burn.
I have heard over and over that “The Decision” is the worst thing to ever happen to Cleveland and will destroy the psyche of the town.
Seriously?
How quick people forget?
One may remember that the Browns did leave town.
And that was an entire team in sport we actually care about.
Before “The Chosen One” graced our presence, there were only a few thousand Cavs fans in town and even less than that before Price, Daughtery, Nance and the boys showed up.
I watched the Cavs play before LBJ and I will watch them after, but I am not saying it hasn’t been fun.
It was a compelling story. A native son was to be the one to end our title drought. He was going to remove the sting of decades of losing.
Hollywood would have rejected the script. The expectations were unreasonable for a kid right out of high school and yet it looked like he would exceed him.
The fourth quarter of game five against the Pistons in 2007 was moment I never thought I would experience. It was breath taking. It was so unexpected and so beyond what I thought possible – I almost didn’t remember to enjoy it. I was in pure shock. Which of course made game six of that same series so much fun.
As Boobie dropped shot after shot, it was the best party of my life. It was such a magical night that promised so much more that the loss in the Finals to the Spurs didn’t hurt at all. I believed a title would one day be won.
The pain of losing him to another team was definitely dulled by another game five and six. Again I saw something I never expected. “The King” quit. His teammates took his lead and they quit too.
In that moment I quit on him too.
I have been mad the last several weeks. I wanted to write a column telling him to leave town forever. I want to vent and stew and say just go. But I resisted mostly because if he resigned, I knew the first time on the court he did something no one else could do I couldn’t help but forgive him.
Over the last week, I really softened. It seemed for a while that his staying wasn’t only possible but probable. There were plenty of reasons for him to stay. He could make more money in Cleveland. The organization and the press have protected his mother and family, something that won’t happen as easily in other towns. And this was home, how could he turn his back on his home?
I figured he would make an announcement at the end of his camp in Akron and accept the massive love his local fans have for him.
But then he joined Twitter, and when it was announced the decision would be made live on ESPN, I knew he was gone.
I don’t hate LeBron. After all he is just a basketball player. I don’t respect his choice.
If he was about winning, he would be in Miami and referred to forever as LePippen, he didn’t go there because Wade would be Jeter to his A-Rod. Or he would go to Chicago but he would forever be in Jordan’s shadow.
Guess it is fitting he ended up with the Knicks
A team that spent the last two years gutting its roster and playing not to win is perfect landing spot for the King of Quit.
If he was convinced he couldn’t win in Cleveland, he might as well not win titles in New York.
It will be interesting to watch how long the honeymoon lasts before the media turns on him there and they will. His mother and family will be Page 6 fodder and the back page of the tabloids will be brutal when the Knick don’t win.
He wants the bright lights and the big city. Be careful what you wish for.
As for the city of Cleveland, we will be fine. I may actually be able to afford to go to more games. And while no NBA titles may be in our future, rather than a long and fruitless regular season paired with pressure filled and ultimately disappointing playoff run, I expect next year’s Cavs to be fun to watch.
There will be no expectations and those are always easily exceeded.
Plus we still have the Browns and despite all the witness shirts around town, that’s the team we really care about.

Cleveland fans can forgive almost everything

2010-05-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

Published: Thursday, May 13, 2010

Overreact.

As Clevelanders, it is what we do.

If someone makes an internet video making fun of us, it is a call to arms.

If an out of town magazine declares us the worst city in which to live, the blood boils and proclamations proving otherwise become a civic duty.

When a local sports team fails, everything goes to an even higher level.

After a Game 2 blowout at home, the worst was feared. The series was doomed. Cavaliers would surely lose to the Celtics. When the reverse happened in Game 3, travel plans to Orlando were already being made.

After the debacle of Game 5, something different happened. There was tonal shift. Many fans, not all but a sizable group, declared if that is how LeBron is going to play, then New York can have him.

That statement gives the Big Apple a Cheshire grin a mile wide. For an outsider, the belief that some of Lebron’s hometown fans would turn on him so quickly, must be shocking. I can see how it would look from a distance, but I understand it.

It doesn’t take much to be a hero in Cleveland.

The 1976 Cavaliers are beloved. They declared a ‘Miracle’ and only won a first-round series against the Washington Bullets and then played the eventual World Champion Boston Celtics close.

The Kardiac Kids of 1980 are still bought free drinks in this town and they didn’t even win a playoff game.

Bernie Kosar has achieved sainthood and he lost all three AFC championship games he played in.

Those mighty Indians teams of the mid ‘90s haunt the current team like a cherished first wife who passed away too early. Sandy Alomar, Omar Vizquel and Kenny Lofton are still loved in this town because the organization asked them to leave rather have them sign for big money elsewhere.

LeBron James has been the best basketball player in the world for most of his time here in Cleveland. His ping-pong ball saved the franchise. His play brought millions to downtown Cleveland. He has entertained and thrilled us in ways many of us never thought were possible. Kids in New York and Chicago now wear Cavaliers jerseys.

And yet at the end of Game 5, many of us declared don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

We have lost a lot of games in Cleveland, a lot of games. We can deal with losing.

Big games on the big stage, we have lost our share of those as well. We make up names for them.

But for all of those losses, I never thought my team would quit.

And that Cavs team quit on Tuesday night.

Play hard, give it your all and if you come up short — we will forgive you. We are from Cleveland we understand.

But for two years, the Cavs have had the best record in basketball. LeBron has been given enough talent to win. He has said over and over that he is a no excuses player. So what was that?

LeBron played like a guy who didn’t want to be there. His team folded. And fans reacted by saying ‘then go’.

I know some in this town have never liked LeBron because they assumed one day he would leave. Seemed like a dumb move to me. Here we have a special talent from right in our own backyard. Support him and hope he could bring home a championship.

LeBron is still wearing a Cavaliers jersey for at least one more game. The series isn’t over. It is hard to fathom the Cavs winning the next two games based on what we saw Tuesday night, but last year the Magic were down 3-2 to the Celtics and came back. And both the Lakers and Celtics won seven-games series in the first round in their recent championship runs.

LeBron is supposed to be the ‘Chosen One’. For he who is given much, then much is expected.

Game 5 is something I never imagined possible. If LeBron goes out with a whimper then as the Beatles said ‘Let it be’.

But if LeBron is who he believes he is, the next two games have to be his masterpiece.

Fight until the end and this town will forgive anything. But walk away without finishing the fight, an enemy forever.

LeBron's legacy on the line in must-win situation

2010-05-14T00:35:00.000-07:00

Published: Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The boos were loud.

And why not?

This is not what the fans signed up for.

No one can win a title by himself. In 2007, LeBron James willed this team past the Pistons and into the NBA finals. The Cavs were no match for the Spurs and easily swept away.

Spanning the last three years, the roster has been rebuilt.

You can’t win a championship with Larry Hughes, Damon Jones, Sasha Pavlovic, Eric Snow and Ira Newble.

Using owner Dan Gilbert home loan money, Cavaliers general manager Danny Ferry brought in a roster worthy of the King.

Mo Williams. Shaq. Antwan Jamison. All obtained for almost nothing.

With 2007 main cogs, Z and Boobie relegated to mostly the bench, effective role players like Delonte West, Jamario Moon and Anthony Parker were brought in to fill gaps.

The last two seasons, the Cavs had the best record in basketball and for the second straight year something is seriously wrong.

Maybe last you tipped your cap to the Magic. Maybe you could say there were the better team. The matchup was against the Cavs. A perfect storm did them in.

The Celtics are not a better team than the Cavs. They might be former champions, but they only reason they had a chance to win this series was if the Cavs let them in.

Game 2 was embarrassing. How could the Cavs not come to play? In Game 4, the Cavs had a chance to step on the Celtics’ neck and they let Boston off the ground.

But last night?

What was that?

Is LeBron hurt? Maybe so, but even that can’t explain what happened.

Is there so much pressure on LeBron’s teammates that they simply choked?

The King took only four shots in the first half. He missed them all.

At the half, you hoped that LeBron would put on a cape and save his teammates as he has done before. Instead, it seemed like he shrieked from the moment. And his teammates depending on him froze and disappeared.

By the time LeBron made a shot, the game was over. Not even Teen Wolf could have saved the Cavs at that point.

This is the type of loss that destroys fans. All of our worst fears were laid out early and we had to watch them come true during a painful second half.

There is a lot of blame to spread for this loss.

For Mike Brown to play Z and Gibson in the fourth quarter to me smelled of panic. Refusing to go small with J.J. Hickson, Andy Varejao seems weird to me.

A lot of LeBron’s teammates disappeared.

But like it or not the majority has to go on LeBron’s shoulders. In the first half, it did not take long for national websites to ask if this was LeBron’s last home game in Cleveland.

Texts came from friends asking if LeBron had already left and signed with New York.

If indeed this was LeBron’s final home game and there is little evidence that this team has the heart to win a elimination game in Boston — sadly it will erase all the good memories he has brought to this town.

This game will forever leave a bad taste.

Someone told me this loss will turn the fans on LeBron and he will use that as an excuse to leave.

If that’s true. It will show his true character. It will expose him as a fraud king.

I would like to hope he is something else. I would like to believe LeBron can win a Game 6 in Boston and move the team onto the next round. And even if the team falls short, he would remain in Cleveland with unfinished business.

Because if he leaves he can never be his hero Michael Jordan.

Everyone has always said that LeBron makes his teammates better. Not so much in this series.

LeBron was given enough to beat the Celtics. He failed miserably in Game 5.

Can he inspire his teammates to win in city where the Cavs are 2-12 in the playoffs? Could he erase all momentum and pull out two games to continue a quest for the title this town has waited so long for?

If he wants to be the King, he has no choice.

Every fan must deal in their own way

2010-05-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

Published: Thursday, May 06, 2010

So I was literally in the middle of writing a column about the Cavs and the various reactions of fans after the game two loss to the Celtics when the ninth inning of yesterday’s Indians game began.

That is the best the Indians can aspire to this year — being background noise while tending to something else.

Outside of Shin Soo Choo, the Indians really have nothing to inspire fans to watch this season. Not only are the Indians below mediocre, they aren’t even fun to watch.

I considered attending yesterday’s game in person thinking I could watch the entire game and still make it to work on time. Instead, I watched it on TV while I took care of some odds and ends.

For the first eight innings, it wasn’t too bad. Fausto is looking more like the Fausto of old. The offense is still pathetic, but Hafner hit a bomb and the Tribe eked out enough runs to take a 4-2 lead into the ninth.

As Chris Perez took the mound and naturally that ol’ Cleveland doubt crept in. But Perez retired the first two outs, and even after he allowed a double, a victory seemed certain as a routine grounder rolled its way to Luis Valbuena.

As the ball emerged through Valbuena’s five hole, I am sure everyone knew what would happen next. I felt it. I am sure everyone at the place formerly known as the Jake felt it. All of the Indians players felt it and the Toronto Blue Jays most certainly felt it.

I didn’t even look up at the crack of the bat. I knew where the ball was headed before it was ever pitched.

In the bottom of the ninth, Choo teased us a little with his immense talent. But there was no joy to be found.

It is easy to mock those of us who have followed Cleveland sports for so long. Two years ago I was at the Browns Thursday night home game against the Broncos with a Colts fan. He was shocked at how quickly the stadium got quiet and then stayed quiet after the Broncos Jay Cutler threw a 93-yard touchdown pass to Eddie Royal to start the fourth quarter. The Browns, he argued, still had the lead. I told him we had just watched “this game” four days earlier against the Ravens and we have watched it over and over through the years. We knew what was going to happen and there was little we could do to stop it. My Colts friend said, “The problem with you people is you don’t believe.”

Actually the opposite is true.

Getting back to the Cavs, in the newsroom on Monday, there were the typical Cleveland reactions everywhere. There was pessimism and anger (The Cavs are going to lose this series and I am tearing all the posters off the wall). There was excitable mood swings (We are doomed. We are coming back and the Celtics will be swept. I can’t believe this happening. We are doomed.) There was stoic wit indifference being used as a defense mechanism. (I can’t believe how worked up you guys are getting.) There was putting on a brave face (Hey this is just one game, but man I have seen this movie before.) And of course the one non-Clevelander with no dog in the fight saying, “Um, it is just one game and you have LeBron James)

I figured the reason most people start to watch sports is it’s fun. But this entire playoff run with the Cavs will not be. Sure there might be moments of happiness. The thrill of a dunk or chase down block by LeBron. A joyous roar of a three finding the bottom of the net. But the simple truth is any win against the Celtics or even the next round against a Magic team playing its best ball of the year will only be a momentary relief. The only win that counts is the last game of the season. Until the Cavs win four games in the NBA Finals, as fans, there will always be a knot in our stomach. And it is not undeserved.

This, for better or worse, is an all or nothing season. The best record in the league for two straight years. The uncertainty of LeBron’s contract. For those of us who suffered so much over the years watching our teams, this season is almost referendum on everything. Do I really believe that a championship, just one championship will erase all the pain of all those catchphrase loses? Do I think seeing that NBA title held aloft in Public Square will end all those horrible highlights the networks reshow every game?

Yes, yes I do.

So forgive us, Cleveland fans, if we over react to every play and every game. We don’t want to believe in curses. We want to believe a championship is possible despite all evidence to the contrary.

So elbow is more than an elbow. Having three days off to ponder the loss makes everything worse. The waiting is always the hardest part.

Now, these emotions have nothing to do with the players. They should be in a bubble, our hurts and fears should mean nothing for them. But I have to believe the pressure in that locker room is enormous. I doubt it would be very much fun to be Mike Brown or Mo Williams right now. So it was good to see how calm LeBron was after the loss. It is only the first week of May. He knows he will need every inch of his broad shoulders to carry this team and with it all of Northeast Ohio into mid-June.

I fully expect LeBron to be amazing on Friday night in Boston. But I expect the game and all of those that follow the rest of this season to be a roller coaster of emotions. So, don’t judge your friends and family on how they behave. We all cope in our own ways. Anger. Silence. Fretting. Overcheering. Pretend calmness. But we all want the same thing.

To win just once.

Who are those people on the bandwagon?

2010-04-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

Published: Monday, April 26, 2010

Now that the NBA post-season is underway, I thought it was time for a breakdown. Not of the teams that the Cavs may play but for some of the types of fans that will watch the Cavs play this post season.

Mother Hen

Became a Cavs fan: Not really one but knows everyone else is and wants the community to be happy.

Wears: An apron while she makes wings and snacks for the game.

Answer to what is the shot?: Something from the doctor.

Regular season games watched: 0

Cavs they can name: LeBron, Z and that guy with the hair

Reaction to Cavs losing game six to Magic in ’09: Does this mean there are no more games?

Thoughts on LeBron’s contract status: Unaware it is expiring.

Answer to will the Cavs win the NBA title this year?: Hopes so.

If the Cavs won the title would be most happy for: The city.

Johnny Bandwagon

Became a Cavs fan: When the Cavs went to the finals in 2007.

Wears: LeBron jersey or the free shirt left on their seat at the Q.

Answer to what is the shot?: Cherry Bomb

Regular season games watched: A few minutes here and there.

Cavs they can name: most of this year’s roster

Reaction to Cavs losing game six to Magic in ’09: It was Mike Brown’s fault, really angry then 10 minutes later dancing to the Superman Song on the dance floor.

Thoughts on LeBron’s contract status: Knows LeBron will stay in Cleveland because he is from here and he can make more money here and Cleveland is the best location in the nation.

Answer to will the Cavs win the NBA title this year?: No doubt

If the Cavs won the title would be most happy for: Z

Corporate Big Shot

Became a Cavs fan: When LeBron was drafted.

Wears: Shirt and tie with free shirt from the Q.

Answer to what is the shot?: Well back then I was a Bulls fan so ...

Regular season games watched: Home games at the Q.

Cavs they can name: Players since LeBron joined the team

Reaction to losing Cavs losing game six to Magic in ’09: Sad but believed next year would be the year.

Thoughts on LeBron’ contract status: Mood goes up and down based on what ESPN or other media is reporting.

Answer to will the Cavs win the NBA title this year?: They better.

If the Cavs won the title would be most happy for: Improved business climate in area.

Radio Show Caller

Became a Cavs fan: Because the Browns don’t play year round.

Wears: Depending on age, a Bingo Smith, World B Free, or a Mark Price jersey.

Answer to what is the shot?: “Expletive”

Regular season games watched: Most of them.

Cavs they can name: Just about every one of them since he started following the team.

Reaction to Cavs losing game six to Magic in ’09: Knew it would happen because God hates Cleveland.

Thoughts on LeBron’s contract status: He’s gone

Answer to will the Cavs win the NBA title this year?: Not a chance.

If the Cavs won the title would be most happy for: Would still be angry that the Browns haven’t won a championship since 1964.

Cleveland Sports Guy

Became a Cavs fan: shortly after birth

Wears: Whatever is in his closet but never a jersey with another man’s name on it.

Answer to what is the shot?: Shakes head tries to talk and then shakes head again.

Regular season games watched: All that he can.

Cavs they can name: Everyone whoever played for them

Reaction to Cavs losing game six to Magic in ’09: The better team won (Mike Brown’s a idiot)

Thoughts on LeBron’s contract status: Win this year and would drive LeBron to New York himself.

Answer to will the Cavs win the NBA title this year?: Afraid to answer because they don’t want to jinx it.

If the Cavs won the title would be most happy for: Himself.

Supporting Big Ben is unacceptable

2010-04-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

Published: Thursday, April 22, 2010

In my heart of hearts, I would have bet a month’s pay that no matter how long of a suspension NFL commissioner Roger Goodell handed Ben Roethlisberger that his first game back would be against the Browns.

Never in my wildest imagination would I have believed that the NFL schedule makers would also grant the Steelers a bye week to help Big Ben get back into the flow of things.

Wait, you are saying that it is actually a six game suspension? Yeah right. No. 7 will be suited up and ready to play the Browns on Oct. 17 at Ketchup Stadium.

Unless of course our rivals who pride themselves on doing things the right way trade the posterchild for bad decisions as word has come down that the Steelers would accept a top-10 pick for Big Ben.

A few Browns fans have even floated the idea that the Browns should surrender the seventh pick in the draft to bring the Findlay native back to Ohio.

It would never happen. Ben is not a Mangini kind of guy. Even Holmgren would have a hard time selling it to the faithful and the Steelers would never trade him in the division let alone to the Browns.

But it does give me thought.

I have always wondered just what it would take for me to stop being a Browns fan. They broke my heart nearly every year of my childhood. They left town and since the bad clone version has come back, it has been nothing but a decade-plus nightmare. The only thing more ridiculous than how they have performed on the field is how they have performed in the front office.

And yet I watch every game. If last year couldn’t kill my Browns fan heart, just what could?

Trading for that awful man would.

Yes I am saying that trading for a Pro Bowl in his prime two-time Super Bowl champion would end forever my fanship of my beloved Cleveland Browns.

I could never cheer for that man. And it is not just because he wore those black and puke colored uniforms.

I have always suspected that he was a below-average human being but reading the police report confirmed it. I don’t care if he hasn’t been convicted of a crime. I don’t want that guy on my team.

Call me a hypocrite but his alleged transgressions trump any other crime of anyone who has played for the Browns except of course that idiot Donte Stallworth. If he came back and played for the Browns I would feel almost as strongly.

In my lifetime, I have only missed two Browns games by choice. They were the last two starts that Jeff Garcia made for the Browns. In fact they were probably his best two starts as a Brown. But I drew a line in the sand; I said I wouldn’t watch again until he was gone.

Now it wasn’t because of Terrell Owens’ definition of a duck. But rather a combination of a police report Garcia was involved in just before he left California for the Browns, the way he threw his teammates under the bus and some behind-closed-doors information I had learned.

My team represents me. Their quarterback — more than any other player — represents the team. It is one thing if my quarterback is awful; it is a completely other thing if he is an awful human being.

I can’t cheer for a despicable person no matter what colors he wears.

I understand that football players aren’t saints. They have flaws. No can’t have a team of angels. But like it or not, the player that most defines any team is the man who is taking the snaps under center.

People wonder why Bernie Kosar is so beloved in Cleveland. It is because he seemed on the field to represent just what this community loves so much. Scrappy, determined and playing above expectations. And well — he beat the Steelers more often then he lost to them.

I have never liked Big Ben. I’ve begrudgingly tipped my cap to him way too many times. But I will never cheer for him. And I won’t support any team that employs him. Even if that team became the Browns.

Media whiles NFL into changing OT rules

2010-04-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

Published: Wednesday, March 24, 2010

With Sports Illustrated’s Peter King leading the charge, the NFL has changed their “archaic” overtime rules for the playoffs.

The media has changed football.

Who else wanted this change?

Honestly I haven’t heard any fans demanding a change in overtime. There are no polls I have found online saying it needs to be change. I have read no comments from players or a head coach that the system needs must be altered.

King and his like have used this year’s NFC Championship game as the classic example of what they perceive what’s wrong with the system the NFL has used for the past 36 years.

A kickoff was returned to the 39-yard line, two defensive penalties moved the ball forward and then a 40-yard field goal sent the Saints to the Super Bowl and King’s beloved Brett Favre never got to touch the ball.

And that, according to King and many other media members, was not fair.

Life isn’t fair. But Favre never touching the ball in overtime doesn’t fit the bill.

Football, as every coach will tell you, is three phases - offense, defense and special teams. If you don’t want to lose a game the way the Vikings did then have your special teams stop the return and don’t have your defense commit penalties.

But maybe even more importantly, don’t let the game go to overtime where a coin flip can hurt you. I mean Favre and the Vikings had the ball late in regulation with a chance to win and he threw an interception. It was one of five turnovers that the Vikings had. Not getting the ball in overtime was not the reason Minnesota lost the game. I believe their owner agrees as he was only one of four to vote against the proposal.

These new rules the NFL passed will be just for the playoffs. Bill McKay for the Falcons led the charge, and his reasoning was statistics. Since 1994, when the NFL moved kickoffs from the 35 to the 30, statistics showed that teams winning the coin toss win the game 59.8 percent of the time.

The team that lost the toss won the game 38.5 percent. McKay and others believe that the accuracy of kickers make overtime unfair, there is that word again, in favor of the team that wins a random coin flip.

Again that doesn’t bother me, teams make their own fate. If you don’t want to get screwed by a coin then win in regulation. If you play solid special teams and defense, losing the coin flip is not a death sentence.

But the new rules seem stupid to me. If the team that gets the ball first scores a touchdown then the game is over. Just like now.

If the team that gets the ball first doesn’t score, you play until someone scores just like now. But if the team that gets the ball first kicks a field goal then they have to kick off and the other team gets the ball. And they get a huge advantage. If the second scores a touchdown they win. They also get four downs to use instead of three.

There is no reason to play it safe like the first team had to. And if the first team didn’t score at all they can kick a field goal to win. Even if they got field position based on special teams or penalties. I won’t say it is unfair because again a team must make its own breaks but it does seem slanted to me.

Not that it won’t be interesting because it will open a huge bag of worms for coaches. Do you take the ball if you win the flip? Tell your offense to go down and score a touchdown to end it? Or play it safe that your defense will hold the other team to a field goal or less? Coaches will go from wanting to win the coin flip to hoping they lose it.

I think overtime should have stayed the same. I am glad at least it won’t go the way of college or high school. Giving teams the ball on the 25-yard line is just as dumb as having soccer and hockey players have a shoot-out. It is exciting for fans but it is a video game version of the real game being played

If you insist on giving both teams the ball then play an entire 15 minute quarter to the end. If the rule is only for the playoffs, it would make for riveting TV as coaches would have to decide in regulation to try for the tie and face a grueling extra quarter or to go for the win right away with their seasons on the line. The integrity of the game would stay intact. Both teams would get a shot and all three phases of the game will still in play.

Football is a team sport. It takes a team to win. The media should not have encouraged the NFL to change its rule so a quarterback can get a chance to win a game he could have won in regulation. As Denver Broncos receiver Brandon Stokley told the Associated Press.

“I just think that they should keep it like it is,” he said. “It makes things interesting. Some people don’t like the coin toss, but that’s just the way it goes. If you’re on defense first and you don’t have the ball, you’ve just got to stop them.”

March Madness creates magical memories

2010-04-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

Published: Thursday, March 18, 2010

My first exposure to the NCAA tournament took place at a Lenten dinner at church. While my parents doled out bowls of soup to parishioners, I was behind a curtain on the stage playing Nerf ball basketball.

One of the older kids was pretending to be Patrick Ewing and swatting all us little kids shots away.

I had no idea who Ewing was or where Georgetown was located. It was only years later that I had any appreciation of what Villanova accomplished that season.

The following year I fell in love with March Madness. Cleveland State had a young freshman named Mouse and shocked the world with its “Run and Stun” style under coach Kevin Mackey.

Unfortunately that was the year my parents decided to give up TV for Lent. I never got to watch the Sweet Sixteen game against Navy until STO reshowed it a few years ago.

My brother and I would shovel the driveway, cut the finge tips off our gloves and play basketball from the time school ended until my mom would turn off the backyard light and force us inside to go to bed.

Starting that season and for several years after, my brother and I would recreate the entire bracket. We had an old egg timer and would play the final minutes of each game.

It took forever to do this because more often than not the game would break down into fisticuffs and we would be forced into a mom’s timeout before we could sneak away to play some more.

One year we had it exactly right as in both the backyard and real life Indiana beat Syracuse with a buzzer beater. Other years schools like Wyoming or Austin Peay would be playing for “our” title.

The Monday after the Sunday Selection show used to be one of my favorite days. It was the one day of the year I would buy a USA Today and then several local papers.

Of course this was pre-Internet and I would pour through all the information I could find to fill out my brackets. I was always too heavy on upsets.

Every year I would have one or two shocking first round upsets right but I was too young to realize that Cinderellas may be beautiful on day one but the magic wears off by the time the Final Four rolls around.

Through all of high school and college I would strangely develop a cough on the first Thursday of the wtournament. It was my favorite day of the year. Watching basketball, cheering for underdogs and just enjoying the bliss that is March Madness.

After college I was a school teacher. In order to not miss any games, I would use the tournament as a learning tool. I would create a study guide and ask my grader schoolers questions.

If they got it right then they would get to pull a team from a hat. The winning team would earn some lucky student a prize. It gave me an excuse to have the games on in the background and kids would develop a new favorite team.

One year as athletic director we sold mugs with NFL, MLB, NBA and NCAA logos. My principal was surprised so many kids were buying out of state NCAA teams. I just smiled.

Another year I was on break and went to Daytona Beach. What I remember most is that while I was out in the sun on the beach, I missed watching Valparaiso’s Bryce Drew drain his famous buzzer beater.

Now I am older. The Internet allows you to discover almost too much information.

ESPN just overwhelms you with so many talking heads much of the joy drains out of you. There is little mystery left. I find myself picking more and more chalk every year. And getting less and less excited.

That is until the games start and some low seed starts hanging with a big dog and Gus Johnson begins babbling with excitement. And I get transported back to my backyard, my finger tips frozen standing on the line with the front end of one and one.

Canada needed hockey gold more than US

2010-04-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Published: Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Imagine after "The Drive", the Browns had pulled it out and won in overtime. Or what if after "Joe Table" blew the game in the ninth inning on that fateful day a dozen Octobers ago, Manny Ramirez would’ve gone deep in the tenth.

Well multiply that by 25 million and you get Canada’s reaction to the Olympic Gold Medal game.

I read a report that 80 percent of the population of Canada watched at least a part of the game on Sunday. And when Zach Parise scored with 24 seconds left, you could feel the air being taken away from an entire nation.

If Team USA had won in overtime, I would have let out a cheer and celebrated with a Pabst or two. But 20 minutes later, I would have moved on.

Instead when Team USA lost in overtime, I commiserated with a Pabst or two and then 20 minutes later, I moved on.

But for that nation up North, Sidney Crosby’s goal was the difference between a funeral plus the most awkward closing Ceremonies ever and the greatest party in the history of Canada.

Our friendly neighbors got punched in the stomach at the end of regulation. As a Clevelander, I know what that feels like. A sense of impending doom that you know is only going to get worse. But in one instant an entire nation was freed from that mental prison when Sid the Kid scored.

Here in Cleveland, we got a taste of that last year in game two against the Magic when LeBron made that last second shot. But, of course an unhappier ending has taken away the joy from that moment.

For Canada, winning the gold medal on home ice is something they had to have. They weren’t getting another chance. It was Sunday night — or never. This season for the Cavs may feel that way for our city and it may actually end up being our last chance to win, but in theory we will get other chances in other sports.

For Canada, there is only hockey and this was the only chance. It is hard to argue that they didn’t deserve it.

Hockey Night in Canada has been special for a long time. But the NHL in pursuit of more money and greener pastures has really hurt the sport. Smaller Canadian cities lost their teams to warm weather American cities and expansion diluted the talent. Canada’s game moved their corporate offices to New York City and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has so mismanaged the sport that most of the games are played on a channel people can’t watch. A Canadian team hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1993. It has been a long 17 years for Canadians to watch America mess with their national past time.

A loss to the Americans would have been devastating.

Canadians love the game so much. I can’t help but smile that their unbridled joy.

I respect the nation of Canada a great deal. Not living there, it is easy to romance the place as everything we are not: polite, able to laugh at itself, low-key and peaceful.

In 2006, some Americans booed the Canadian Anthem during a playoff game. Do you remember how the Canadians reacted? Go to You Tube and type in Edmonton Stanley Cup O Canada.

It still gives me chills. Those people meant it when they sang their song.

It is easy to be cynical as a sports fan. It is easy to get caught up in the negative side of sports. So it is lot of fun to watch a game mean so much to so many people and provide a happy ending.

It reminds you why you started following and playing sports in the first place.

Miracle on Ice stands test of time

2010-04-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

It was 30 years ago today I watched my first ever hockey game. You’ll notice that today is Feb. 24, while the Miracle on Ice took place on Feb. 22.

The United States’ stunning upset of the Russians took place in the afternoon but ABC had earlier decided to broadcast the game in primetime.

By that time, my 7-year-old self was tucked safely asleep.

My memory can trick me into believing I watched the game because I have learned so much about it since.

Starting with the Karl Malden and Steve Guttenberg TV movie in 1981, the excellent HBO documentary about the game and the very enjoyable 2004 “Miracle” starring Kurt Russell. A game I never watched is ingrained into my head.

But for me, the first hockey game I ever watched was the game against Finland that took place on Sunday.

I remember it as the Gold Medal game, but as I learned this week, the finals in 1980 were actually a round robin. It was possible for the U.S. team to lose and not win any medal.

I watched the game at my father’s brother’s house. It may have been the only hockey game the two of them have ever watched together.

There are two things I clearly remember from that Sunday afternoon 30 years ago. The first was the utter disbelief that the team trailed after two periods.

I remember my uncle shaking his head and muttering, “I can’t believe they are going to lose this game.”

More than 500 miles away, the U.S. coach Herb Brooks was feeling the same way. He told his team what has become a classic quote that can’t be reprinted in a family newspaper.

But Herb’s boys responded and rallied to defeat Finland and win the gold medal. Which leads to my second memory, Jim Craig with the American Flag wrapped around him skating around the ice looking for his father.

Just thinking of that moment, the eyes get a little misty.

In fact the Miracle on Ice is one of those few subjects where any guy gets a pass getting emotional about.

Not only was it a stunning moment and an incredible victory but it also happened in a much different world.

It was a simpler time before the Internet, cell phones and mass media. It is impossible to relate how much the world has changed.

Thirty years later and America is involved in two real wars. Terrorism is a real threat. The country is divided by politics and colors. The economy is failing. Things aren’t going exactly peachy but America still has its confidence.

Maybe we shouldn’t be we feel really safe. There is no doubt that we aren’t the underdogs.

But in 1980, America was not feeling its oats. Nuclear war seemed imminent. Fear was in the air. Fear that things were going to get worse and not better.

That the American way of life was in trouble. Maybe it was because I was a child but the world seemed a lot scarier back then.

And when I compare and contrast then and now, maybe I should be more scared now.

But that hockey game did something that I am not sure is possible today. It changed perspective. It brought pride and hope. It united the country.

A true leader led a bunch of fresh-faced college boys. They worked harder than anyone else and relied on their preparation and love for each to dethrone the best hockey team in the world.

Al Michaels coined it as a miracle and in many senses it was but it is also a misnomer.

Brooks planned for it to happen and his team put in the work despite all the odds stacked against them.

The 1980 Hockey team is everything America wishes it could be: innocent, determined and able to accomplish anything.

Simply America at it’s best.

Published: February 24, 2010

Stoudemire is reason to mess with success

2010-02-16T23:02:00.000-08:00

Why mess with success? I have been hearing that a lot this week. The Cavaliers have won 13 in a row and for most that run they have been without Mo Williams or Delonte West. Heck, Leon Powe hasn’t even played yet. J.J. Hickson has put up some big numbers the last few weeks and he is only 20 years old. The Cavs are 4-0 against the Magic and Lakers. So why would the team consider making a trade?

I guess that is a natural reaction. Life is good so why take on the unknown?

During the weekend, rumors grew intense the Cavs had focused on Amar’e Stoudemire of the Phoenix Suns.

Stoudemire is a 6-foot-10 power forward. He is five-time All-Star. He is currently averaging about 21 points and nine rebounds per game.

As TNT’s Charles Barkley said playing Stoudemire along side LeBron James would be “scary”.

And yet I have been hearing a lot of local people saying they don’t want Stoudemire.

I had one gentleman call the paper just to vent about the possibility like I have the ability to sway the Cavs one way or the other.

The reasons for not wanting Amare appear to be the following:

— We have won 13 in a row.

— Stoudemire and Shaq didn’t get along in Phoenix.

— Stoudemire doesn’t play defense.

— Stoudemire has bad knees and a bad eye.

— Z is loyal and we can’t trade

him.

— I like J.J. Hickson and he is young.

—The Cavs have great chemistry and you don’t mess with that.

And to all those reasons, I say “Are you serious?”

You don’t want a young, still in his prime All-Star for those reasons.

Regular season wins mean little. The Cavs beat the Spurs twice the year San Antonio swept them in the Finals. The 2008 Houston Rockets won 22 games in a row. They ran the streak up even after Yao Ming got hurt. They lost in the first round of

the playoffs.

Stoudemire, on his twitter, refuted that Shaq and he didn’t play well together. The truth is Stoudemire’s numbers went up when Shaq arrived. His numbers went down the next season when Terry Porter took over and made a mess of the team. Porter wanted to take a running team and pound the ball inside to Shaq. Not a worry here in Cleveland.

It was said Mo Williams didn’t play defense before he was traded here. Defense is a team concept. If Stoudemire wants a title and a max contract, trust me, he will improve his defense. In Phoenix, defense isn’t preached.

All players sustain injuries. It looked like Z’s career was over more than a decade ago. Stoudemire is healthy now and just entering his prime.

I love Z as much as the next guy, but you play to win the game. Z is a part-time player now. He can’t bang inside much. He has become mostly a jump shooter. Hickson could become a very good NBA player, but honestly I can’t see him playing major minutes in this year’s playoffs. His defense comes and goes. I would hesitate to trade the youngster for someone else, but for Stoudemire, I have no hesitation.

As for chemistry, the Cavs might have had the best chemistry in the league last season and how far did that get them? Having a chance to win a championship does wonders for chemistry? Would there be growing pains with a major trade? Sure, but having a seven-game lead in the race for home court in the East buys the team some time to work that out.

Now, do I just blindly pull the trigger, of course not? I would try to get Stoudemire to sign an extended contract. Most of the teams in the league are leveraging for 2010 to get LeBron plus another NBA All-Star. But with the economy and the shrinking cap, it is looking harder and harder to do. Trading for Stoudemire gives the Cavs an edge to get it done. The chances of Shaq and Z being in Cleveland next season are slim. It could happen, but I doubt either man will give a discount. You can’t pay either for past efforts. Signing Stoudemire long term gives LeBron a chance to compete for title every year. You also need to do your homework that Stoudemire is willing to do what needs to get done.

There are reasons not to make this deal, but none of them are the ones being listed by fans.

If LeBron and Danny Ferry are convinced Stoudemire will buy in, then trading Hickson, Z and whatever other beads are needed to throw in. That is a no-brainer. The truth is that so far, Cavs have achieved nothing. Bringing in Stoudemire gives them a better chance to win the title, this year and in the future.

Reposted from www.MorningJournal.com

Sitting in the cheap seats

2010-02-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, I found myself in the cheap seats for the Cavaliers game against the Clippers. Well, except they really weren’t that cheap, despite being a vertigo-inducing row from the top in the corner of the building.

Talk about information overload.

At any one time at The Q, you are bombarded by a half dozen corporate sponsors. There is a moving ad at the top of the scoreboard, another at the bottom and a few convienently placed in the middle. Not to mention the wrap around video boards constantly spewing even more ads.

And there is no rest at The Q, even during the time outs. Besides the Cavalier girls, the Cavaliers have not one but two in-arena hosts, a mascot, a DJ, the Cavs Crew, the Scream team, Cavs kids and the Cavalittles. Plus there are a plethora of contests all provided by generous corporation. Even the sweeper used to clean up the sweat from the floor has a huge logo on it.

Oh yeah, there was also a basketball game, one where the Cavs made 11 out of 13 3-pointers in the first quarter. The fans rewarded the players with a loud standing ovation at the end of the quarter that was almost as loud as one inspired by the free Chalupas earned in the fourth quarter.

It was easy to miss real live drama because after every play on the huge scoreboard a video clip from pop culture would play followed a replay. Which was nice because then you could watch another pop culture clip after which they would show the play you missed watching the previous replay. But in case you forget to watch the actual game, "The DIFF" allows you know who is winning.

And when I say there is a video clip after every play, I mean every play. Everything from Disney movies to Will Ferrell to quick snips from TV commercials which I am sure are just random and not meant to subtly make me hungry for a Big Mac.

Over the last few seasons, the Cavs have replaced all of the seats in the arena in stages. Not sure exactly when the process was completed but I was surprised by my seat after I caught my breath on the climb up. I hadn’t been in the rarified air since May 2007 for a Celtics playoff game. It looked comfy but it was anything but. I am not a tall person but I felt completely squeezed. Shoulder to shoulder with fellow fans, when the big television informed me LeBron dunked I really had no room to jump to my feet. By the time I unfolded even the replay was over. I am sure market research said cramming people into small confined places will induce them to get up to stretch their legs and pay $4 for bottled water or double that for a beer.

A visit to the Q is one big party of color and commerce. Capitalism at its finest.

And yet all of that cynicism gets somehow erased when LeBron breaks free and he rises up TO THROW THE HAMMER DOWN.

To be honest, being at the Q, especially if you don’t have the loan capability to afford seats close to action is not the best place to watch the game. You can see more on your high definition TV set at home. But there is nothing quite like being around 20,000 people doing a jig after a monster dunk or marveling at LeBron pulling up deeper and deeper and still finding the bottom of the net. Even to the point, LeBron heat checks to find out what won’t go in. Here let me run the other direction and despite their being 12 seconds left on the shot clock, lets turn and flick it towards the hoop. Swish.

I admit, the opening introductions have better production values than a Scorcese film. It is so over the top at the Q, I can’t help feeling like a little kid.

The game of basketball like every professional sport has evolved. It’s big business. It is choreographed. Fans seemed Pavloved into being told when to cheer, what to buy and even when to boo.

But beyond that, there is very good basketball team playing in the middle of that sizzle. A good team with a chance to be special, a type of team that doesn’t come along very often.

So don’t forget to watch.

Reprinted from Lorain Morning Journal

Which team should a Browns fan cheer for?

2010-01-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

There are three types of sports fans. One is the type that roots for a New York team. Two is the type that despises all things New York and three is the utterly indifferent.

Cleveland is a prime spot for New York hate. It started in the 1940s and 50s when the Indians were often one of the best two teams in baseball, but only won one World Series thanks to the All-Star lineup that was the Yankees. In the following dark ages that followed, the Tribe often seemed a farm club to New York, sending players to the Big Apple while mired in 100-loss seasons.

Call it envy but it just seems easier to win in New York where the big market allows for more spending. If you are from Cleveland and cheer for the Bronx, you get branded a front-runner and traitor. It is why LeBron takes so much grief for his Yankees hat.

To cheer for an outside team because they win all the time? Never. To be a Cleveland sports fan, forget logic, it's all about the heart.

While the NFL and NBA have rules that prevent teams from overspending to an uncompetitive advantage, it is easy to still hate New York teams.

Which makes the upcoming Indianapolis-New York Jets such an anomaly. The script seems to be flipped. On the surface maybe that doesn't seem true. It doesn't get more Midwest than Indianapolis. It doesn't get more wholesome goodness than Peyton Manning. The Colts have long been an organization that does things right. While the Jets, led by their arrogant coach Rex Ryan, like to talk smack.

However there are lots of reasons to hate the Colts. First Indianapolis stole another city's team, which led to the real Browns being stolen by the city they spurned. Second, there is just something wrong about playing football indoors. Third and closer to home, in 2007, the Colts laid down and cost the Browns a shot at the playoffs despite 10 wins, which invalidated any success that may have happened that season. Then this year, the Colts scoffed at history. They refused to even try to go undefeated. In an example of all that is wrong with football today, the Colts let their players go for individual accomplishments but didn't try for history. Even their own fans knew this was wrong and booed them relentlessly.

And in the perfect karmic twist, the team the Colts allowed to live was the New York Jets. The week before Ryan told the media there would be no playoffs for the Jets. But when the Colts and Bengals rolled over, the Jets got new life. With playoff wins over the Bengals and a massive choke job from the Chargers, the Jets now stand in the Colts' path to the Super Bowl.

Another reason to like the Jets this weekend is how they play. All season we have heard how this is the year of the quarterback. Analysts have told us how to win the NFL has changed. The adage was to win a championship, you need to run the ball and stop the run. Now we are told to win you need a quarterback and a vaunted passing game. You don't need to run the ball and you only need enough defense to give your offense a chance to win it.

Well Rex Ryan is Buddy Ryan's son and he is old school. The Jets beat the Chargers and their aerial circus with a rookie quarterback who threw for just 100 yards. How did they do that? By playing defense and running the ball.

So the sports fan in me wants to override the New York bigot in me. Forget about the NY on the helmet and appreciate old school football overcoming new age philosophy.

Wait, what's that you say? If the Jets win then Braylon Edwards gets to play in the Super Bowl.

Crap. Go Colts.

Reprinted from the Morning Journal

All I want

2009-12-14T00:19:00.000-08:00

All I want

FINALLY

2009-12-11T00:09:00.000-08:00

So I have taken some abuse at work for having the audacity to still want to watch Browns games. They mock, the jest. In Thursday's paper, my editor wrote an column saying that there was no way the Browns could beat the Steelers, not just this week but maybe ever. One of the other guys said is there any Browns fan who possibly could believe they could win tonight and he snidely said, "I bet Zach thinks they are going to win."
What you can't explain to someone who doesn't get it -- is the feeling we are feeling tonight. What I don't even think the players understood until tonight -- is that when the Browns beat the Steelers -- nothing else matters. All the crap -- all the bullshit disappears. Those Browns players have played a lot of football but I doubt they have ever felt the noise that came from those frozen 40,000 tonight in the fourth quarter.
We needed this.
We have needed this for a long time.
The players tonight took it. Banged up, beaten, overmatched.
They took it.
Thats a rivalry.
I could care less about number one picks. Or who the coach is. Or even the names on the back of the jersey.
We beat those fuckers and that is all that matters to me.
It is all that has ever mattered to me.

So I say thank you. Finally thank you.

Slap in face to Z bad form

2009-12-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

I haven't been posting much lately for two reasons. One I haven't had much to say. The Browns aren't worth talking about, this early in the season for the Cavs means nothing and I have nothing new to say about the Indians that wouldn't be a rehash of something written elsewhere.

Second I got a job working for a daily paper in the sports department. And now that I work for a sports department I have no time to watch sports. Ironic.

During the Cavs game on Saturday I was covering a high school football game. No one mentioned that Z didn't play. In fact I didn't hear about until today.

My first reaction was unbelief. LeBron is the master of summing things up afterward. His after the fact PR soundbites worry me. It's not that he isn't wrong -- especially on this one -- but he just always seem to know what to say -- after.

I think Mike Brown dropped the ball on this one. He missed the big picture. This just wasn't another game. I am not going to be part of the chorus that says we can't trade Z for sentimental reasons. After all Danny Ferry and Mike Brown are paid to win basketball games. Not be sentimental. But c'mon after all Z has done for this franchise getting him into the first half for a wave and a bow should not have been that hard. It was a slap in the face and even though he will get the record soon enough -- it will cheapen the celebration a bit. If Z is done and trading him helps the ball club win a championship then by all means do it. But this was something small and giving him his moment would not have hurt the team.

There had to be a way to get Z into that game. His first ever Did Not Play- Coach's Decision comes in the game where he should have broken the franchise record for games played with his family, the ownership and fans expecting to celebrate. Bad form Mike Brown. I understand he thought this was the best way to win the game. But this was a special moment and I thought it was something that could have been handled better. You couldn't send the big man into start the second quarter. Would Z playing two minutes in the first half lost the game? Really? But Mike Brown won the game and he sent a valuable message I suppose to the rest of the team. It is a business. Loyalty means nothing.

I don't get it. Flabbergasted. I guess I would understand it somewhat if it was late in the season but in November and you can't get Z into the game in the first half on his special day. I don't understand.

Randy Lerner is getting angry

2009-11-02T19:45:00.000-08:00

Well it is pretty obvious that I was wrong about Mangini. I have never been a fan of Dawg Pound Mike or any of his ilk. But if his publicity stunt --stupid as it was-- woke up Randy Lerner then I guess I tip my cap.

When I heard George got escorted out of the building, my first thought was it must be nice to be so rich that Randy can afford to pay so many people so much money not to work for him. The Browns have become a joke and not the kind of joke that is so bad its funny. They are just a bad, mind numbing sad state of vomit-inducing pain.

Losing sucks but there are different kinds of losing. When you lose with a young team with a future that sucks but at least there is hope. What hope is there on the Browns? As far as young talent we have Joe Thomas. I love Josh Cribbs as much as the next guy. But we have built him up as this legendary player where the truth is he is an outstanding special teams player. A Josh Cribbs is great role player on a good team. The last few weeks he has made a lot of mistakes trying to be more than what he really is.

I am fine if Bernie becomes the public face of Randy Lerner. He can do what an owner is supposed to do. Walk around, smile and shake hands. That way Randy can hide as is his want. Let Bernie advise who to turn the franchise over to be the strong GM that picks the players and the coach.

But seriously if you were Bill Cowher, Mike Shanahan or Jon Gruden how much money would it be worth to risk your reputation to be the coach of the Browns? $10 million? $15 million? Jeff Fisher who may be losing his job gets $5.5 million to coach the Titans. Shanahan was getting $6 million last season before he got axed.

Bill Parcells gets around $4 to be the Miami GM. To get him to opt out his contract and leave behind horse racing and the sun, how much money would it take?

Seriously. This team is a mess. How much money would it be worth to take a challenge this big? And when a salary is that high, just how hungry can a human being be?

Randy Lerner is worth $1.5 billion. And he is pissed and he is embarrassed.

The only way to fix the Browns is to get next year's draft -- possibly the deepest in NFL history thanks to the looming uncapped year before labor strife -- with 11 draft picks right.

The Browns need a talent evaluator even more than they need a football coach. The Browns have to find that guy. And almost as importantly he has to be someone that can be trusted. No more games. No more power plays.

I am not convinced Cowher is the guy. I am not convinced Gruden is the guy. I am not convinced Shanahan is the guy. I am not convinced Fisher is the guy. All of them can coach but can they pick the players too.

Roll the brink truck to Parcells house. Let him pick the players and the coach. And I am not even convinced that will work.

All I have learned is this: the best job in the whole world is this. Get an NFL owner to get you a crap load of money then be so awful he fires you and pays you anyway. Randy owes over $20 million to Romeo and Savage. Maybe Mangini is a genius. Work for a year and get paid for four.

In-depth analysis of your Cleveland Browns

2009-10-25T13:08:00.001-07:00

Guest-blogging the Browns performance against the Green Bay Packers will be Homer J. Simpson:

"Yeah Moe that team sure did suck last night. They just plain sucked! I've seen teams suck before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked!"

What we thought would happen happened

2009-10-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

It is what it is. Trying not to get worked up about it. Trying.

Browns win

2009-10-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

Being a glutton for punishment during the Browns game, I lurked in the shadows on a local sports website forum. To say the natives were restless would be an understatement. They were angry, whiny and full-on tilt mode. They complained about everything including:

- Derek Anderson
- The play calling
- Eric Mangini
- Dropped passes
- How Jamal Lewis is washed up
- How this was the worst game ever
- How Mangini should be fired
- How Daboll should be fired
- Why Anderson can't complete passes
- Why aren't the Browns passing more
- How much this game sucked
- How they didn't want to watch
- What a joke the Browns are
- And rinse repeat

I guess I watched a different game. I did not see one of the worst NFL games of all time. What I saw was a coach taking control of his football team and pointing it in the right direction. Now I am not going to defend Derek Anderson. He was historically bad. He was 2 for 17 for 23 yards. That would be a Browns record for less amount yards passing in a game. But we know Derek Anderson is a not a good starting quarterback and he now has ZERO established receivers. Not a combination for success. Anderson was awful. Royal dropped what could have been very long gain. A few other passes were dropped. The passing game was pathetic and worthy of mocking. But just about everything else the Browns did in the game, they did very well.

Now Buffalo was an embarrassment. The Bills had 13 penalties accepted and handful more declined. The Bills shot themselves in the foot all day. They played stupid. They had no discipline. If I was a Bills fan I would be sick to my stomach.

But as a Browns fan, my hope has been restored. I don't know if the Browns will win very many games this year. In fact I doubt that they exceed 4 or 5. But there was a lot to like about the Browns today. The defense played well. Jamal Lewis ran well. The offensive line was very good. The special teams were outstanding. The Browns had only three penalties. And two were aggressive penalties rather than boneheaded mistakes. Eric Wright got flagged for pass interference and yes he was early but partly because they receiver had gator arms and never got to the ball. And Williams roughing the passer penalty in the end zone was a horrible call. The Browns played poised throughout the game.

Here is the thing about the Browns -- they are not very talented. It appears they have no quarterback. In fact skill players are absent throughout the roster. So in order to compete, they have to be coached up, they have to play smart and they have to play hard. It was obvious Anderson was off his game so offensive coordinator Brian Daboll altered his game plan. He played it safe. He gave the ball to the veteran Jamal Lewis and the old vet came through big. The special teams played smart and alter the outcome of the game. As a coach all you can do is motivate your team and put them in position to succeed. The players need to buy in. And you can see it happening.

You can focus on the ineptitude of the passing game but I see progress. I see the players buying into the system. The talent isn't present to win. However the building blocks are being put into place. But the Browns won today, it was an ugly win but a win nonetheless. I am remind of when Mike Fratello was the coach of the Cavs. They did not have very much talent. They only way they could win was ugly. So Fratello coached the team to slow it. It was not beautiful basketball but he got a less talented team into the playoffs. Mangini will not get this team into the playoffs. But his coaching staff seems to understand what they have to work with and they aren't trying to put a square peg into a a round hole. It may not produce beautiful football but it is narrowing the talent gap. The Browns won today and that was great. It eases some of the pressure. But even if they lost today. I liked what I saw -- passing game aside.

It is going to be a long year. And while I don't understand everything Mangini is doing, I think I am buying into what is happening. This team is on the right track. Even if the causal fan can't see it.

Your guide to who to root for in the MLB playoffs

2009-10-07T09:12:00.001-07:00

So the playoffs start today. Cliff Lee starts game one and CC starts game two. Old friends Ronnie Belliard, Casey Blake, Manny Ramirez and that bum Jim Thome play in the night cap. Tomorrow Victor suits up.

Oh great.

So who do I root for this post-season. Now I am not buying any new gear and jumping on a bandwagon. If this team wins I will no joy. But watching baseball is easier with a rooting interest.

Let's look at the candidates:

New York Yankees: Yes I would like to see CC win a title. But not as much as I never want ARod to win one. I hate the Yankees obviously but there was one week when I pulled for them. It was in 2001. I was caught up in the emotions of that time. I remember Jeter and Brosius hitting those home runs and thinking wow this what happens when you have ghosts on your side. It seemed ordained. I was at peace with the Yankees winning it all. So naturally the best closer in history blows a ninth inning lead and they haven't won a World Series since. Your welcome.

Boston Red Sox: Yes I would like to see Victor win a title. But not this year and not in Boston. I so sick of these guys and more importantly sick of their dirt bag fans. No way I can pull for the Red Sox.

Minnesota Twins: Did you know that Twins manager Ron Gardenhire who is universally loved every where is sort of despised by the die hard Twin fan. I guess you watch anyone manage 162 or more games a year over and over and you find something to hate. I get the Twins are a feel good story. I get they play the right way. But they play in a dome. And that dome already stole two World Series. I couldn't bear three.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: They lose me with the douchey name. I like Mike Scioscia but I despise the Rally Monkey more. They don't have any ex-Indians and frankly they don't have any players that inspire me to pay attention. Boring.

Philadelphia Phillies: Cliff Lee is one ex-Indian I have no real feelings for. Sure he was decent most of the time and he was excellent last year and this year but Lee wasn't really that likable. He worked hard to hide his disgust of us fans but you could see it seethe through. I don't hate him. But I don't have any Ray Bourque emotions about him winning a title now he is gone. And the Phillies won last year. Charlie Manuel winning back to back titles would just add to my misery.

St. Louis Cardinals: Mark DeRosa we hardly knew ya. I don't worship at the altar of Tony LaRussa so I have no allegiance to the Cards. Pujols is awesome but again the Cardinals just won and that is boring.

Colorado Rockies: This seems like the no-brainer right. They had the same record as the Indians when they fired their 2007 manager of the year. They rallied to make the post-season. They grind and the team of destiny. Screw Denver. That wound will never heal.

Los Angeles Dodgers: I loved Ronnie Belliard when he played for the Tribe. He jiggled and wiggled and got the job done. I grew to really respect Casey Blake. Manny is one of my all-time favorite Indians. Part of me thinks it would be cool to see Joe Torre win a title after being forced out in New York. But then they had to trade for my irrational object of hate that bum Jim Thome. I have written this before. Manny never proclaimed his loyalty to me. I knew he would follow the money. Jim lied to me. And I can't forgive that.

So to sum up. This sucks. I guess there is always beer.

Quick thoughts on trade

2009-10-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

You can't cross LeBron in this town and stick around. Seriously I get Braylon is talented. I get he was getting double teamed and his absence will make it even harder for a challenged offense to move the ball. But there are no tears being shed on Edwards being shipped out of town. I hear people complaining about what the Browns got back but frankly they got more than I thought they could. If the Browns ever win again, Edwards wasn't going to be here when that happened. I think getting his prima donna butt out of the locker room and away from our younger players was something that had to be done. The Browns may be less talented today but I think it is a step in the right direction. I want to fall in love with this team again. Edwards being gone helps with that. I want to win but before that happens I want a team that will scrap and fight. Edwards can now do his modeling in New York.

Seven seconds from a tie

2009-10-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

So this morning I got a call asking if I wanted a free ticket to the Browns game. I declined. The thought of spending close quarters with a bunch of angry drunks did not seem all that appealing. Instead I watched from the relative safety of my couch.

And what did we learn from our Browns today:

1. That didn't look like a team that quit on its coach to me
2. #11 jerseys are going to sell out this week
3. Shaun Rogers is the man.
4. Josh Cribbs is the man 1a.
5. Braylon Edwards is not the man.

As far as the quarterback situation we learned pretty much we knew all along. That if Brady Quinn could not beat out Derek Anderson we were in trouble. It is pretty apparent that Anderson gives the Browns the best chance to move the ball and score. It is also pretty apparent that Anderson is what he is. He has a gun. If his first read is open he can be pretty good. If his first read is covered, trouble is lurking. You have to take the good Derek with the bad Derek. While it seems Brady is afraid to take chances, Derek is not. It just happens that Derek isn't the best decision maker. But Anderson confirmed he is the guy for at least right now.

The defense played well. Carson Palmer made a veteran play scrambling on the third and long and that was the difference maker.

From home it is hard to tell if one of the reasons Massaquoi was able to catch so many balls was because Edwards was drawing so much coverage. But regardless Edwards had no catches. Yet he did do one thing today, he confirmed my passion for this team. I sat quietly in the first half. Watched the Browns go down 14-0. I never got mad. I never cursed. However I saw that penalty Edwards committed coming several seconds before he did it. In fact I started talking to the television. It went like this:

"Nice run. Hold the ball. Ohhh nice hit. Get away Edwards. Get AWAY EDWARDS! PLEASE DON'T! NONONONONONONO! YOU STUPID @#$%&#$% @#$%&#@ #$@#%&%"

I went storming into the kitchen. Ready to bust stuff. Nearly gave myself a heart attack. Had no idea the penalty was off-setting for a good while. I get the guy is talented. But I don't want to hear he was helping a teammate. He wasn't. That was a selfish and stupid move. But he did rekick start my passion for this team. My expectations have been so severely lowered that I wasn't even getting mad. Seriously I am excited that the Browns competed. They played hard and I will take that.

Wow barely losing to a fraud team like the Bengals has me slightly optimistic. Hopefully this is rock bottom.

Just another day in Cleveland

2009-09-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

Anderson is the new starting quarterback.
Wedge and maybe more importantly Joel Skinner are fired.
Delonte is still missing and apparently not answering the phone.

I got back to Cleveland in the wee hours of Monday and still have not seen the sun.

Calling me depressed doesn't do it justice.

And yet maybe the stupidest thing I have heard all week is that Arby's is selling their combos for $5.01. Lame sauce. Some ad dude is getting fired soon.

If the players keep quitting then screw those players

2009-09-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

I should just walk away. But something has been bothering me about all this media and fan piling on Eric Mangini. I am not going to defend the guy and proclaim him to be the answer -- however this notion that he is a jerk and therefore should not be the coach is absurd.

A national writer wrote that he hopes the Browns have quit on Mangini and he gets fired because he is a jerk. People are howling about the fines for water bottles or parking in the wrong space. People hate he keeps things close to the vest. Just about everyone wants Mangini to fall on his face.

And when he is 0-3, Mangini has to take it.

I keep hearing the players have quit in all three games. If that is true and not just the players are untalented and over matched then guess what -- the players need to be shipped out. If the players are going to quit because they are demanded to work and fight then let Mangini stay and destroy them.

I am not saying Mangini is a good coach or not. We don't know. Frankly at this point it is irrelevant. The Browns have drafted poorly for an entire decade. If you do that -- YOU ARE GOING TO SUCK. I don't care who is the coach. Mangini seemed like a good coach last year before Favre got hurt. NFL players want a country club. Very few want to get pushed and prodded. How many NFL titles have been won by a country club coach?

It is easy to pile on Mangini. He has done himself no favors. But the Browns are awful and most of it has nothing to with Mangini.

Reports have it that Elam is the Brown fined the max amount for taking the water bottle. Elam is already on his second chance in the NFL because of his run in with the law. Mangini traded for him and brought him over from the Jets because he believed he was a difference maker. Mangini then gave all of his players explicit instructions and then Elam did not follow through. This was the coach's guy -- the difference maker he brought over. If Mangini didn't come down with the full fine, how does he look to the rest of the players? You make call it one bottle of water. I call it as the coach insisting on following through. If you aren't going to follow through on the little things then you aren't going to follow through on the big things.

So what if Mangini is a jerk. Tom Coughlin was hated by his players when he got to the New York Giants. The media tried to run him over every year. Now he has won a Super Bowl you don't hear a word. I hear you can't be a Belichick before you win. Well Belichick was. Lombardi was. Chuck Noll was.

Not I am not saying Mangini is any of those coaches. But Chuck Noll sucked as a coach until his team drafted a motherload.

One of the guys the Browns passed over was Josh McDaniel. McDaniel was considered a jerk all off season. People said he was over his head. Well he is 3-0. Why he is 3-0? Well he inherited a team that should have went to the playoffs last year. And while he lost a pro bowl quarterback -- McDaniel knew Cutler wasn't the type of player he wanted. McDaniel took the heat and let Cutler go. But the reason McDaniel is 3-0 is because of a miracle touchdown against the Browns and he played the Browns and Raiders. McDaniel in three weeks has changed his image but honestly we still have no idea how good of a coach he is and we won't for a while.

Anyway I am rambling. But my point was supposed to be this -- if the players are quitting on the coach after three games. Get rid of the players. If they don't want to play for a jerk -- fine then go work a real job. These are highly paid athletes -- man up and work hard. You are embarrassing yourself. I understand you can't get rid of a whole team at once but if they want to quit then I hope Mangini makes it worse for them. Have them hit in pads all year. Fine them for everything. Make their lives hell. Because how this team is playing disgusts me and I can't respect anyone who quits even if the coach is a jerk. Hell Mangini could be the worst coach of all time and the biggest jerk in the history of the world. But these "men" who are highly compensated can't work hard for four quarters whatever the score is? I am sorry but that's on the players more than the coach. Be men, have pride.

I know most the players could care less what name in on the front of the jersey. But I do. If they don't have enough talent to win than it is what it is. But having enough heart to compete for four quarters that is internal and should not be dependent on any coach. Jerk nor not.

Rock bottom

2009-09-27T16:27:00.001-07:00

I'm tired.

Been stuck in Wisconsin since Friday helping my sister's family move into their new house. The cable isn't hooked up yet so I couldn't watch football on Saturday or today. I found a Browns game feed on the Internet but thankfully it crapped out rather quick and I was saved from watching every bloody minute. Still I followed play by play on a Gametracker. Just walking away never occurred to me.

I am not going to defend Mangini. But I also want nothing to do with insane meltdown. Firing Mangini fixes nothing. Lerner selling the team fixes nothing. This team is a big black abyss and it is going to take a long time to crawl out of it. You can't whiff on a decade of draft choices and fix it in one off-season. If Bill Cowher was the coach the team would be 0-3. Same with Lombardi or Paul Brown. Screaming and busting things won't change anything. At least playing Anderson in the second half will shut up the calls for the back-up quarterback. Remembering we could have gotten a first and third for him at one point doesn't help.

The Browns are what they are. A really bad football team. And next week I will be watching just like I will the week after that and the week after that.

Sometimes acceptance is the first step. My expectations can't get lower. So I think the rage and anger will dissipate.

If you want to be angry and rant go ahead. But leave me out of it. I am not arguing with the irrational anymore.

They are what they are.

EDIT: Pittspuke lost --- choked even. Ha. That made me smile.

Yuck

2009-09-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

It was so bad that even the Pukers losing didn't make me smile. There was nothing to build on from that game. It was bleak and it was dark. It was bad. Even Cribbs didn't play well. Poor Shaun Rogers.

I was left with nothing to say in defense against the sky is falling burn everything to the ground Browns fans/haters. I don't want to be around any Browns fans right now. I will avoid message boards. Won't be able to watch ESPN highlights or read the paper tomorrow. I might even avoid text messages for a few days.

Last week I could pretend there was hope. Right now I can't even convince myself of that.

A first step

2009-09-13T13:45:00.001-07:00

If you had just watched the fourth quarter of the Browns game against Minnesota, the temptation would be declare them the same old Browns. There were turnovers, dropped balls, lame penalties and missed tackles.

But if you only watched the second half, you missed something important. There was a sense of progress and sense of hope. The Browns were not embarrassed. Sure they regressed at the end and the NFL is all about winning but as a fan you can point to that first half and say Mangini has the ship pointed in the right direction.

In that first half, I was impressed by the improved tackling of the BRowns defense. They went getting pressure on Favre and they were wrapping up Peterson. Quinn isn't afraid to take a hit. Lewis looked fresh and still ready to make an impact. Cribbs was Cribbs. Braylon made a great catch that replay took away but the pieces looked ready to fall into place.

The second half showed there is a still a lot of room for improvement. Other than Cribbs return, the special teams did not have a great game. But I left the game thinking that most of the Browns shortcomings in the game were correctable. In week three of the preseason, the Browns held their own with the Titans starters and they did the same today with the Vikings. Both teams feature veteran quarterbacks with strong running games and stout defenses. The Browns were not as out-classed as they appeared last year. The Browns are not a playoff team but I wasn't embarrassed by them either.

On a side note, I love complaining about TV announcers. But Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick reached new lows today. I get the need to tell the tale of Favre but how many plays did they one not bother to call and then how many big plays did they just out and out miss as they talked. They had no idea Vickers lost the ball. There was no replay on several big plays. Billick is a self-absorbed jerk so I can't blame him too much. But Brennaman needs to look in the mirror after this game. One would have hoped he had learned from the criticism he got from the Tim Tebow love. But he owes his father and his profession an apology. Shrill your story but not at the expense of missing what is happening on the field. I expected Favre to dominate the talk of the game but I didn't expect to miss plays and replays. I get it the Browns are an afterthought and that is fine but the game is the story. You have to show me the game and as an announcer you should watch the game you are covering. It didn't help Fox kept losing the sound and letting the screen go yellow at times. Boo to Brennaman, Billick and Fox.

Magini in charge

2009-09-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

By nature I am a contrarian. When everyone seems to line up on the same side, I always question that. My instinct is to shy away from the crowd and stand alone. I don't blindly follow. If I do follow the crowd it is because I explored that position and couldn't find a reason -- sometimes any reason -- not to join the mob.

The majority of the media despises Eric Mangini. That venom has already spilled over into message boards and bar stools. At first glance Mangini is certainly not a likable guy. Young. Smug. Stubborn. Close to the vest.

But honestly I like what he is doing. I even like how he has handled the quarterback situation. For several reasons.

1. I like he could care less what the media thinks. A few years ago I spent some time in the Browns press box and in Berea. I was shocked at the bitterness of the majority of the people who cover the Browns. I saw a lot of lonely old men who no longer even liked sports. It was sad. The rudeness of many of the veterans to a new guy hanging around was astounding. I couldn't help but think of high school cliques. And the constant complaining about everything was so irritating. Theses guys have the best and easiest job in the world --don't kid yourself about having to wait to get quote as a being hardship -- and they were all miserable. So when Tony Rizzo went out of his way to have a conversation with me one day. I was blown away. I don't listen to his current show so I don't have an opinion on that. But I was really impressed with Tony that day. He still had enthusiasm for his job, for sports and he just seemed like a nice guy. Tony stood out because he seemed like the only one. All this is a long way of saying I am taking great pleasure in Mangini rubbing most of these Browns beat writers crazy. Boo Hoo my job where I get paid to watch sports is harder because I am not handed things on a silver plate. The fact that the media doesn't like Mangini makes me want to like him.

2. Mangini promised competition to his team and he followed through. Anyone with lingering feelings in the locker room can't say he played favorites. Mangini was fair maybe even to a fault. A quarterback won the job. He didn't get it by being anointed or because of past accolades. If Mangini doesn't have his locker room -- it is not because of how he choose a quarterback.

3. I know many are scoffing about Mangini not revealing his choice because he wants Minnesota to prepare. I sure that there is a kernel of truth there but beyond that his refusal to name a quarterback has done one other thing. People are talking about Mangini. They are not talking about Quinn or Anderson. Instead of questions all week about how Quinn won the job or why Anderson lost the job and how they feel about that. Mangini has put the heat on himself. His quarterbacks are left to focus on the job on hand.

4. But what about the fans? This has been one of the more irriatating complaints being written about. The fans deserve to know. Mangini's secrecy hurts the fans. I like that Mangini appreciates Browns fans. I know he does. He lived here. He saw the love this town has for the team and he saw the pain leaving caused. But I love how he will be damned to let that affect how he runs his football team. Revealing injuries or who is starting doesn't change who is or is not a fan. Some angry wishy-washy person may claim that but that is complete BS. Mangini knows how to get fans on board and there is only one way. If he wins, the fans will love him. They will not care how he did it. Look at Uncle Bill as the perfect example. He is the same asshole he was when he coached here. Now that he has won in New England, his fans love him. Bill is heartless. He cuts and trades his favorite players and he makes no excuses. I understand that Eric is not Bill. Honestly I like that too. Bill learned from his mistakes here and I think Eric will learn from his mistakes in New York. You coach to the fans and you will get fired. Do it your own way and win then the fans will come on board.

I don't know if it will translate on Sundays but I like how Mangini has already made this team his team. Romeo never seemed in charge. Butch Davis was all sizzle with no steak. I don't see Mangini quitting. The media wants to paint him as another Little Bill disciple who can't do it on his own. But Mangini got the Jets into the playoffs in two years and they were set to do it again last year until Favre's arm injury. The guy is obviously bright. He has already made adjustments such as how he has handled Shaun Rogers. He may fail but he is going to fail doing it his way. He has a plan and expects to execute it.

I am on board -- not that he cares. Let's play ball.

A last chance?

2009-09-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks back, I was getting ready to pull the plug on writing as a career. This blog seems to just be tilting at windmills. If the point isn't to have a career, why spout off about sports? The web is filled with people's takes, there is no real reason for mine.

So of course an opportunity presented itself. My brother is a D-III college basketball coach. He heard that a daily paper in his county had an opening for a sportswriter. He dropped off my resume and a few of my sports sections.

I drove out there for a interview. Now this paper is a six-day a week paper. There is no Sunday edition so Saturday is an off day well except when there is sports and that would be every Saturday. They only cover four high schools and sometimes the college. The high schools are all small so they don't even field teams in many sports. It sounded like a one person job and they already had a sports editor. But they insisted they needed another person. Now this paper doesn't do it's own layout so the deadline is 3pm so they can ship it out to sister paper that does it. So every game would be in the paper two days later. The sports editor seemed like a nice kid but maybe a little over his head at 23 years old. The rest of the staff was an editor and two news writers. Basically they had two pages of local news, a page or two of local sports and editorial page. The rest being AP filler. They charge 75 cents a paper and the editor wants to start charging for online content. I didn't like his chances for that to work. It was small town USA and that's OK but it would be a huge change for a city boy. The editor bragged about their world class arena located across the street. He said they got world class acts all the time. I asked like who? He said 38 Special was playing there tomorrow and he was going to get to interview the band. I have nothing against 38 Special but let's just say I wasn't impressed. I would be in for some culture shock. The pay was for less than $10 a hour. I would be expected to work every day and spread 40 hours over the seven days. I would rather work long hours and get a day or two off every week. I would never be able to go home for a weekend. I asked about working Sundays. If I wasn't an editor and we did no layout why would I have to come into the office on Sunday. Or if I did - could I come in early get my work done so I could watch the Browns on Direct TV? The answer was basically I had to come in Sundays so the editor could take the day off. I would be expected to do his job on Sundays. Which would mean sitting and waiting for other people to send in stories so I could forward them to someone else.

Now that sounds like a big bag of suck. But in this economy a job is a job especially if it is in your chosen field. If I worked hard, crashed at my brother's to save money, maybe I could use this job as starting point for a climb back up the ladder. Maybe those ignoring my resume now would see the daily experience and give me a look.

They told me they would let me know by Friday. So that deadline passed and Monday afternoon I went on a long bike to clear my head and of course they called then. The young sports editor chose his words like I was on a reality show and built up to what he wanted to say. They were pleased to extend me the job.

Now I was out of breath but I could tell he was disappointed I didn't accept instantly. I thanked him and asked to talk to the editor. I told him this was a big decision and I needed some time. He said I could have until Thursday.

Now despite all the shortcomings of the job, it was a job. So I felt like I had to take it. But I had a gnawing thought about the editor. Something didn't feel right about him. It was hard to quantify. I worried that maybe my anxiety about moving away from friends and family to a lonely land of corn fields was just coloring my Spidey Sense about him.

Tuesday morning I sent an email to him. In all the excitement I realized he had never told me about the benefits. He glossed over in the interview saying there were other people who could tell me about that later. My email basically just said please have someone email me the benefit package. I figured no days off for little pay would be easier to accept with having health insurance.

Wednesday morning I got an email in reply. They decided to rescind my job offer. I could only laugh. I am just glad I confirmed his character before I moved there. I just wondered if that innocent question cost me my final shot to work as a journalist.

So that leaves me here in Cleveland with my Sundays open to watch the Browns. As for blogging here, I don't know. I just don't want to keeping writing the same thing everyone else does. I mean who really cares who I think the Browns starting quarterback should be. Seems like spitting in the wind. I need a challenge.

My thoughts on the Browns

2009-08-30T12:11:00.001-07:00

Not saying the Browns will be good but I am starting to believe they may not suck.

To blog or not to blog? That is the question.

2009-08-12T18:08:00.001-07:00

You may have noticed that the name of this blog doesn't match the blogger.com name. It is because this didn't start as a blog but rather has a spot to host my sports columns. There wasn't room on the paper's server for my column. I thought the space was better served on the game or feature of the week I wrote.

One day a guy emailed and asked if he couldn't link it to his site. I said OK and never really thought twice about it. Then I lost my job and obviously quit writing sports columns. I was really good at my job, I won awards and the communities I served seemed to really like me. But a new boss came in ran off the assistant editor then fired the editor. He wanted to fire me too but he had to give me a raise but no one competent was left to get the paper out. A year later after I streamed lined things he fired me in order to give his buddy a job. The fact the quality and quantity of the paper suffered didn't make me feel better. In fact it depressed me how much was left unreported. To this day I don't like going out in some of these communities because people complain to me how the coverage has suffered. (Like I wanted to be fired) I took the settlement money and some unemployment and figured I would wait for the right job. That turned out to be harder than I thought so I restarted writing columns for practice. I had a job offer in Wisconsin but I turned it down because I had a bad vibe about the editor. I didn't want to be miserable again. I figured another job would come. That was two years ago.

It isn't like I have worked at all. I made good money for a while freelancing then the economy failed. Newspapers laid off tons of writers and every one and his brother became a sports blogger. I apply for at least two newspaper jobs every week. 98 percent of the time I don't even get a reply says we received your resume. I know most of the time they see OHIO and don't bother looking any further. I know this because my old gm did the same thing with out of state resumes. I used to also spend a lot of time on craigslist but 99 percent of those jobs are fake or wanting people to work for free. They claim they can get you clips but maybe over time they can pay you but then two months later the same posts are up again.

I have not taken great care with this blog. It is just my words. I don't fish for photos. I don't have links. Heck I barely proofread. I am sure every post is littered with errors. The whole basis has been to have an outlet. I have no idea how many visitors I get. In fact most of the time I believe no one is reading. Every once in a while I get an offer for an ad or for a link exchange but I have never acted on it. I am a writer not a business man. This blog was supposed to just be a placeholder. I never took it seriously. If you give me a beat -- I will work harder and longer than anyone. I hate losing. And that is (or was) the key to working at a paper -- if you hate losing enough you can outwork anyone. It doesn't matter if you cover city hall or high school sports or entertainment. You can always make one more phone call. And after a while when you win all the time people start calling you. But at least for me writing this blog has led to lazy habits. I quit researching. I don't have to confirm things. I barely proofread. I can just write whatever I want and that really isn't reporting. It is like playing around the world in your backyard by yourself rather than going to the playground to play full court with the neighborhood's best.

However the truth is it may be time to surrender the dream of working for a newspaper again. I believe I have talent but frankly you don't need talent to cover sports at a newspaper. We see evidence of that all the time.

So I wonder if I should kill the blog. I have no idea if anyone is reading. I can go weeks without comments. And since I haven't been taking seriously why should anyone else. But then every once in a while I get a comment from something I wrote a while back. I have done Internet searches and some of my columns/blogs have ended up in the weirdest places and on sites I have never heard of -- it is cool and scary at the same time how on the Internet you can be no one and everywhere at the same time.

I know there are a lot people out there making money --even if it is beer money-- with their sites. I am not that forward thinking. I would rather be a hired gun. I am willing to do whatever and out work anyone with a given task but trying to sort through what is and isn't a scam is deflating to me. If you are the real deal, contact me. This blog is my resume but you can search my name and find a ton of articles as well. Convince me of a purpose and I will deliver. Give me an assignment or an example of what you want and you will get it in a timely and professional manner.

So if anyone bothered to read this far -- my point is this -- over the next few weeks I am going to make a decision. Quit the dream and move on. Maybe alter the dream and try something new. But at least right now just writing for myself has become unfulfulling.

Quick thoughts

2009-08-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

It's too hot for me to look up links. But if you are bothering to read this blog, I am sure you know what I am talking about.

Thought #1
I am not going to overreact to a preseason scrimmage. But blaming headsets for an interception -- really?

Thought #2
And Rod Woodson is an douche. (Listen to his hall of fame speech) I will boo (at the very least) every time I hear the name mentioned by Woodson for the rest of my life. Hmmm what did that bastard do as an owner to deserve the hall of fame. Lets see he ran out the greatest coach in NFL history and the greatest running back in NFL history putting the team behind the eight ball for all the late 60s and all the 70s. Allowed his money issues as an excuse to crap on the greatest fan base in the NFL. Only won in Baltimore because he sold his soul and then his team. That over shouts any other positive. Oh he helped the TV deal and made owners and players rich. He conspired with the man who would become the expansion owner to move the team. That owner and his family have screwed the pooch ever since. They have allowed the black and piss fans to grab a stronghold in this market. That man doesn't deserve the hall of fame. He made a choice when he chose to left. I don't want to hear about the politicians. That man ordered a no negotiation period and then made a secret deal to flee town. I will not hear of revisionist history. He is a rat bastard. He screwed the fans and this town. I won't shed a single tear for him or even say his name ever.

A nice afternoon

2009-08-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

My cousin and I decided to attend today's matinee at Jacobs Field. Weather looked promising and I thought it would be a fun way to spend the day. I asked how he wanted to get there. I thought maybe we could meet up and carpool or to avoid parking take the paid. He had another idea. Let's bike to the game.

Now my cousin bikes a great. He lives in Lakewood and he zips all over town. I live in Cleveland and wouldn't consider my neighborhood to be as bike friendly. I rode a bike once a few weeks ago with my niece in the Metroparks. So I wasn't sure if I was up for it.

In fact everyone I told about our plan gave one of three answers: You'll die. Did you get a DUI? And are you nuts?

But it sounded more grueling that it really was -- in fact Jacobs Field is only 4.38 straight down Lorain Road. That didn't sound so bad.

Yesterday I took a test run and road my bike from my house to W.25th. It was a nice easy ride. No real worries. I celebrated my success with a Christmas Ale from Great Lakes Brewery and then made the round trip home. A little dehydrated but successful.

It was a little warmer today but again it wasn't a bad trip. In fact climbing up the bridge with a full view of the Gateway project and the statues seemingly guarding the bridge was pretty cool. We raced down the bridge and were ready to get tickets.

The ticket lines were long. So my cousin went to look for a place to look up the bikes while I stood in line with my bike. You would have thought no one had ever seen a bike before. But I despise missing the first pitch and wanted to get through the line as fast as I could. One guy asked if I had to buy a second seat for my bike. Most just stared at me like I was nuts.

We got inside and sat down as the first pitch was thrown. It was a perfect day for baseball. Not too hot. A nice breeze. And despite Joel Skinner's best efforts (I have no clue about his thought process. Sometimes it seems it is based on what happened last time he made choice rather than the situation) the Indians won the game.

The ride home was uneventful but I felt it in my knees and back. I drank 100 ounces of Gatorade and everything seems fine.

Someone asked me why would I want to go to a game. I said because I love baseball. I enjoy it and frankly when the team isn't very good it can be more fun in a different way. Of course I want a team that can win a world series. But pressure packed pennant race baseball isn't very much fun until a rally starts or the game ends with a victory. It is stressful. Going with no expectations, you can enjoy every moment. There is little reason to get mad and even when Skinner is a bonehead you get over it quickly. Being at the ballpark is just a great way to spend a day. And frankly biking there made even better.

Goodbye Victor

2009-07-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

It is sad to see Victor Martinez go. But I like the trade. We get a big-league ready arm in Masterson and two more power arms. I think the value received is more than I expected.

I get why some fans will be upset. Victor wanted to stay. But for the long-term health of the franchise this makes sense. Victor is getting older and spending money on sentiment is not a good idea. His numbers are great at catcher but only just above average for first base. It is time to let the kids play. I hear how fans are claiming they will stay away but I don't mind supporting a young team that plays hard. Hopefully that is what we will get.

At least Victor gets a shot at the playoffs but he will be walking into a weird clubhouse. There are a lot of guys in that locker room wondering whose playing time Victor will take. It must be nice to be a GM of a team that can pick up a all-star for position that isn't a need but a luxury.

The trade was the right thing to do

2009-07-29T12:11:00.001-07:00

I have to learn to quit reading sports message boards. You never know how a trade will turn out. You couldn't control the ligaments in Alex Escobar's knee. You have no idea how a minor leaguer will turn out. And yet the Cliff Lee trade has already been declared the worst trade ever even before the deal has been signed.

But I do know this: everyone hated the Bartolo Colon trade and that turned out pretty awesome. People hated the trade that sent Sutcliffe to the Cubs for prospects and Joe Carter turned out to be pretty good. Then years later Carter turned into Baerga and Alomar Jr.

One of the reasons the Indians struggled early in this decade was because Manny and Thome were allowed to walk away rather then be traded for prospects.

Frankly it makes no sense to cry over who wasn't included. You can only trade for what someone will give up. Trading Lee to me was the right thing to do. He wasn't going to be here long term. The Indians are not going to contend next season. In fact Shapiro did a brave thing trading Lee. It would have been easier to sit on him and hope for next year. Shapiro did the organization right for the future.

It is true that Shapiro and Wedge have failed in their plan. The team never turned out as advertised. Their jobs should be on the line. Hopefully this trade will finally allow Wedge to surrender and play the kids. Frankly Victor should be traded next. I love the guy and his leadership. I just wonder where his skill set will measure up with his next contract ala Travis Hafner. The Indians are a small market team, they have to turn assets at their height into more assets. Is it ideal to trade Cy Young winners and team leaders two years in a row? No but allowing a miserable season linger into false hope for next year is a bigger mistake.

I hear fans swearing off the team for good. I hear the Jake will be empty next season. Baseball fans will understand and the rest will be back when the team starts to win. Trading Lee and Vic may not be ideal but I want a championship some day. Keeping both for next season would not have helped that goal.

To the naysayers I say while I understand your pain, suck it up. If you are in your 20s, you have been spoiled. What you think is suffering isn't all that bad. You want to leave, leave. I wonder how many games those going crazy over this trade have even watched this last month. I say play ball. Go Tribe.

Edit: Apparently I am the only person in Cleveland who likes this trade. The fact Drennan and every Internet poster hate it so vehemently emboldens my belief that this will be a good trade. I can only imagine the reaction on WTAM and WKNR as I am not going to bother turning them on. Go Tribe!

Goodbye Garko

2009-07-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted much because I haven't had much to say. But tonight the Indians traded Ryan Garko. Now Garko has been one of my least favorite players so his leaving is fine with me. Sure his average looked good this year but he couldn't field, he was super slow and he has very little power for a man his size and position.

But here is what bothers me and may be the final (albeit seemingly innocent) step to pushing me over the edge against Shapiro and Wedge. They have called up Andy Marte to play first base.

Now I am all for Marte getting another a chance. But once again the Indians are taking their best defensive player at one position and then playing him somewhere else. This makes no sense to me. Even when Marte was up here and couldn't hit, he was still a very good third baseman. Now he is tearing it up in triple A and we are going to throw him out there to play every day at his secondary position.

Maybe all this mess of the last three years is because Shapiro and Wedge have chosen flexibility over stability. Just pick nine guys and let them play. But no we have mess with guys. Garko started at catcher but played first then left field. Cabrera played second despite being the best shortstop on the roster for the last two and half years. Peralta should have moved to third years ago but no the brain trust had to wait until it was obvious to everyone else and therefore made Peralta make the change mid-year rather than do it the right way. DeRosa was played everywhere but where he played every day last season. LaPorta was a first baseman who was moved to the outfield then moved back to first base. Gimenez was a catcher who until recently played first and in the outfield. Lets just screw with young players so we can be flexible. I know it is not this simple but pick nine, show some balls and let them play.

I have also flipped-flopped on trading Lee and Martinez. I say do it. Some say if they do that they will lose the fan base. Well frankly, the fan base is already lost. And anyone who cries and screams will be back if the team starts to win. Lee has become a stud but he will be gone in 2011 so get value now. Martinez is great but he is not worth a contract extension. We overpaid for Hafner and now that contract is killing us. Resigning Martinez would end up being the same. Get a crap load of prospects. Get a manager who can work with kids. Let them play for their supper in 2010 and lets make a run in 2011 or 2012. I have no problem watching a young team scrap, fight and take their lumps. I just don't enjoy watching a team that never had a prime grind their way into fourth place. But at least they are flexible.

Summer update

2009-07-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

I don't really have anything new to say. The Indians still suck, don't look to improve anytime soon and yet I still miss watching them over the all-star break. The Cavs have signed some people and didn't sign others. It is not worth thinking about until October and then it won't matter until May anyway. I can't really get excited about the Browns but I do feel that tinge of optimism creeping up my spine. My head is doing its best to protect my heart and my liver but it can only do so much.

The fat lady is ready to belt one out

2009-07-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

June 14 seems like it was a long time ago. That was the night Cliff Lee almost pitched a no-hitter. The Indians had taken two of three from the Cards and the general feeling around town was things were starting to come together.

The Indians have won twice since then. Twice. And one of those wins was against the Pirates when the Tribe led 5-0 in the ninth and let it get to 5-4 with the bases loaded and full count before getting the win.

The season will continue on but all hope of meaningful games is lost. I have been ignoring the calls for Eric Wedge's head because well frankly it doesn't seem to be his fault. Listening to a mob never makes sense. But when the All-Star break rolls around it might be time to do a mercy killing. Let Wedge shuffle off before his stress gives him health problems. I know Wedge is not a quitter so the plug needs pulled for him. I don't blame Wedge for everything but for what needs to be done, he is not the right guy to do it. Wedge is too invested. A new interim manager is needed for what has to happen next.

The new manager should be Torey Lovuvollo or better yet if they could convince him Ellis Burks. Whoever it is, they should be told a simple truth. You are here to develop talent for the rest of the season. You are not going to be the manager next year. Forget about playing veterans because they are veterans. We need to see what the kids can or can't do. There is no reason to be hero and to try and manage a miracle. Show patience and encourage.

If you are going to waive the white flag and I don't see how you couldn't at this point, you have to completely surrender. By that I mean you can't still tinker and try different players at different spots to squeeze out wins. You take your lumps and let kids play.

For me that would be the end of Indians careers for Ryan Garko, Jamey Carroll, Jhonny Peralta, Ben Francisco and Kelly Shoppach for starters. All would be trade bait if you could move them. Outside of Peralta none of them have a future on this club past this year but I have tired of Peralta's act. I like Carroll but his type is a dime a dozen and if I can get value for him now I will. And even though he may be more productive than others, I need his at-bats for youngsters. I doubt anyone would be willing to trade for Pronk but I would listen.

From the Columbus the obvious is to call up Toregas to catch, LaPorta to play left and Brantley to play center field. I know LaPorta is back to being a first baseman. But I want to see if Toregas can handle a big league staff and I am shutting down Grady Sizemore for the rest of the year. There is no need for him to play with symptoms. Schedule his surgery for the day of the all-star game and get to healing. Martinez is the one guy I don't want to trade and I think his future is at first base. In the category I can't believe I am saying this call up Andy Marte and play him every day for four weeks. Maybe we will get lucky and he will find it or at least show enough promise to get value for him. Gimenez can backup the outfield spot and first base. Cabrera and Valbuena are penciled in as the double-play combo for the present and future. Shoo and Martinez are the leaders for the kids to follow. I dangle Cliff Lee but refuse to pull the trigger on a trade until I am overwhelmed. Lee can be valuable next season but I don't see him saying in 2011 so if some contending team wants to overpay I let them. But I am not giving him away.

No one wants to rebuild. But the only thing worse is refusing to acknowledge that a rebuild is needed. If you half-ass it, it just extends the losing. Right now I would rather watch kids try and fail then what the Indians are putting on the field. Give me a reason to hope for 2010 and beyond. Quit beating a dead horse.

If you want to make a change, you have to make a complete change.

In Danny I trust

2009-07-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

I try to stay out of the silly season. At this point I trust Danny Ferry knows more than me. I know Dan Gilbert is willing to spend whatever it takes. I think they will do the smart thing.

I love how Charlie V has become the fan favorite. I am not saying I don't want him. I am just not sure he is the right guy at the right price for the right time. If signing him long term hurts us in the future to stay competitive than don't sign him. The kid has talent, I am just not sure he has championship makeup. He might be a get the money and shut it down type of guy. Look at Charles Boozer, he took the money from the Utah and then has acted like a baby ever since. Charlie has been a head case in Milwaukee. He tweets, he loses his cool in the wrong moment and he wasn't afraid to burn bridges.

If you want to put all your eggs in next year, I am OK with that if we win. I would almost prefer one year contracts for LeBron's last contract year. Keep flexible for the future. Basketball will be played in 2010 and beyond. If the Cavs do sign Charlie V, I will accept it is because Ferry did his homework. If we don't then it will be because Charlie wants cash not championships and I am OK with him elsewhere in that case.

But I know the fans will cry bloody murder if the Cavs don't sign him. And frankly I could care less what the rest of the fans think at this point.

Ramblings

2009-06-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

Now snob isn't a word I would use to describe myself, but I guess who in their right mind would? Elitist has even worse connotations to me. I certainly don't consider myself better or superior than other people.

Yet I am finding harder and harder to sit in a room and listen to other people talk sports. I read sports forums out of boredom and learned a long time ago not to respond to idiotic responses or takes. Jim Rome has helped ruin sports. People can't discuss sports anymore. Everyone has to have a take and bring it hard. Around the Horn is speeding up the demise. There are idiots out there that think that show is news and Gospel. This attitude has creeped down to local hosts so where guys that seemed normal like Michael Reghi now just scream into mike. I can turn off the TV, the Internet and the radio. But unless I hide in my cave, it is hard to turn off loud people in public.

Thursday my power went out. It was too dark to read so I ventured out into the world. The first bar had a guy who bet a week's pay that in the Cavs first 15 games next season, Z would start more games then Shaq because "We wouldn't do that to Z."

Now that guy was mostly harmless. I could deal with that guy. But the crowd in my regular bar wasn't the regular crowd. I could take only so many Michael Jackson jokes* and talk of the Big Walleye coming off the bench.

*With my Internet out, I got a text that said "Mike Jackson died." Instantly I was crushed thinking that the former Indians relief pitcher died. I really liked that guy so I wrote back, "The relief pitcher?" And was promptly called an idiot and told that it was Michael Jackson who died. And my next thought was the Browns receiver? Seriously it never occurred to me to consider the singer.

So I moved to another bar. I sat in the middle. To my right where two older gentlemen watching the final innings of the Tribe game. To my left and down a couple of seats were four younger guys who obviously couldn't hold their liquor. They were also watching the game but also were talking about the draft.

Now the sound was off but so was the jukebox. There was no hiding from their conversation. Or to be more accurate - a series of shrieking yells.

I will spare you the details. But after a half hour of nonsense and whining. The Indians lost the game. And the reason the Indians lost the game was clearly Eric Wedge's fault. See after the Pirates stole third, Wedge had to walk the batter. HE HAD TO LOADED THE BASES FOR THE FORCE.

This one guy started screaming that Wedge had to be fired on the spot. Everyone knows you walk the hitter to load the bases with one out so you can get a force.

I should have stayed out of it. I had nothing to gain. But he was so loud and he was saying this after the fact. He didn't say it right when the steal happened. And his buddies were just slurping it up. And did I mention he was so loud. In a bar with just seven guys and a bartender. It should not be that loud.

So I said, "Sir do you know what the count was?"
And he said, "What?"
"Do you know what the count was?"
And his friend said it was "1-2"
"You wanted to intentionally walk a guy you were ahead in the count of."
"No I wanted to walk him before the first pitch?"
"When their were runners on just second and first."
"No they stole third?"
"In the middle of the at bat."
"Ohhhhhhhhhhh"

Now my logic wasn't completely sound. And I don't even know it was 1-2 or 1-1. But I spoke calmly and it was enough to shut up them for a little while. And the old guy sitting next me nodded thanks and we started discussing sports. It was calm. It was friendly. It was nice. We talked about how Shaq would fit in. We talked about how the kid from Italy was really from Compton. We talked about Minnesota drafting every point guard they could find.

Meanwhile the guys on the other end were rallying. They were screaming about how the Cavs had to draft one of the Pitt guys. Notice they didn't say which one. They had no clues what their names were. But Jay Bilas or someone said they were good so they had to be the pick. The older guy asked me who I wanted and I told him, "Honestly I think Danny Ferry has researched this more than me. I will trust him."

And when the pick was announced as Christian Eyenga from the Congo, the guys at the other end of the bar, just like all the callers on the radio and all the posters on the Internet went nuts. Ferry is an idiot. Ferry should be fired. Every Cleveland GM and Coach sucks.

Seriously. Ferry trades for Shaq in the morning without giving up anything useful and now he is an idiot who needs to be fired. What because you have heard of these other guys they must be better? It is like the NFL draft and the fans wanting Rey Maualuga. Not only did the Browns trade down time after time but every other team passed on him too. And who took him the Bengals which would be the one team these same fans would claim are dumber than the Browns.

Whoever the Cavs took at 30 wasn't getting major minutes this season. And whatever minutes he got would be gone in the playoffs. Just look at our two rookie posts from this past season. Eyenga may never play but I like the risk. Why waste a pick on the bench when the plan is to sign veteran help to boost the bench. Ferry now has several guys stashed in Europe and if one of them turns into a player, it will look genius. Ferry was with the Spurs and no one has been better at getting foreign players. I will trust him.

I hear people talk about slots. How you can't take a 60 rated guy in the 30th spot. Why not? You know your needs. Why take the 30th ranked guy by ESPN when you have found a guy you like and think will work. If it doesn't work you will get fired but you are going to get fired some day anyway. You might as well trust your gut instead of the crowd. Plus if these draft experts were that smart, they would be GMs and not draft experts.

Tonight the Indians traded Mark DeRosa. The uninformed saw we got a relief pitcher with a high ERA. Oh the naughty words they sprayed over the web. F Dolan. F Shapiro. F Wedge. F Cleveland.

I know this town loves guys that are traded. In April, they were going nuts about sending three pitching prospects for a guy (DeRosa) who can't hit or field. Now they are moaning about trading one of our only good hitters who can play anywhere in the field. All these people who wrote off the Indians last week are now complaining we are waving the white flag.

Um Shapiro just turned around a guy, who is a free agent after the season and was had for minor prospects, for a live arm that at the start of season was the Cards third rated prospect and possible closer in waiting plus another player to be named later that Shapiro said was a significant part of the deal.

Does the trade make the last place Indians worse right now? Yes but it makes great sense for the future. And you may not have heard but there will be a next year.

Not everything Ferry or Shapiro have done has worked. You can question a lot of their moves. But you can't argue that they don't work their asses off. Ferry blew up his team two years ago and it made the Cavs real contenders. He saw it wasn't working and tried something else. Shaq may not work but Ferry is doing what ever he can. It is harder to believe in Shapiro. But I have agreed with most of his moves. They haven't worked. I don't know why Sizemore hasn't become a super star. I don't know why Peralta forgets how to hit sometimes. I don't know why every relief pitcher he signs starting walking everyone and every veteran bat he signs stops hitting. It is getting harder to blame that all on bad luck. But Shapiro has made some great trades. I trust him on trades.

I don't know why I bothered to write all this. Why I continue to post. But it has to be healthier than going to a bar where people don't know you and screaming YOU SUCK at the TV.

Shaq comes to Cleveland

2009-06-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

Processing this Shaq deal has been tough. I have lots of mixed emotions. But I guess it boils down to this: Danny Ferry just got a Hall of Fame center for nothing.

We can talk about everything else later. But today the Cavs got a big man who can bang for Ben Wallace - who is retiring, Sasha - who the Suns cut and a second round pick that wasn't going to get in the rotation any way.

Now I know the first thought is too little too late. If only the Cavs had made this trade in February, we might be hoisting a banner. Maybe but that deal would have cost a lot more. Yes the Cavs may have over estimated family values back in February but Ferry learned a valuable lesson. Today he upgraded his roster and he did it without sacrificing any talent.

I understand Shaq is no longer the player he was but if LeBron can make Andy Varejao look good what will he do for Shaq. LeBron will find the Big Man the ball. This move also helps Z. Both Shaq and Z can play less minutes in the regular season saving their old bones for the playoffs.

This move does other thing as well. The Cavs tried the "we are family approach" last year. We heard how much everyone loved each but the truth was they didn't get it done. I expect a more mercenary approach this season. Rasheed Wallace, a man Cavs fans love to hate, will be the next big name to join the Wine and Gold. This team next season will not feel like a Cleveland team. It has been weird enough to have one superstar like LeBron, next season I expect will be like a year long Rock tour. There will be bright lights non stop. Having Shaq around I think will also help with the New York media spreading the LeBron is leaving rumors. Shaq will lighten the mood. This past season the Cavs never felt pressure until Orlando. It was a feel good story that hit a brick wall. Next season the pressure will be overwhelming from game one. The just one goal motto has real meaning now. Come next spring, I expect the Cavs to be a completely different team mentally.

Whether LeBron stays or goes, no one in Cleveland can control that. Danny Ferry is at least being pro-active. He is not standing pat. He is not going to just give it the old college try. He is showing LeBron I will do whatever I can go to give you the pieces to win. Shaq is here for one year. He is here to one-up Kobe, get one more ring and ride out into the sunset. After next season, if LeBron stays. Shaq's expiring contract can be turned into another big man in free agency.

But we have months to mash this all out. Bottom line is Danny Ferry got Shaq for nothing. That can't be bad.

Why I will never listen to Bob Frantz again

2009-06-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

So this post is something completely different than it was supposed to be. It is late and I am sure I have more mistakes than usual in this post. I took a road trip with my father today. We drove to Pittsburgh and got there before the gates opened. We enjoyed the waterfront, we enjoyed batting practice, we even enjoyed the people who sat around us. We sat three rows from the field in the left field bleachers. It was almost a perfect day.

Then the ninth inning happened. I cannot and will not describe what happened. You can find that elsewhere. The important part is the ninth started with the Indians ahead 5-0. One Pirate fan all game kept telling everyone who would listen, "No worries. The Indians have to pitch in the ninth. Everything will be alright." He started saying this in the third inning.

Fast forward to its 5-4, the bases are loaded and it is a full count. I have to fast forward there because I was this close to falling into the fetal position and checking out mentally. This was the quietest crowd I had ever seen. Even as the ninth progressed. They never got that excited. I knew what was happening and they didn't seem to figure it out until the near end. They didn't even stand up until the bases were loaded. But those moments were almost too much for me. I thought this is what hell has to feel like. I wanted to be anywhere else. I was dreading the walk to the car. I was in that city at Peter's Pub when the Browns choked away the game in 2007 and that walk through those people for several blocks was the longest of my life.

But the Pirate batter who had earlier in the inning dumped one in the river popped up and the Indians won. Even when we win it feels like a loss.

So we get in the truck and head for home. I turn on WTAM. Now I have for the most part stopped listening to sports talk radio. It is too frustrating to me. I don't really care for any of the hosts or just about any of the callers. Now I used to listen to Extra Innings. I didn't always agree with Kevin Keane but I could accept him. Now every time I have ever heard Bob Frantz whether it be in the mid mornings or for Browns pregame or the handful times on Extra Innings, I didn't really care for him. He seems like a guy who knows a little about a lot of things, maybe just enough to be dangerous. But he doesn't seem like he knows a lot about any one thing. Now while I didn't always line up with Keane, he seemed to be to be a guy who couldn't believe he was being paid to talk about sports while Frantz is a guy who is paid to talk about sports. The difference to me is huge. It is why I love Tom Hamilton --mistakes and all-- and despise Joe Buck. Whether Tommy is talking Tribe or calling Big Ten basketball -- he is loving it. The man likes sports. Joe Buck was born into a family business. He doesn't even like sports that much. His call of the David Tyree Super Bowl catch is the perfect example. Could you imagine if Hamilton got to make that call? I don't know how many times at a game when something cool happens my brother has said to me "Tommy is going nuts right now."

So Frantz is not someone I listen to a lot. But there I was trapped in traffic trying to get out of enemy territory. And he starts using Hamilton's words out of content. Frantz wants to blame Eric Wedge. I don't agree but hey he gets paid to have an opinion. He rants and raves about Huff not pitching the ninth. Personally I was surprised Wedge sent Huff out for the eighth. Huff was already over 100 pitches after seven. And with the way our organization and 28 others are now babying pitchers especially rookie pitchers -- I said to my dad, "This is a guy managing for his job." I knew there was no way Huff would pitch the ninth. Now I know that pisses Bob Feller off but the game has changed. That was organizational policy -- it may be bullshit -- but it is the way things go now. If Wedge had sent Huff out you know the Internet would attack him. How dare you test a rookie arm for the sake of your job? To me Wedge sending Huff out for the eighth was a huge sign of his distrust in the bullpen. And I would bet if the lead was 2-0, Wedge may have said screw it and sent the kid out there. But up 5-0 despite the hellish season our pen has had, you have to trust them. It is their job. And when Herges failed, Wedge had to send in Wood. That is Wood's job. He gets paid a lot of money. He has pitched awful but you have to hand your closer the ball. While everyone else has given up on this team, Wedge has to believe. He has to send out guys to do their jobs until they pry the job from his cold dead hands. Wedge is a baseball guy. He may not be a good manager. But even with everything failing around him, he has to believe in what he believes in. You can't change styles or your rules to pacify an angry mob. If you listen to sports columnists, bloggers or radio show hosts you are going to get fired anyway. You might as well stick to your guns and get fired doing what you believe in.

Now I raised my eyebrows when Frantz went off how I couldn't believe his eyes when Herges walked out. Oh Frantz was foaming at the mouth. Now Frantz gets paid to talk about the game afterwards. Did he not notice we pinched hit for Huff in the top of the inning? So he was either taking creative license just to make a point or he wasn't paying attention. Neither is good. Anyway Frantz went on and on. For him keeping in Huff was a no brainer. For me Wedge did what any other manager in 2009 would have done. This is not the 70s.

But then Frantz crossed a line. He said he screamed himself hoarse cheering for the Pirates because the Indians did not deserve to win the game.

Now I understand getting mad. I understand turning off games and not watching anymore. I can accept someone saying I am not spending my money or my time on this team anymore. But never once has it occurred to me to cheer against a Cleveland team. You want to give up? You want to move on? OK, fine. But to turn on them because you didn't like a move? To openly root for Pittsburgh. No that is not OK.

I waited a moment for him to calm down. But he repeated it. He screamed until he was hoarse wanting us to lose. And I clicked off the radio.

Bob Frantz is done for me. Anytime I turn on WTAM and I hear his voice I will turn off the station. I am not saying this in anger. I am not saying this as a threat. Bob Frantz is not someone I want to know. Whether he was saying it because he thought it made good radio or he said it because he lacks character or he even thinks he is right, it doesn't really matter to me. Whether I agreed with Keane or not, I knew he was a fan. I believed Keane's passion. I think Frantz is full of crap. You don't have to be sports fan to work in sports radio. I get that. Frantz has the right to have any job he can get. If WTAM wants to hire him for Extra Innings may they do so forever. I won't protest. I won't tell others not to listen. But when I hear his voice, I will turn off the radio. Bob Frantz is allowed to have an opinion but I don't want to hear it. What he thinks is meaningless to me.

When the Indians game is over, for me personally, I want a Cleveland guy on the air. I don't have to agree with him. I don't even have to like him. But I want a Cleveland guy. A Cleveland guy might get pissed, he might want to fire everyone, he may threaten to quit watching. But a Cleveland guy never ever screams himself hoarse hoping a Cleveland team loses to a team from Pittsburgh. EVER.

You don't get a second chance for that.

Go Tribe!

2009-06-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

The Tribe has lost six in a row. Message boards are overflowing with calls for the heads of Eric Wedge and Mark Shapiro. The bandwagon is nearly empty. The season has been declared lost. And it seems like anyone with Internet connection has declared themselves done with the team until the manager is fired, the general manager is fired or the owners sell the team.

And yet at as 7 p.m. rolled around I found myself missing the fact there was no game. There is something about baseball that the other sports miss. There are only 16 Browns games. So each contest is the end all be all. You get full of passion and find yourself ready to hit something. After each game you find yourself exhausted filled with either anger or joy depending on how the game ended. For the Cavs you never know when they are going to play. The schedule makes no sense. There is no rhyme or reason. There is no flow. And the whole regular season is nothing but one long rehearsal. Eight teams in each conference get in and then play those long series that make the regular season almost irrelevant.

But baseball is almost every day. Yesterday is forgotten quickly as momentum is today's starting pitcher. I won't say that I accept losing but over the years I have had a lot of practice at it. Losing doesn't bother me as much in baseball than in the other sports. Football really sucks when your team sucks. The last half of the Browns season last year was torture. And regular season NBA can be a joke. Teams mail it in all the team. But since baseball can be such an individual sport, each game starts fresh and anything can happen. Maybe today there will be no-hitter, a triple play or a straight steal of home. Even at their worst the Indians still won 57 games and usually at least twenty more.

The Indians had three winning records during my childhood. They were 81-78 when I was three, 81-80 when I was six and 84-78 in that magical summer was I was 13 before I believed in curses. But I loved them. I loved listening to Herb Score on the radio and Joe Tait or Jack Corrigan on TV. When I got to go to a game I loved how green the grass was and the sounds of the wooden chairs I got to bang when there was rally. I love the sound of the ball hitting the bat and the thrill that a foul ball might come my way. I like to cheer the good guys and boo the bad guys. Whether I am drawing out Juuuuuuuuuuuuuulioooooooo or Choooooooooooooooo, I smile every time.

Sure I want to shoot the bullpen. I want strangle Garko or Peralta when they do something dumb. I get irritated by the stupidness of a grown man in a Ketchup costume or clueless fans that never shut up during a game. I want to win, believe me I want to win so bad that I get tears every time I watch the end of Major League.

But I love baseball. And I like watching it every day even if I know mostly likely at the end they are going to frustrate the hell out of me. Maybe these feelings are drawn out by the anger out pouring from all corners this week from all the people that jumped back on board after Lee's almost no-hitter. I have an everyday relationship with this team. I get you don't. I understand you are mad. I feel a little mad too.

So if you want to turn off the Tribe go ahead. If it ever gets better, I am sure you will be back. If you want to put Shapiro on your dart board in the privacy of your own home, go ahead. If you want to go to bars, get drunk and tell everyone how dumb Eric Wedge is after every play because you played the game and you know-- go ahead -- just stay at the other end away from me. But these gasps of organized revolt that want the fans to rise up and force to Dolans to act or sell because the people of Cleveland deserve better, just go away. Concentrate on taking care of your family. Put your energy into saving your neighborhood.

It is a game and a distraction. And I wish there was one on right now.

Snatching defeat from victory

2009-06-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

When I left for my cousin's wedding yesterday, the Indians were ahead 7-2. Woke up to discover they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Watching the game today was like a slow burn to what seemed like inevitable result. It just seemed predestined to have Wood wander off the field in defeat.

The week began with a little bandwagon jumping. People kept telling me that things were starting to come together. "The Indians are going to win this, I can feel it."

Less than 24 hours later, the bodies started to hit the floor. After Monday's loss, the calls for Eric Wedge's head got louder and louder. And after today's defeat those same people who believed a division winner was likely told me they were done with the Tribe.

Sure the Tribe dropped five games this week -- five games that could have easily been wins. But the Indians haven't changed at all. They are still the same team. The bullpen is full of guys other teams didn't want. Injuries have forced guys into the lineup who should not be in the major leagues. Games out of first place don't mean much if you are double digits under .500. The Indians are what they are.

Not that there are not silver linings. DeRosa, Martinez and Choo are the real deal. I love this Luis Valbuena kid. Sparring injuries, the Indians should be set up the middle for years to come between Valbuena and Cabrera.

I personally don't see the point of firing Eric Wedge. I don't see how it would improve the bullpen. Putting Joel Skinner in charge changes nothing. The only reason to fire Wedge would be to waive the white flag. You would bring up Torey Lovullo to manage and lets the kids play out the string. That would mean trading DeRosa, Carroll and Shoppach. And trying to trade or just dumping Peralta, Francisco and Garko. That would mean letting Michael Brantley, Matt LaPorta, Valbuena and either Wyatt Toregas or Carlos Santanna play every day and take their lumps.

You don't fire Wedge in order to make a run. The Indians have not played well but I don't buy it is because Wedge has lost the clubhouse. A new manager is not going to make our bullpen throw strikes or magically improve the baseball IQ of Peralta and Garko. If you want to make a statement and shake things up -- then fire one of those two players. It would make just as much sense.

The sad and ugly truth is the Indians are what they are -- a very flawed baseball team in a very flawed division. They were this way last Sunday and they are this way today.

Tempting fate

2009-06-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

So the last two weeks I haven't watched much ESPN. You never know when they might start talking about an NBA final that I have no interest in. I have been getting my baseball news from MLB network.

Baseball is such a long season, it seems a little redundant to write something about every game. If the Indians are to climb out of it and get into a division pennant chase, it will be a slow build.

Tonight I went to the game at the Jake. It was my first night game of the season although the home opener did end around midnight. My last three games were all noon weekday starts and because of that there was no batting practice.

I have soft spot for batting practice. Watching towering shots. Watching kids scatter after them. The constant crack of the bat. The sense that anything can happen tonight.

When I was a kid, the Indians never had any chance of making the playoffs. But for any one game anything could happen. The Tribe could win. Someone could hit three or even four home runs. A triple play was possible, an inside the park home run or even a no hitter.

At every game I have ever attended, I have been aware there was a no hitter going until it wasn't. Sometimes the dream ended after just one pitch. But the dream was always there.

The Indians last no-hitter of course was a perfect game from Lenny Barker in May 1981. Unlike the 100,000 Clevelanders who claim to have attended the game, I missed it. In fact I didn't even watch the game. Even since I was a young child I have listened to or watched 98 percent of all Indians game I have been in town for. But I missed the perfect game because my mother and my sister wanted to watch the Gilligan Island reunion movie. I know the Globetrotters were in the movie and I will never forget when the bottom line scroll typed out -- Cleveland Indians pitcher Len Barker has just pitched a perfect game. I screamed. Even at eight year old, I knew my life would be defined by what I missed.

Now I have seen in person a no hitter. Well I watched most of it. In high school I worked as a vendor at Cleveland Stadium. And one game I noticed early what was happening and it was a slow business day so I quit early and found a seat. So I witnessed Dave Stieb of the Toronto Blue Jays finish off his no hitter against the Tribe.

But I have always yearned for one for the good guys.

The start of the game was right out of a Hitchcock movie. Dude those gulls are scary. I watched seats to my right, to my left and right in front of me all accept bird protein. I have never in my life wanted the National Anthem to start and finish. I needed a firework and fast. Those birds were fearless before the game. You had to keep a hand on your beer at all times. I get the birds weren't on the field yet but the Indians need to protect the fans before the game as well.

And then the game started. I had a feeling before the game but like I said I have had a feeling before every game. But I went to this game specifically because of the pitching match-up. And this time that feeling built and built some more.

My friend asked me if I was aware in third and I told him to shut up. Of course I was aware. Dude, Cliff Lee was dealing. He was getting ahead. He was being efficient. The game flew by and the chance got very real.

I handled myself well. I resisted calling my brother. I stayed calm. One batter at a time. When Choo made that nice catch to end the seventh. I believed it was going to happen.

And then I looked to the giant scoreboard and like always they had some game for some random guy pulled from the stands. This time it was a trivia question. And the woman wearing some kind of 80s costume and wig asked this dude, "Who was the last Indians pitcher to throw a perfect game?"

And my jaw dropped. You could hear guys scattered across the park mumbling, "Whythehellwouldtheytemptfateandaskthatquestionwhentheycouldaskanyotherquestion?"

I asked my buddy if he thought they picked that question at random before the game because it was an 80s weekend. He was frustrated and answered, "Does it matter? Cliff Lee had to hear that?"

And sure enough the next batter leading off the top of the eight was a weak hitting catcher who promptly ripped one down the line for a double.

I have lived here long enough to know the Cleveland Curse is just in my head. But it is also in the head of every Clevelander who pays attention to sports. Why do we feel the need to tempt fate?

Before the NBA finals, Joe Posnanski -- who is a native Clevelander and most likely the best sports columnist alive-- wrote an Sports Illustrated cover story about the Cavs. Now Joe is a great writer but this column was a gimmie. He just wrote what we have all lived. He made our story accessible for everyone else. Now Joe is a true talent but thousands of us could have written that column. And many of us have. But at the end of the story he tempted fate. He did not have to but he did. He acknowledged some people may believe in curses then he asked in his story for this to be on the cover. He has taken some abuse for the aftermath. It has also allowed people from across the country to rag on Clevelanders because some of us were stupid enough to blame Joe.

Well Joe asked for it. Sure there is no curse. But everyone knows if you taunt a curse -real or not-- and your team fails you accept the ribbings of your buddies. My only problem with Joe is I felt like this is a personal thing for us Clevelanders and he talked out of school. Which is his job of course. But when you spit in the wind, you can't get upset when it lands on you. And you certainly don't tell the whole world hey spit landed on me and play the victim.

So did the scoreboard ruin Cliff Lee's no hitter tonight? Of course not. That is completely irrational. Cliff hung a pitch and well compensated professional hitter ripped it.

But for the love of God, QUIT TEMPTING FATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other words, words are just words. Sticks and bones break bones but words can never hurt you. But at the same time there is no reason to be a dick. There are times to talk and there are times to keep your mouth shut.

In my lifetime that other city now has 10 titles. I have none. The reasons for this are varied and well-documented. But at the same time I can only handle what I can handle. My psyche is fragile. There is no reason ever to taunt fate. Curse or no curse.

But the good news is the Tribe plays again tomorrow and you never know. In the week before Barker's perfect game, Burt Blyleven lost a no hitter late. The beauty of baseball is you never know what might happen that game. There is always a chance for history.

If you watch it they will ...

2009-06-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

So today I decided to try something old. Instead of watching the Indians game, I went on the deck and turned on the radio. There I listened to Tom Hamilton while I read a book.

It was cool. I enjoyed it but then my toes got a little cold. But I also had a nagging feeling. The score was 2-0 as the sixth started and that voice in my brain said, "Go inside, turn on the TV and the tide will turn."

I didn't listen. Tommy said the ump blew a call at third and Kansas City knocked in two more runs. I gave in to the voice and went inside.

Sure enough before I could even warm up the recliner, the Tribe scored four times to tie the game. And in the next inning DeRosa hit a salami. Tribe wins 8-4.

And I can never go outside ever again.

Back from the dead

2009-06-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

So on my Friday my acer laptop which was two years and one month old blew up. Dead dead and not just mostly dead. So I joined the revolution and bought my first mac.

So I didn't get to post after Saturday's game. Strangely I was the least disappointed person in the bar. I tended to be older than most in attendance so I had lived through much worse. They missed Red Right 88, only saw The Shot in a Nike ad, were in diapers or barely potty trained for The Drive and The Fumble and still in junior high for Joe Table. Their pain is mostly of the Browns and the Indians choke jobs in 2005 and 2007. Another advantage I had over most at this bar was that I actually watched Cavs games during the season. They knew we had won a lot of games but didn't understand how we won those games. Match-ups meant nothing to them. They just knew we had more wins and LeBron. So if we lost we must have choked.

I am not going to defend Mike Brown. I don't understand why he played who he did and when he did. But I wasn't in that locker room. I would hope he had information they didn't have.

I know my agenda is different than most in this town. I just want one. I just need one. Which ever of the Browns, Indians or Cavs gives it to me first will change my sports fandom forever. I will leave obsessive compulsive of watching every minute of every game and dial down from a 10 to a three or a four. So if losing in six to the Magic gets me closer to that one ring I take solace in that. The Magic were better than we were. You can't color it any other way. They out played the Cavs. You tip your hat.

I am of the belief that winning a title would make it easier for LeBron to leave. And if he wins that one title and he wants to play in New York, I will drive him myself to the Big Apple and shake his hand. The kid gave all he had against the Magic and it wasn't enough. My bet is that this summer he will find another level. He will enter the gym earlier. He will stay later. He will push his teammates harder. He will care less about being a family and become more like Mike and find ways to will better play from his teammates. He will push for better players to join him. Regardless of whether he extends this summer, LeBron will be playing for a title next season. If he doesn't get one here, he knows history will look poorly on him. He knows this. He can't be what he wants if he never wins a title in Cleveland.

If the Cavs had advanced I am not convinced they could have beaten the Lakers. Our front line got old fast in the playoffs. Our small guards got smaller in the playoffs. If having the Cavs lose in six to the Magic makes us better for next year, I am all for it. I have waited 36 years, one more won't kill me.

But man does it suck.

Another post

2009-05-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

So last November, I bought six tickets for Jeff Dunham at $50 a pop. The dude cracks me up. It wasn't until the playoffs started that I realized I could have a conflict. And sure enough when the NBA released the schedule for Eastern Conference Championship series there was game five at the same time.

I mean I spent $250 on these tickets. What do I do? The show was scheduled to start at 7:30pm and the game not until 8:30pm so I thought maybe it won't be so bad. But of course it didn't start until 7:45pm and then it was just a warm-up act which was followed by a 15 minute intermission. How can you have an intermission before the show even starts?

I checked the score on my cell and the Cavs were up 22. Nice! I felt a lot better. I checked again and it was 1-point game at the half. I did not feel very good. The show which was a ton of fun ended and we were down eight. I felt sick.

Got to the car and Joe Tait was there to calm me down. We got home just in time to see Boobie hit a three near the end of the third quarter.

I have no words for LeBron James. What he does and the way he goes about doing it is beyond my comprehension. There has to be an easier way but you can't argue with his results. He once again put the team and by extension the city on his shoulders.

One hurdle down. A bigger hurdle awaits on Saturday. With LeBron on our side, I like our chances.

It hit the rim

2009-05-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

What are you going to do?

Cry. Throw things. Kick the dog. Talk about curses. Give up and go home.

Or show up on Thursday. Play hard and see what happens. The Cavs need to win three in a row.

Sure this could have easily been a sweep. But a few things here and there then the Cavs are up 3-1. But the fact is the Magic have been better. They are up 3-1. They made 17 threes tonight.

I am not going to complain about any player or any call. The Cavs can quit or the Cavs try to become the ninth out of 188 teams to come back from a 3-1.

If the Cavs can defend homecourt, they could win a game six at Orlando and then come back home.

Forget the facts. Got no other choice.

Not sure this can be titled

2009-05-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

I am not a rational sports fan. In fact I know my relationship with sports is very unhealthy. I am an addict. I can't walk away. I understand that most people can causally watch sports. They can take joy in playoff win without watching every regular season game. They can get to the ballpark in the third inning and leave in the eighth no matter what the score is.

A few years ago I was in San Francisco on the second to last day of the regular season. Both the Giants and A's were in the playoff chase and faced must wins. My cousin and I watched both games in a sports bar. Both teams lost in Cleveland-like fashion. The Giants blew a huge lead to their arch-rivals in the ninth. The A's also lost late.

But when we left the sports bar and wandered into downtown San Francisco. No one had any idea. Their was no gloom or doom. People had too many other interests to be devastated. The next day we went to see the Browns-49ers play. And as we traveled to the game on public transportation there was no sign that there was even an NFL game scheduled. When we got there the 49er fans were polite and nice to us. The Browns played horrible but won the game late with a bunch of field goals. 49er fan didn't fight. They didn't smash things. They went home and did whatever they do on a Sunday.

And frankly I was jealous.

I watched the Cavs game alone last night. Plans fell through and I just had a sense of doom. And as the game went on, it just seemed like the Magic were the better team. I thought if we lose this series, someone will try to name it. But there will be no name. The Magic are just playing better. They look like the more complete team. The series may have started with the Cavs as the favorites but the games have clearly showed the Magic are in control.

So I started watching the Indians game with my dad today. It was 7-0 and we decided to give up and watch the Breaking Bad episode that was saved on the DVR. When it ended the score was 10-2. My mom wanted to watch Bride Wars. It was hard to argue that a 10-2 game played by a last place team was important so put the movie in.

As the end credits started, I asked my mom if she thought the Indians had made a remarkable comeback. And in her ever positive manner she said yes. The game returned just as Martinez took a called strike two that was way out of the zone.

I gasped. My mom now in the other room said well what is the score. It was 10-9. Bases loaded. Two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth.

I said aloud, "I turned it back on too soon."

I felt like I had been kicked in the liver. Not the reaction most people would have. Instead of amazement, instead of joy. I thought I just jinxed them.

My thoughts told me that if Victor Martinez would strike out, I could never watch an Indians game ever again. I know that makes no sense. I know that way of thinking is insane. But in that moment I was convinced if I had just let the full credits roll, the Indians would have won. But now I had returned-- I who had quit on them and watched some stupid movie about brides instead-- I would ruin their moment.

Victor fouled off the next pitch. I felt sick to my stomach. I just knew bad was about to happen. And then Victor singled up the middle and the Indians won the game. We hit rewind on the remote and watched the entire comeback.

I felt not joy but relief. That lasted about a minute before I started thinking well maybe things can be different. Maybe this is the spark they needed. Forget the starting pitcher couldn't through strikes. Forget they are 10 games below .500. Forget how painful this season has been. Maybe they can get back into this thing.

Again completely illogical.

A few minutes later. I started thinking about how maybe LeBron can find a way to beat the Magic. The sense of dreading tomorrow's game four started to drift away. Maybe LeBron is so good, he can alter history.

And somewhere else, someone else will open their paper tomorrow and say, "Hey the Indians won last night-- nice!" Then go to work where they will see someone wearing a Cavs shirt and say, "So when do they play next?"

And when they get the answer they will reply, "It would be so nice if they won, don't you think?"

Yes it would.

Magic were better

2009-05-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

All season long, the Cavs have spoken about being a family. They hang out together outside the games. They laugh with each other. They love each other.

We will see just how true that this. Because right now Charles Barkley was right and I was wrong. The Orlando Magic are the better team. It is hard to even be upset because there was no time during that game where I believed the Cavs deserved to win. Maybe LeBron had a chance to steal it but Magic were just better. Two of Orlando's best players in Lewis and Turkoglu didn't even play well and the Magic controlled the game. Orlando believes they are the better team and right now you can really argue otherwise.

LeBron saved his teammates in game two. He is the best basketball player in the world but I can't see him winning three more games by himself.

The Cavs as a family have to look at themselves in the mirror and step up. Brown has no faith in his bench. Williams and Z are hitting the shots they have to hit. The team is just standing there waiting for James to save them. You can't win that way.

Most disturbing is how tight they are playing in the fourth quarters of these games. Brown seems lost at what he wants. The players seem to be in a panic. There is no calm. There is no joy.
They are in trouble.

Lets hope that trust they claim in have in each other is true. And that it is enough to alter what appears to be a very short series.

what

2009-05-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

i have nothing
there is nothing in my history
to prepare me for tonight

my whole life has been about accepting failure

i cannot for the life of me comprehend what happened
my brain cannot process

a mircale happened
and it makes no sense to me

we lost
then we won

what the fuck was that

i huged mancini
then mcnally
then keith

i got nothing
ureal

Oh no!

2009-05-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

You try to hide your neuroses. You tell yourself that this time it will be different. That the SI cover means nothing. That the rust doesn't matter. You tell yourself that the past is irrelevant. All those little catch phrases of defeat are just empty words. You tell yourself that LeBron and the Cavs are for real. You allow yourself to trust. You replace hope with faith.

And then that happens.

Sure it is only one game. It takes four to win. But the first half went so well. And then the second half was nightmare. The Cavs quit playing defense. The bench was useless. The offense reverted to 2007. It was LeBron and four men watching.

And yet the game was still there to be won in the final seconds. But they lost. LeBron had 49 points and they lost. LeBron's 49 was part of the problem. He did it all himself. The offense was just him at the top of the key. While everyone else just waited. Not good.

The worst case scenario happened. The Cavs lost home court and now that pressure --the pressure of an entire city and its 45 years of built up stress in now directly on the Cavs shoulders.

Is all lost? No. But man has it gotten a lot harder.

Boston lays down

2009-05-17T19:34:00.001-07:00

What a sad way to die. Boston coach Doc Rivers waived the white flag with 2:30 left in the fourth quarter. Most of his players quit much earlier. A Boston apologist might argue they ran out of gas. Their injuries and old legs went as far they could. I think Boston knew they couldn't beat the Cavs, knew they would be embarrassed and when they need to reach deep in this game seven, they quit. All the banners and all the ghosts weren't enough to muster any more fight. They took their title from last year and went home. They lost a game seven at home to an unworthy and flawed Orlando team. They broke down before taking on the team poised to take their crown. Just like a bully.

I wanted Boston. I make no bones about that. I wanted a chance to slap them around. I get that Garnett and Powe being hurt took some of the challenge away. But this team still had all stars in Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. They had pieces. I feel a little cheated.

Orlando may prove worthy. Maybe I am wrong about their coaching. Maybe I am wrong about their style of play. I know Orlando can blow out the Cavs in any one game. And that could very feel happen in game one. The long layoff hurts the Cavs more against Orlando then Boston. The Magic are young and they aren't tired. The long wait could add rust to the Cavs. That rust would have flew right off against Boston. The rivalry would have seen to that. But even if the Magic win game one but I just don't see them draining a high percentage of threes four times in seven games. And that is what it will take for them to beat the Cavs. It is the Eastern Conference finals but maybe LeBron has a letdown because it is not Boston. Maybe he feels cheated too like I do.

Hate makes playoff series more fun. I hate Boston. I hate their players. I hate their fans. How can you hate Orlando?

Guess I will find a way.

Indians blow 7-0 lead and I do what?

2009-05-16T09:49:00.001-07:00

As I watched the ball sail over the fence completing an Indians choke of a 7-0 fourth inning lead, there was no anger. I didn't throw anything. I didn't swear. I didn't demand the firing of anyone. I just switched the channel and moved on.

At the bar on Thursday night, someone who doesn't follow sports asked me how the Indians were doing. I told him they were dangerous. They were dangerous because they conveyed hope. Despite having the worst record in the American League, they were only a handful games out of first place. So no matter how bad they looked, there was still the semblance of hope. So my friend says so even if they won the division, it would be one and out in the playoffs. I told him no and that is why they are dangerous. They can hit. And in the playoffs you only need three good starters. We have a Cy Young, a kid who two years ago was second in the Cy Young voting and soon Jake Westbrook will return from injury. By September on paper, we could have three strong starters. We have a real closer. So if things fell a certain way in the rest of the bullpen, there is hope. But ultimately it is a false hope.

You can blame on the front office, the manager, the bullpen or any veteran who is performing below expectations. But the truth is something is rotten with this team. They seem hollow.

The Indians tease you just enough not to give up on them. But something is missing. And maybe that is why Wedge is such a tinkerer. This team seems like it should be able to win in this division. But everyone is just a little off so he slides people around in the field and in the lineup. He is convinced that the pieces are there to complete the puzzle. But they just don't fit. No matter what he tries.

Another friends interjected in the conversation that Wedge needed to just find one lineup. And my first friend asked what was he talking about? I said well for instance at times our catcher plays first, a natural first baseman plays left, a guy who played second base last season we play at third but sometimes he plays first or in the outfield but never second, a guy who was playing second now plays short, a guy who wants to play shortstop is now playing third which maybe they should have done in spring training. And there is guy who couldn't catch so we moved him to first but he sucks there so they are thinking of moving him to the outfield or DH but we have another guy who is now hurt and he can only DH so we have that going for us.

And I could see on my friend's face the phrase this is why I don't follow sports. And I envied him. Because if a miracle happens --and it will take a miracle of biblical proportions-- and the Indians win the division, my friend will be just as excited as me. He will watch the playoffs and take joy in any Indians win. While I feel compelled to continue to watch every single game because of that bastard of all emotions -- hope.

There is really nothing worse. I mean I watched my team blow a 7-0 lead and my reaction was well of course they did. Yet here I am waiting the first pitch of another game. Sports should be about joy and there is no joy in the Indians.

Afternoon game with my dad

2009-05-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

One of the board members over at theclevelandfan.com decided to give away two great tickets to an Indians game. They decided to make it a contest asking why you deserved the tickets. I figured I didn't deserve the tickets but then saw it was for a day game on May 13 which happened to be my dad's 59th birthday. So I wrote a quick paragraph and figured I would take a chance.

As sweet as the seats were the best part was telling my dad we won. I handed him my laptop and showed him the post about the contest. Then I scrolled down and showed him my post. He laughed remembering how he put hot dogs in a thermos and cringed when he saw I mentioned we put them in the reduced bread we bought from the old Millbrook factory. He laughed again when I discussed scouring the Municipal Stadium parking lots for bottles and cans to recycle and how we used to sit in the yard listening to Herb Score on this giant radio he saved from the trash working for the refuse department. He would have us kids remove screws from old aluminum chairs so he could recycle them for extra cash that he used to send us to parochial school. When he got to the part where I wrote I had no idea we were lower middle class until I got to high school, his eyes teared up. It was a pretty sweet moment.

He was so excited. He wanted to get there as early as possible for batting practice. I told them they didn't have batting practice on afternoon getaway games but he wanted to get there as soon as the gates opened just like he did when we were kids and we sat along the right field foul poles for a buck. We were all smiles when we went to the will call and as fate would have it-- there were no tickets in our names. It was a very stressful half-hour as I had no idea what the real name was of the generous man who donated the tickets. But the wait was worth it when the tickets arrived. We sat in row BB in section 152 right behind home plate. Neither one us had ever sat that close at the old or new park. Fouls balls were peppered just behind us or to our right all game. We were two rows too close to have a real shot. But man was it fun thinking at any moment we could get a ball.

Martinez homered in the first and Cliff Lee had no-hit type stuff for the first six innings. My least favorite player Ryan Garko blasted a two-run homer and LaPorta ripped the first of what is hopefully many doubles in his career. Betancourt 's one inning of work was trouble free and Wood went 1-2-3 in the ninth. Tribe wins 4-0. The rain held off and it was a great day spent with Dad.

Thanks again to the cool people at The Cleveland Fan for honoring my dad with the tickets. It meant a lot to him and we had a great time.

Cavs keep on keeping on

2009-05-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

In the final minutes of tonight's Cavs clincher against the Hawks, my mind wandered. Did I really want to wait another week or more to watch more basketball? I thought of all those businesses and bars that could benefit from a game five.

Really?

I had to shake myself awake. What the hell was I thinking? Have the Cavs spoiled me that much? You play to win the game. You beat the hell out of anyone that you can. Screw anything else but winning. I will just have to live without basketball for the next several days.

Did you see how Wally played tonight? Did you see how DeLonte played tonight? This team is on a misson. They smelled blood and finished the job. Nothing else matters.

Eight games of wins in double digits. Eight games when even when the score was close there was never any worry. Eight more to go.

Enjoy the rest.

How does one stay grounded during Cavs playoff run

2009-05-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

Over the course of my life more than once I have believed a Cleveland team was going to win a championship and each time I have expressed this belief aloud or in print, something bad has happened. It has gotten to the point, where it seems even my happiness during a single game can lead to a depressing loss. It has become a joke among my friends and family. When Cleveland State had a big early lead over Wake Forest in the NCAA tournament, someone else among our viewing party said,"They are going to win."Another quickly said not to jinx them. And the first person stated, "I don't believe in jinxes." So I said well then want to me to say it. And the whole room screamed, "No!"

During game six against Detroit in 2007, I kept asking my friend if I could call my brother. I knew just the ringing of his phone would drive him insane that I was jumping the gun. My friend made me wait until there was less then a minute to go. Later my brother said his phone rang in the middle of the third quarter and he screamed, "That better not be my brother."

This Cavs season has made it hard on my not to express my innermost thoughts. Many times in conversation, in print or even alone I wanted to scream aloud what could be. It has been hard to stay grounded. And for that I have to thank the Cleveland Indians.

After each Cavs playoff annihilation, I have been sky-high. More than once I had to be careful not to shed a tear at just thinking what might be. But just when I think I have reached my limit of happiness, there is the Tribe to bring me back to earth.

The Indians truly suck. This season has been an even bigger nightmare than last season. Cabrera and Martinez are the only bright spots. The bullpen is mind-numbingly bad. They have been a complete joke. And yet I haven't reached a depressing low because of King James and the boys. It has been a nice balance.

After growing up in this town, it is easy to grow accustomed to believing it can always get worse. And just when all seems lost, a flicker of hope brings you back. You start to believe and then wham the worst happens. Case in point, I started this post in the top of the ninth with the Indians trailing 5-1. When I typed the word "Case" the Indians had made it 5-3 and put the winning run on first base. I thought "Oh my God this can change the whole season." And before I could even finish the sentence, Choo popped up and the game ended.

But what I love about LeBron James is even though he grew up among us, he is not one of us. He believes he will end this city's championship drought. His teammates believe. And that makes me want to believe. But I hold back because I know how much it hurts. I want it so bad.

The Cavs have made it look so easy. My first reaction is to get really nervous. It can't be this easy. It won't be this easy. They will be tested. But man does having LeBron James on your side make you feel safe. It gets me excited. But there is a lot of work left to be done. I need to stay grounded and take it one day at a time. And what better way to stay humble then to watch the Indians.

Oh Manny

2009-05-07T20:40:00.000-07:00

I have always loved Manny Ramirez. I am a Manny apologist. When someone rants and raves about how he quit on the Boston Red Sox last season, my reply is simply "Fuck Boston."

I have been waiting for the day when it is revealed that Jim Thome was cheater and did steroids. I figure it is just a matter of time. I hate Jim Thome with a white-hot passion. I will boo him until the day I die but I have always apologized for Manny.

I think the simple reason is I have always viewed Manny as a child. If Manny is not the best right handed hitter of all-time, he is at least on the list. In my view Manny was Manny. He is strange and wacky and can fall out of bed and hit a baseball. When he left us and went to Boston, I blamed his agent. I never saw Manny as his own man, who made his own decisions. Thome on the other hand acted like he was Cleveland. He portrayed himself as our hero. He said what wanted to be heard. But when it came down to it, he left us for money. He betrayed us. Thome wore a mask. Thome was a fraud. Manny was just Manny. A born hitter who is easily misled.

My view is simplistic. It is most likely wrong and it is certainly unfair. But it also how I feel.

So today's news hit me hard. Manny was banned. He claimed it was his doctor's fault. But that claim seems hollow.

On the phone, my brother asked me what happened. When I told him he said it had to be a mistake. And I said that was my first reaction but it appears to be the same drug as the Balco guys so it didn't look good. My brother asked me why would Manny do that. All I had was maybe Manny wanted a 50-day vacation in the middle of the season. Nothing would surprise me.

But the truth is most likely Manny is a cheater and always was. See how I still have the most likely. I want to like Manny. I want to love Manny. He gives me reason after reason not to and I can't help myself.

Between this news and the suckitude that is the Tribe, baseball is a real bummer right now. Thank God for LeBron James.