during the 90's, the Browns were victims of "The Drive," "The Fumble," and "Red Right 88" all during the 80's and have never even been to a Super Bowl, let alone won one, and the woeful Cavs have never even advanced to the NBA finals since their inception in 1970. If you're scoring at home thats a total of 123 seasons without a championship, and I challenge ANY city in America to match that. That's not even accounting for the stomach-punch factor. As miserable as the Cubs have been, they have rarely even been close to a championship. Cleveland teams insist on taunting us; we were ONE STRIKE away from a World Series championship in '97, and were minutes from Super Bowl berths in both '87 and '88 before John Elway's Denver Broncos stole them from us. The Cavaliers best team in its history was beaten by Michael Jordan's defining moment, known simply as "The Shot," where he eliminated the Cavs in the series' deciding game with a buzzer-beating jumper over Craig Ehlo. Cleveland fans are eternally teased by their teams as they inch closer and closer to success, only to always be crushed just as they reach the precipice of glory. So make sure you give Cleveland its just due when you consider the most unfortunate, unlucky, mistreated fan bases in the world. We can only hope LeBron can save us.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Torture
I haven't read many books outside of school since I was elementary school, but I got mono over winter break and I decided to spend my team reading Bill Simmons' book "Now I Can Die In Peace." I'm a big fan of Simmons' column on ESPN.com, and I knew going in that I would really like the book. However, the one thing that bothered me was how Boston-centric every article was. You would expect this from a lifelong Boston fan and a self-proclaimed homer, but still I cringed every time he called the Red Sox the "most tortured fan base in sports." Actually I didn't cringe as much as I got really pissed off. You had frickin' Larry Bird, one of the most legendary basketball players of all time, bring you multiple championships through the 80's, not to mention the Patriots winning 3 out of 4 Super Bowls in this decade. Same with these ridiculous Cubs fans around here; you had JORDAN. If you want to talk about a miserable sporting history consider the great city of Cleveland, Ohio which has not seen a championship in ANY sport since 1964. The Indians have been to the World Series twice and choked both times
during the 90's, the Browns were victims of "The Drive," "The Fumble," and "Red Right 88" all during the 80's and have never even been to a Super Bowl, let alone won one, and the woeful Cavs have never even advanced to the NBA finals since their inception in 1970. If you're scoring at home thats a total of 123 seasons without a championship, and I challenge ANY city in America to match that. That's not even accounting for the stomach-punch factor. As miserable as the Cubs have been, they have rarely even been close to a championship. Cleveland teams insist on taunting us; we were ONE STRIKE away from a World Series championship in '97, and were minutes from Super Bowl berths in both '87 and '88 before John Elway's Denver Broncos stole them from us. The Cavaliers best team in its history was beaten by Michael Jordan's defining moment, known simply as "The Shot," where he eliminated the Cavs in the series' deciding game with a buzzer-beating jumper over Craig Ehlo. Cleveland fans are eternally teased by their teams as they inch closer and closer to success, only to always be crushed just as they reach the precipice of glory. So make sure you give Cleveland its just due when you consider the most unfortunate, unlucky, mistreated fan bases in the world. We can only hope LeBron can save us.
during the 90's, the Browns were victims of "The Drive," "The Fumble," and "Red Right 88" all during the 80's and have never even been to a Super Bowl, let alone won one, and the woeful Cavs have never even advanced to the NBA finals since their inception in 1970. If you're scoring at home thats a total of 123 seasons without a championship, and I challenge ANY city in America to match that. That's not even accounting for the stomach-punch factor. As miserable as the Cubs have been, they have rarely even been close to a championship. Cleveland teams insist on taunting us; we were ONE STRIKE away from a World Series championship in '97, and were minutes from Super Bowl berths in both '87 and '88 before John Elway's Denver Broncos stole them from us. The Cavaliers best team in its history was beaten by Michael Jordan's defining moment, known simply as "The Shot," where he eliminated the Cavs in the series' deciding game with a buzzer-beating jumper over Craig Ehlo. Cleveland fans are eternally teased by their teams as they inch closer and closer to success, only to always be crushed just as they reach the precipice of glory. So make sure you give Cleveland its just due when you consider the most unfortunate, unlucky, mistreated fan bases in the world. We can only hope LeBron can save us.
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4 comments:
You should get together with Maddie (http://maddiesports.blogspot.com/) and Max (http://maxojserkis.blogspot.com/) and talk about this thing we call... "choking", which is what you seem to be referring to and which they also complain especially afflicts their home teams.
I'm going to make it my personal mission to find out the origin of this term, but feel free to beat me to the punch.
first off-the cubs being 5 outs away from the world series is considered choking. being a giants fan-i can attest to the dusty baker syndrome.
as well, when you refer to cubs fans complaining, it seems you are trying to say chicago fans. "cubs fans" could probably care less about bears or jordan. the city of chicago appreciates it, but cubs fans care about the cubs baseball success. I'm from san francisco. the niners had some wonder years in the 90s, and yet i didnt care. I care about how the giants do. there is a difference between a city fan and a specific sports team fan.
but yes, i agree cleveland has had some hardtimes
I feel for you Samir, I truly do. There are two sports team that I follow: the Atlanta Braves and the Sacramento Kings (I know those teams are random given that I'm from Texas but bare with me). I became a Braves fan in '96 so I never got to enjoy their '95 World Series title. Instead, I got to suffer through a disappointing postseason after postseason. As for the Kings, I began following them as they got better and better each year. Despite their efforts they could never overcome the Lakers in the playoffs. I resent the fact that I've never been able to witness my team win a championship. What I resent even more is fans who take for granted that their team has recently won it all.
You can talk about other teams doing well in a city but many people are much more loyal to a team than a city. There is no doubt that Clevland is in a championship drought that is unmatched but you cannot take away from the Red Sox just because some other teams that happen to be in teh same region have done well
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