The Sour Sixteen: Ranking Cleveland’s Sports Rivals

When Will Leitch posted his article last week at Sports on Earth listing each MLB team’s three greatest rivals and it came across my screen, it got me thinking. When I asked myself who were the Indians’ three greatest rivals, I had to think about it. It also got me thinking about how I would rank my dislike or feelings of rivalry for the opponents of the Cavaliers, Browns, and Buckeyes as well. So, I decided to ask around with a few of the biggest sports fans in my life and give some thought myself to how I would rank the four biggest rivals for the Indians, Browns, Cavs, and Buckeyes.¹ If you’re one of those that doesn’t want Ohio State in your rankings, feel free to shrink this to a dirty dozen. Without further ado, let’s begin the countdown.

Honorable Mention: Miami Heat, Cincinnati Reds, Illinois Fighting Illini

Free agency association, geography and the occasional upset only go so far.

16. Penn State Nittany Lions

Division rivals and relative new members to the Big Ten, Penn State has had some battles with Ohio State. Ohio State leads the head-to-head 17-13, but it’s 15-7 since Penn State became a Big Ten member in 1993. Joe Paterno and Jim Tressel had some intense battles on the field with Penn State beating top ten Ohio State squads in both 2005 and 2008. Ohio State squeaked by Penn State in both of their national championship seasons, 13-7 in 2002 in Columbus and the galvanizing double overtime thriller this past season in Happy Valley 31-24.

Basketball-wise, there’s nothing to see as Thad Matta is 17-2 against the Nittany Lions in his time at OSU.

15. Denver Broncos

The Broncos make an appearance on here solely for John Elway and the three AFC Championship battles from 1986-1989. Younger fans have little connection to the Broncos, but there are plenty of older fans who still loathe them. The Drive, The Fumble, The End of this discussion.

14. New York Yankees

While I agree with Leitch in that almost everyone in the AL could claim the Yankees as a rival, there is some animosity between them and the Tribe. The Indians finished second to the Yanks in the AL five times between 1951 and 1956, with ’54 being the lone exception. They also were the two best teams in the league consistently from 1995-2000 despite only meeting twice in the playoffs during that stretch in 1997 and 1998, an Indians ALDS win and Yankees ALDS win respectively. The Indians got the best of them in 2007 thanks to some help from the midges.

13. Detroit Pistons

A neighbor to the north, the Pistons were the first obstacle for the first LeBron era-Cavaliers. In the 2006 playoffs, Flip Murray and the Cavs couldn’t corral a defensive rebound and Z’s fly-by prayer tip didn’t fall in Game 6 of the East Semis. That meant Game 7 back in Detroit and a lop-sided loss. The next season, James and the Cavaliers would not be denied. Game 5 up in Detroit for LeBron (48 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, 29 of the team’s last 30 points) is the stuff of legends, and then Daniel “Boobie” Gibson’s 31-point shootout put down the Pistons as the Cavaliers advanced to their first NBA Finals.

The Cavs also met the Pistons in the postseason in 2009 (a wine and gold first round sweep), but while they were both very good in the late eighties, the Bulls kept them away from each other. The Cavs have played the Pistons more than anyone else except for the Hawks and Wizards all-time, winning 41% of those contests.

12. Wisconsin Badgers

When I was in school at OSU from 2006-2011, the hatred for Wisconsin was very real in both football and basketball, second only to Michigan. Wisconsin handed Ohio State a couple of heart-breaking losses in 2003 and 2010, and Bret Bielema was an easy figure to root against while there. The Big Ten realignment has shifted Wisconsin out of Ohio State’s division, so these two have to make it to the Big Ten Championship for a guaranteed shot at each other. In 2014, those two did exactly that as the underdog Buckeyes smashed the Badgers in Indianapolis 59-0.

Basketball-wise, these two have been at the top of the league for the better part of the decade as Thad Matta and Bo Ryan have gone at it toe-to-toe. There was the Ryan comment for Jared Sullinger to “Deal With It” regarding being spit on in Madison. Since 2002, Ohio State has six Big Ten titles and Wisconsin has three (going on four given this year). In the Big Ten tournament, the teams have met in ’03, ’05, ’07, ’09, and ’13 with Ohio State having the edge 4-1 and winning the championship game matchup in 2007 and 2013. Wisconsin also happens to be the only team which Matta has a losing record against in the conference for his career (10-11 including tournament games).

11. Cincinnati Bengals

The Battle of Ohio is probably the tamest of the three AFC North rivalries, but anyone who lives outside of Northeast Ohio but within the State of Ohio knows how intense the fault lines can be. For example, being on OSU campus during the Carson Palmer-Chad Johnson days was less than enjoyable.

The two meet twice a year and have played to a near dead heat (Bengals lead 44-39), but they’ve never met in the postseason. Of course, there’s Sam Wyche’s “You don’t live in Cleveland” dig from 1989.

Still, this Cleveland-Cincinnati rumble has more teeth than the Indians-Reds, which Leitch put on his list and I left off. Interleague play is still new, and while the Indians and Reds play two series per year now, they’ve seldom been good at the same time. Brandon Phillips is about the only connection of bad blood between those two at the moment.

10. Chicago Bulls

Divisions mean the least in the NBA, but the Bulls are probably resemble a rival within the division most. Michael Jordan single-handedly prevented the Price, Daugherty, Nance Cavs teams from getting to the NBA Finals. The Cavs lost to the Bulls five times in the playoffs between 1988 and 1994 including a 4-2 win in the 1992 Eastern Conference Finals and “The Shot” which ended the 1989 first round matchup.

The Cavs beat the Bulls in their only other playoff matchup in 2010 when the Cavs dispatched the Bulls in five games. At the start of the season, these two teams seemed destined to meet in the Eastern Conference Finals, but now given the standings, a first-round matchup is not out of the question.

9. Michigan State Spartans

With the downfall of Michigan football, the Spartans have snuck up on this list in recent years. There will always be the 1998 blemish that the Spartans handed one of the best John Cooper Buckeye teams. But now, there’s also the loss in the 2013 Big Ten Championship game which ended the Buckeyes’ 24-game winning streak under Urban Meyer. In 2014, the winner of their matchup kept their hopes of a College Football Playoff appearance alive, and the Buckeyes did just that on their way to a national title. Add in Mark Dantonio’s Buckeye defensive coordinator background and the realignment bringing them into the Big Ten East, the Spartans aren’t likely to go away anytime soon.

Basketball-wise, Tom Izzo has been right up there with Wisconsin and Bo Ryan in consistently being a thorn in Thad Matta’s side. Lifetime, Matta is 11-10 and 2-2 in the Big Ten tournament. Since Matta arrived, Izzo has the edge in Final Fours 3-2, but Matta does in Big Ten regular season titles 5-3 and conference tournament titles 4-2.

8. Washington Wizards

Who have the Cavaliers faced more than any team in the playoffs? It’s a tie between the next two teams on the list with five showdowns each. The Cavs have defeated the Washington franchise in four of those five, including during the Miracle of Richfield year. In three straight seasons, LeBron James and the Cavs took on Antawn Jamison, Gilbert Arenas, and the Washington Wizards in the playoffs, and all three times the Wiz were turned away. In 2006, LeBron’s first playoff series, the Cavs won three games by one point as the Cavs won in six and LeBron had his first 40-point playoff game. Again, it’s possible that this rivalry could be revisited in a couple of months.

7. Boston Celtics

The Cavaliers and Celtics have faced off plenty as mentioned above. Those include what could be the three most painful playoff exits in Cavaliers franchise history. In 1976, it was Jim Chones’s broken foot that gave the Celtics the series edge 4-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals. In 2008, it was the first year of Garnett, Pierce, and Allen together in Boston. The Celtics won a slow-paced defensive struggle of a seven-game series with a 97-92 Game 7 aided by a P.J. Brown offensive rebound. Only one game (the Cavs in Game 3) had a final score over 100 points and six finals were below 80 points. In 2010, the Cavaliers were equipped to combat the Magic and instead drew the Celtics in the second round. Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison couldn’t stop Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett, and the infamous Game 5 performance by LeBron still baffles. The one time the Cavs got the best of Boston was in the first round in 1992, ending Larry Bird’s career.

6. Detroit Tigers

This border battle has recency bias to propel it so high on this list. The Tigers took the division crown over the Indians in 2013 by what ended up being just one game by thumping them in the head-to-head matchup.

Looking way back, the Tigers beat out the Indians in 1940 for the pennant. The two teams finished first and second in the division in 2007 and 2011 as well.

Two of the most popular Indians of the last two decades, Omar Vizquel and Victor Martinez, currently don Tigers jerseys.

5. Chicago White Sox

I give the White Sox a slight edge over the Tigers as the Indians’ biggest division foe consistently. These two finished in the top in the AL in 1919, 1920, and 1959. In the AL Central from 1996-2000, the Indians were first with the White Sox in second except for the last of those years where the two flipped.

The two teams have traded a lot of players as well. As commenter mgbode pointed out, Kenny Lofton, Albert Belle, Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, and Sandy Alomar Jr. (I added the last two) all spent time with the White Sox after the Cleveland postseason runs.

In 2005, there was the Ozzie Guillen choke sign as the White Sox swept the Indians in the final series of the season. In 2013, the Indians unprecedentedly thumped the White Sox by a 17-2 count to eek into the Wild Card.

This one hasn’t been much in recent years, but it could come into play again this year with the AL Central wide open among the five clubs.

4. Boston Red Sox

Again, the Leitch comment about Red Sox and Yankees being everybody’s rivalry is noted, but he did mention the Red Sox could be considered for the Indians, though he did not include them in his top three.

The Indians and Red Sox have had some intense showdowns in the postseason in the last twenty years. There was the 1995 Division Series (Tony Peña!), the 1998 and 1999 Division Series (Pedro and Nomar) that the teams split, and the 2007 ALCS. And of course, there’s the 1948 one-game playoff where Gene Bearden and the Indians took the AL pennant and went on to win their second World Series.

There’s also the matter of the Indians hiring their Hall of Fame manager, Terry Francona. The Indians traded Victor Martinez to Boston for Justin Masterson, and Manny Ramirez signed with Boston. With the team in the Indians that is most difficult to pinpoint rivals, in my time as an Indians fan, I feel the most animosity toward the Red Sox.

3. Baltimore Ravens

Modell took our team. That alone would cover it, but they also won a Super Bowl just five years after leaving with our Hall of Fame tight end at the head of their roster construction. That may sting the most of all as we’ve endured Dwight Clark, Butch Davis, Phil Savage, George Kokinis, Eric Mangini, Mike Lombardi, Tom Heckert, and now Ray Farmer. At 8-24 through sixteen years, this has been painfully one-sided.

2. Pittsburgh Steelers

While this rivalry has been painfully one-sided for the better part of 15 years now, the amount of hatred and disgust from Browns fans is real. It’s only been made worse by the in-roads that Steelers fans have made into Ohio. As the oldest rivalry in the AFC, the Steelers lead in a still-close margin 68-58.

The last two times the Browns were in the playoffs (1994 and 2002), they lost to the Steelers. There’s incidents like Turkey Jones vs. Terry Bradshaw, Joey Porter vs. William Green, and James Harrison vs. Colt McCoy that show the intensity of these two division rivals. While there is some level of dislike for all three fellow members of the AFC North, but the Steelers consistently still top that list year in and year out.

1. The University of Michigan Wolverines

The Team Up North. ScUM. M*ch*g*n. They are the ultimate rival. If Ohio State and Michigan played competitive boggle, the intensity would be there. From the time you walk onto campus at The Ohio State University as a wide-eyed freshman, you’re pumped full of hatred of Michigan. When there’s one minute to go in each basketball game, Michigan still sucks. There’s a “Beat Michigan” week on campus before “The Game” where every M on every sign on campus is taped over. Personally, I can’t wear gold and navy together. This rivalry also hits close to home as my sister, a fellow Buckeye alum, married a Michigan fan.

With its timing at the end of the season, the Big Ten championship has been at least partially decided on the field between these two teams a whopping 49 times, including a heads-up battle for it 22 times. One of the most memorable games in the rivalry occurred in 2006, when the teams were No. 1 and No. 2.

Basketball-wise, it’s not as clear-cut as the gridiron where they’ve had different eras of success, but they did share the conference title in 1964 and 2012. Also, there’s the unforgettable Evan Turner halfcourt heave at the buzzer that took out Michigan in the Big Ten tournament in 2010. Matta is 17-6 against Michigan in his career, but John Beilein has proven to be a worthy opponent in recent years, beating Ohio State in 2014 in the Big Ten tournament. Ohio State is 6-1 against their archrival in the Big Ten tourney.

Now, it’s your turn. This is just one 26-year-old’s opinion with some peer input. Where could I have done better?

1. For the purposes of these rankings, I’ll be taking into account both football and basketball for the Buckeyes [↩]