The Browns Will Win If…
December 3, 2010I Was Wrong
December 3, 2010
It is all over now Cavs fans. We have had our chance to say all the things that we were feeling since we were trounced upon so many months ago. Despite the whole thing being put in a fishbowl as if Cleveland fans would provide the blood and gore of a grotesque cock fight, we came out looking very good. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. As fans, we did all we could to waste all those thousands (millions?) of dollars spent sending all those media members to Cleveland for a single night. They sent enough people to write a thousand books about this single night and we barely even gave them the hint of a thesis. Take pride in that. Now it is time to move on. Not because others so rudely and crudely told us to, but because we want to and are now ready to. Just don’t blame yourself for the destination.
Sure, in the end, it would be easy to go back and second-guess everything we ever did that helped create an ego-maniac bigger than all the endorsement contracts in sports combined. But it was a no-win proposition. By building it up to these proportions we take the criticism that we “created the monster” and only now get mad when it turns on us. If we hadn’t “created the monster” then we would have been criticized for not caring enough. And the bottom line is that we were always accused of not being deserving of nice things as it was. Behind curtain number one, two and three were the same piles of excrement, just wrapped in slightly different packaging. Which one do you choose?
Plus, we were fighting history. We were pumping ourselves up to try and convince ourselves and the Cavaliers that there were no such things as curses. Again, back in that fishbowl of misery of unfulfilled dreams, is it our fault for lacking self-confidence or is it the national media’s fault for continuing to perpetuate it with montages of titular misery? I think of four-letter words that make George Carlin’s corpse blush when I see that montage, and yet it just rolls off the tongue of the announcer du jour as he casually goes through it like a boring slideshow of vacation photos.
It’s not your fault. All we ever did was love a player more than any in the history of Cleveland sports. All we ever did was wish for him to have every opportunity in the universe to succeed for himself and for us. All we ever did was defend him to a degree that now embarrasses us in the posthumous looks at the whole ordeal. We’ve been called psychos, needy and even been hinted to be racist.
No matter though. We are just fans doing what we are supposed to do. It’s not our fault.
19 Comments
Time for a Robin Williams hairy man-hug?
It’s Denny’s fault.
It’s LeBron’s fault he surrounded himself with sycophantic yes-men.
It’s (sorry, Dan-o) Mr. Gilbert’s fault for enabling him by hiring those goons and never saying no to LeBron.
It’s LeBron’s fault again that he never wanted to play in Cleveland in the first place, but never had the courage to grace to say so.
It’s Maverick’s fault he thought “The Decision” would be good PR.
The fans? We were just rooting. For our team. For our native son. For our city.
Honestly, in the way this whole situation worked out, I feel the worst for LeBron James himself. If an Akronite had come to Cleveland and broken our “curse”? He would have been legendary. L-E-G-E-N-D-A-R-Y. and not just in Ohio. He’d be right up there with Jordan, Bird, Chamberlain, you name it. As is? Meh. He’s just another Kobe.
“Honestly, in the way this whole situation worked out, I feel the worst for LeBron James himself.”
I find it hard to feel sorry for a dude who is worth a quarter billion dollars that just Tea-Baggged us AGAIN on National Television.
The obligatory montage of Cleveland misery we have to watch any time one of our teams play anything resembling a meaningful game… part of me gets angry because people love to rub it in, but a bigger part gets angry because it’s lazy. You know it’s something the new intern at TNT was given to do. Just wheel that old corpse out again… bwahahaha!!! Weak sauce.
But, ultimately it reminds me of how really f-ing tough and crazy all of us are and I still take pride in that. How many times can I use this old dirty rag to wipe the blood from my busted mouth? I don’t know, but it’s still working.
Screw the Cavs right now.
“Now I’m Done.”
I just ordered 2 THUNDER t-shirts from skreened.com. Peyton Hillis is the new face of Cleveland sports anyway!
@3 — I’ll take it a bit further. I believe in my heart that if he’d chosen to stay and see it through to the end, even if he never brought that championship here, we’d have built a friggin’ statue of him and put it downtown.
Cleveland fans want to adore their players… and he went to a place where they hardly seem to care about their teams.
Here’s hopin’ the next time the Heat come to town, the media doesn’t turn it into a circus. I’m sure we will still boo him everytime he touches the ball from now until the end of his (hopefully injury-shortened) career, but we had our say, he had his day, and now let’s go on our way (Happy Gilmour approves this message).
The media displayed its hypocrisy in full when they told us that we need to get over it, yet used every last second of TV/web/radio/print finding new angles about his return, telling us how we should/shouldn’t react, and even making a diary of the day. (How is it that every bum on the streets of Cleveland got interviewed about his feelings, yet I never once got asked with a camera in my face?) Now that the day has come and passed, and very much anticlimactically might I add, hopefully March 29 is treated like any other game.
…and yes, I realize there is 0.000001% chance of this happening.
It’s Branyan’s fault.
Robbie: “@3 — I’ll take it a bit further. I believe in my heart that if he’d chosen to stay and see it through to the end, even if he never brought that championship here, we’d have built a friggin’ statue of him and put it downtown.”
It’s not really entirely LeBrons fault, either. He is 25 years old. I think of the bonehead decisions I made when I was 25, and I can certainly imagine making the wrong call at that age, especially when I have an unprecedented amount of pressure and an infinite supply of bad advice coming in from people primarily concerned with advancing their own interests. The sports culture measures worth in cash and trophies. He does not yet posess the persepective to realize what that statue in Cleveland would have meant.
I think someday when his career is over, he’ll look back and regret leaving Cleveland, tossing away his legacy and the chance to be one town’s special icon. He can never go home again.
I once saw Bill Brasky win the World Series/Superbowl/Finals for Cleveland single-handedly with one broken arm and one broken leg
[…] “It is all over now Cavs fans. We have had our chance to say all the things that we were feeling since we were trounced upon so many months ago. Despite the whole thing being put in a fishbowl as if Cleveland fans would provide the blood and gore of a grotesque cock fight, we came out looking very good. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.” [Craig Lyndall] […]
In almost 50 years of rooting for teams from Cleveland, I have never been so embarrassed of a team from my hometown. No courage, no guts, no character. I place a lot of blame on Byron Scott. Why would he not have this team prepared for its time on center stage? Why would he tolerate Lebron coming to the Cavs bench during the game? I’m in favor of gutting this collection of no talents and softies. Let’s start over. Why would I want to spend my time and energy rooting for these guys? Last night couldn’t have been worse. Cleveland humiliated. Lebron smiling as he left town.
thanks for putting a link to Santana’s debut in the ‘You might also like’ spot.
reminded me of something good about cleveland sports 🙂
Hey, don’t go crowning Peyton Hillis already. He’s just keeping Hardesty’s job warm for him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4ZG2eE2K1c&feature=player_embedded
I WILL ALWAYS LOVE MR. MO WILLIAMS. (not sarcasm)
During a game where almost every Cav was vying for #6’s attention Mo said “no thanks” Andy tried to rub up on him like it was his prom night.. Mo said “Shove it”… Thank you Mo, and Mike Trivisonno for directing me to this video.
P.S. Is that Gloria West in the bottom of that picture wearing the yellow shit and the white hat? It looks like her.
[…] Cavalier fans attempt to grieve and reason about the potential rock bottom moment that occurred on Thursday night in front of a national […]
Anyone else hate the fact that not only does the media always say that Cleveland is crap and show all of the heartbreaking things that have happenned to us Ohioans but then they go and interview people that make us look like idiots. ESPN seriously walked into a barber shop and interviewed a guy who had obviously smoked way too much crack in the 80’s and asked him the most elementary questions I’m sure untill he gave them a soundbite worth laughing at. They knew that being on TV was probably the highlight of that guy’s life and they made us look like fulls. “And you know this maaaaaaaaaaaannn”
I still can’t get over just how much Cleveland fans think that they did for Lebron James. He is the one that transformed your organization, not the other way around. He was a superstar in High School, you Cavs fans didn’t make him that. He is great because of his own ability, not the amount you cheer for him (or boo him now). It shocks me that the one person you keep defending is your owner. The same man who profitted the most off Lebron (except for Lebron himself, of course). I’d be mad at him for failing to win a title with the game’s best player on your team for 7 years, and now for putting that lousy current team on the floor.