...a tradition of hope, passion, and misery
We have arrived! WFNY has been counting down the top 10 moments/stories of 2009. What better way to cap off the year than to revisit the #1 moment. To review:
#10 Tribe comes back from 10-0 vs. Rays
#9 Cleveland State’s run to the NCAA Tournament and their upset over fourth seeded Wake Forest
#7 After seven years as manager of the Indians, Eric Wedge was let go [Read more...]
So we are down to the top two. I promise that these won’t be all doom and gloom. Ok, maybe for some, the #2 story of the Cleveland sports year isn’t a happy moment, but you do have to admit, that over the last month, things have moved in a positive direction for our subject. Yes, the #2 story involves your boy and mine, The Manginius himself.
#2 The Browns move quickly and hire Eric Mangini as their new head coach
After a 2008 season ripe with expectations went sour so quickly (sound familiar?), it was time to cut the cord on the Country Club Romeo. No Browns fans were sad to see him go as a coach, but plenty, the media included, would miss his stellar personality and likability factor. Owner Randy Lerner decided that he was going to make his next hire under his terms. he clearly wanted someone with previous head coaching experience, who was going to be the opposite of Romeo Crennel. A disciplinarian type who made no excuses. He immediatley set his sights high. [Read more...]
Many thanks to Scott for picking me up yesterday. We resume our countdown of the top moments of 2009 with a couple of sad days if you are a fan of the Wahoo Red, White, and Blue. One angry, tough, Cy Young award winner is shown the door, and a couple of days later, a beloved catcher follows him out the door. We have just our three stories left in 2009. Amazing that so many of the top 10 have negative connotations to them.
#3 The Indians fire sale includes ace Cliff Lee and All Star Victor Martinez
Think back to the mid to late 90′s. The Indians were dominating the AL Central and putting out an all star at seemingly every position with a payroll of $100 million. The stands at Jacobs Field were always full and at the trade deadline, GM John Hart always seemed to add a couple of players who would play a role down the stretch and into October. Whether it be Harold Baines, David Segui, or Bob Wickman, Johnny Slick loved to poach veterans from struggling franchises to add to his riches.
Those days are long gone. [Read more...]
Stepping in for TD today… We hit you with the sixth installment of the Top 10 Sports stories. The other five can be found after today’s story, which was undoubtedly a big one for all of Cleveland to enjoy. Imagine that – a moment that we get to actually enjoy. In Cleveland. Craziness…
#4 Cleveland Cavaliers win 66 games, finish with best record in the NBA.
The 66 wins were for the Cleveland Cavaliers tops in the NBA and resulted in a Coach of the Year award for Mike Brown as well as a league MVP award for LeBron James. But while the individual awards were great, the entire Cavaliers team played exceptional basketball despite missing key contributors Delonte West (wrist) and Ben Wallace (leg) for extended periods of time.
We can choose any one game as a big moment as we have with other teams on this list. But that exercise would be never ending. We saw new jerseys. New pregame handshakes. New pre-game (and even mid-game) celebrations. So, instead of picking just one win, let’s go with all of them…
This is part five in our 10 part series counting down the best moments/stories in Cleveland Sports for 2009. Many of you have left comments for us and we appreciate it. Remember, this isn’t just the best game, shot, or play; its the stories as well. When we last left you, we were talking trade. We will continue down that path, but this time, we will change sports and move to the positive.
#5 Shaquille O’Neal is brought over from Phoenix to help “win a ring for the King.”
After the Cleveland Cavaliers ended their season earlier than they would have liked thanks to a spanking by the Orlando Magic, GM Danny Ferry went back to the drawing board to find out how he could improve his team. Never has one team revamped strictly as a reaction to being manhandled by one specific team. If you learned anything from the six game series loss to the Magic, it was that the Cavs badly needed a low post scoring threat and bigger athletes who could guard the perimeter.
Watching Dwight Howard abuse everyone who attempted to guard him frustrated everyone who watched the wine and gold. There was an answer out there, but would Ferry pull the trigger? Rewind back to the ’09 trade deadline. Just a day before, the name Shaquille O’Neal was floated out there in rumors that had him winding up in Cleveland. At the time, the Cavs were holding one of the top trade chips available – the expiring big contract of SF Wally Szczerbiak. The rumors turned louder and louder, as the Suns were looking to clear cap space. While the Suns wanted Wally’s contract and Sasha Pavlovic, Ferry didn’t want to mess with the chemistry of this close knit bunch. He instead offered C Ben Wallace. [Read more...]
This is part five in our 10 part series counting down the best moments/stories in Cleveland Sports for 2009. Many of you have left comments for us and we appreciate it. Remember, this isn’t just the best game, shot, or play; its the stories as well. Today we will examine two of the most polarizing figures of the “new” Browns era.
#6 Kellen Winslow II and Braylon Edwards are given their walking papers by new Browns head man Eric Mangini.
Remember back in 2007? The Indians were one game away from the World Series. The Cavaliers made it to the NBA Finals. The Browns finished 10-6 and became “that team” for the up coming season. The corner seemed to be turned in Berea. They had a running game with a veteran 1,300 yard back (Jamal Lewis) running behind the best offensive line we’ve seen in this city since the days of Cody Risen, Dan Fike, and Mike Baab. They had finally found their QB in Derek Anderson (ha ha), a big armed pocket passer with the guts of a burglar. Most importantly, DA had not one, but two Pro Bowl Caliber targets at his disposal. One was a fiery, tough as nails Tight End who played through pain and caught everything thrown his way. The other, a big play Wide Receiver who could out-run anyone who dared to cover him deep, but sometimes forgot to actually catch the ball.
Of course, I am speaking of Kellen Winslow and Braylon Edwards.
The future for these two seemed so bright in Cleveland after the ’07 season. They were both coming off career years and had great chemistry with Anderson. Ah, the best laid plans. [Read more...]
This is part four in our 10 part series counting down the best moments/stories in Cleveland Sports for 2009. Many of you have left comments for us and we appreciate it. Remember, this isn’t just the best game, shot, or play; its the stories as well. Such is the case when we are talking about#7 on our list. Just when you thought there couldn’t be more change with our teams, more underachieving cost someone their job.
#7 After seven years as manager of the Indians, Eric Wedge was let go
“Keep grinding.”
“Our guys never gave into the fight.”
“One game and one day at a time.”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard former Tribe Manager Eric Wedge say one of his pet phrases over the last seven years, I’d be a millionaire. A manager at every level of the Indians organization and a favorite of management, Eric Michael Wedge took over the big league club at the outset of the 2003 season and seemed like the perfect fit for a rebuilding team. He had seen most of the young kids as the skipper of the AAA Buffalo Bisons. He was a no-nonsense guy who had played briefly in the majors and fought with every fiber of his being to get there. [Read more...]
This is part three in our ten-part series chronicling the top 10 moments/stories in Cleveland sports during the 2009 Calendar year. #10 was the Indians 11 run comeback win over Tampa Bay, #9 was Cleveland State’s run to the NCAA Tournament, and now we come to the eighth top moment/story of 2009.
#8 The Browns stun the football world with their 13-6 win over their hated rival and defending Super Bowl Champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers
I’ll be the first one to admit it, I gave them almost no chance to win. The temperatures were creeping into the low teens with negative 12 wind chill. The thought of going to down to an 8:30 game to watch the defending champs take apart our 1-11 Browns with an early flight to Chicago in the morning was not exactly appeasing to me. I tried and tried to sell my tickets.
Nobody wanted them.
I offered them out to many people. No responses. Only the great co-creator of this site, Rick, took me up on my offer, and he had to drive two plus hours to get here! Now that, my friends, is dedication. As it turned out, Rick made the right call and I unfortunately, did not. [Read more...]
This is part two in our ten-part series chronicling the top 10 moments/stories in Cleveland sports during the 2009 Calendar year. We started yesterday with The Indians 10 run comeback win over Tampa Bay, and we will continue with today’s selection.
#9 Cleveland State’s run to the NCAA Tournament and their upset over fourth seeded Wake Forest
1986 was a long, long time ago for followers of the Cleveland State basketball program. The success of Kevin Mackey’s “Run and Stun” teams produced a new building in the Convocation Center, now known as the Wolstein Center. The thought was that the program would take off after the run of great teams that always competed for the AMCU-8 title. However, that success never sustained.
Cleveland State had become an after-thought under Mike Boyd, Rollie Massimino, and Mike Garland. When former Kent State and Rutgers head coach Gary Waters took over, he vowed to have the Vikings back at the top of the Horizon League. He followed through on his promise in 2009. [Read more...]
Its been a rather strange year in our fair city. We’ve seen economic conditions worsen, two teams circling the drain, while another jumped up to the top of its game. We’ve seen firings and trades, big wins, and crushing defeats. Here at WFNY, we will run a series counting down the top 10 moments/stories in Cleveland sports during the 2009 calendar year. These will start today with #10 and finish on New Year’s Eve with #1. Count along with us…..
#10 Down 10-0, The Tribe stuns Tampa Bay 11-10.
As miserable as the Indians 2009 season was, go back to the night of May 25th and you can find something to smile about. After stumbling out of the gate yet again, the Wahoos were searching to find their identity. They turned once again to the struggling Fausto Carmona against the defending American League champion Tampa Bay Rays to get them back on track.
Instead, Carmona derailed the Tribe train right off the bat, giving up five runs in the second inning and getting knocked out of the game. Jensen Lewis, who started the year as the key eighth inning set-up man, entered the game for some mop up duty. He was just as bad as Fausto, getting racked around by for five runs in his 1.2 innings of work. After Carmona and Jenny Lew were done with their gas cans in the top of the fourth inning, the Indians trailed 10-0. Fausto and Jenny were brutal: [Read more...]
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