So, in case you were asleep in a cave, or deliberately blocked sports programming and sports feedback from entering your Facebook or Twitter universes this past week, you may not have realized that Cleveland's Public Enemy No. 2 got himself a championship.
Sorry, LeBron, but Art Modell will always -- even after he dies -- be Public Enemy No. 1. Then again, after the disgraceful way you left, "No. 2" just seems like a fitting description.
Joe Cleveland knew it was coming. I could see it in the way games in the NBA Finals were officiated, and I could see the way Oklahoma City was playing, that Game 5 was going to end with a Miami win. Fortunately, I had plans.
Myself, one of my best friends, and his girlfriend attended a fantastic concert in beautiful Downtown Cleveland. I deliberately did not check my phone, only focusing on the fantastic music I was watching being performed and on the awesome company I had.
I also took notice of the fact that the concert venue was right along the Cuyahoga River, a much-maligned symbol of Cleveland's national jokes. I could see the Terminal Tower all lit up, thought about the Horseshoe Casino opening up and the Medical Mart being constructed to the north of it and thought, "This is a fucking great town!"
Pardon my French, but it's true.
LeBron James may have decided he couldn't win one as a leader here, or never liked Cleveland to begin with, or the national media could add another punchline to a growing number of punchlines about Cleveland and its sports teams, but on this night, one that many in the outside media had believed would be a bleak one for the North Coast, I, Joe Cleveland, decided I was going to have a good time.
And, I did, all night long.
Finally, at about 1 a.m., I broke down and checked my phone for the score. There it was -- Heat 121, Thunder 106. It was over.
I took a deep breath, put my phone back in my pocket, and jumped behind the drum kit at a local establishment's jam night and played my heart out.
Who says music can't be theraputic?
Honestly, at the time, my feeling was indifference. It was as inevitable as a cliff-hanger ending in a soap opera, so I wasn't surprised. I had been bracing myself for the disappointment, so when it happened, I honestly didn't care.
I harckened back to watching the Baltimore Thieving Bastards win the Super Bowl in early 2001 (and we remember what a terrible year 2001 was, and it began with Judas hoisting up the Lombardi Trophy with that shit-eating sneer on his face). It broke my heart. But, the gods were kind to me that night. I won the jackpot in the "squares" at the Super Bowl party I was attending, and I promptly spent it all at the bar that night.
I had to get good and schnockered. I wanted the pain to go away -- and it did, for one night.
Sorry, LeBron, but your win was NOTHING compared to that.
Hell, even watching some of the Steelers' recent Super Bowl wins were harder to swallow than this. Bill Belichick's three Super Bowl wins in four years were worse.
There's been a few others that come close, like Manny Ramirez winning two World Series titles with the Red Sox, watching the Indians' back-to-back Cy Young Award winners Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia face off in Game 1 of the 2009 World Series, heck even seeing Jhonny Peralta have an All-Star season with Detroit after watching him stumble, bumble and sulk with the Indians for a few years. LeBron, your win was worse than those, so I'll give you that.
There's two things about the Cleveland sports fan base. On one hand, you have a bunch of die-hard, true-blood fans who bleed and sweat with their Browns, Indians and Cavs (and Ohio State Buckeyes). They may not be fans of all of them, but the ones they root for, they root for with a passion that just doesn't exist in many places.
On the other hand, you have a bunch of Cleveland self-haters. The guys who like to rub your nose in it at the office or at the factory or at the bar or on Facebook or Twitter when a Cleveland sports team fails, even though they themselves have lived in Cleveland (or Ohio) their entire lives. They are the people who don Steelers jersies because the Steelers are winning while the Browns are not. They are the closet Michigan fans who suddenly came roaring back after the Wolverines took advantage of Jim Tressel's demise this year and actually beat Ohio State at football for once. They are the ones with Yankees or Tigers hats.
And, they are the ones who suddenly, almost overnight, became LeBron James and Miami Heat fans.
My fear now is we'll suddenly see a lot more Miami "JAMES/6" jersies in public than we did two years ago or last year. Remember when that douchebag went to an Indians game wearing LeBron's jersey and got booed right out of Progressive Field? That will never happen again, I'm afraid.
The closet James fans could only recoil when their beloved turncoat failed to deliver on his promise of a championship last season, when he shrunk in the moment during the NBA Finals and the Dallas Mavericks slapped that snicker right off of his and Dwayne Wade's faces with a six-game beatdown that had everyone in Cleveland celebrating.
Folks want to say we're a bunch of "haters" -- which is funny, because those same people are Cleveland sports "haters" but don't see it that way. The ESPN's of the world, the same so-called Worldwide Leader of Sports, want to point their fingers down at you and me and say that it's time for us to "get over it."
I've been hearing that a lot from the clueless ones from Bristol, who are the very definition of frontrunners.
They didn't give two shits about the Miami Heat until LeBron went on their network and said that's where he was going (after they speculated for three straight years about LeBron joining the New York Knicks). Suddenly, they launched a Web page called the "Heat Index," complete with one of the Cavs' old beat writers, and had reporters stationed in Miami from the very first moment James, Wade and Chris Bosh reported to training camp all the way until the bitter end.
Sure, ESPN also kept the pressure on James with their scrutiny about "can he win the big one," or, "will he be the best player to never win a title?" Heck, even James' fans were starting to come up with excuses when the Heat fell behind, 3-2, to the aging Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Funny what six wins can do do those people.
James supposedly didn't have enough support around him to win a title last year or get to the Finals this year, just like he supposedly lacked with the Cavs. But, as soon as he won, those people forgot about those comments and could only fall down on their knees in front of their supposed, self-proclaimed "King" and worship to him to no end. They wanted to feel his "salvation" all over their faces.
These people make me sick.
Now, the national media feels that this win "validates" his decision to leave the Cavs and sign with Miami. Really? So his "Dream Team" could take two years to finally win won NBA Title, and have to win that NBA Title in a lockout-shortened season and after falling behind to both the Indiana Pacers and the Boston Celtics (and even the Thunder) in this year's playoffs?
I thought LeBron was going to win "not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven" NBA titles. It took him two seasons with two other All-Stars to finally win ONE.
When Kevin Durant and Ray Allen signed with Boston to join Paul Pierce, the Celtics won the NBA title in their FIRST YEAR together. They haven't won one since, but you get the point. And these guys were all in the tail-ends of their respective careers.
LeBron, Wade and Bosh were all in the so-called "primes" of their careers. The fact is, it took falling behind 3-2 to the aging Celtics for some switch to go off in LeBron's head.
He stopped deferring to Wade, who did not play great in this postseason, and started carrying the team himself.
This is what LeBron did in 2007 with the Cavs. That performance in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals was one that still gives me chills, and I hate the bastard now!
Of course, he disappeared in Game 6 at home, but a rookie named Boobie Gibson caught fire from beyond the 3-point arc and gave the Cavs their first NBA Finals berth ever.
In Game 5 of this NBA Finals, LeBron had a triple-double, but it was the kind of empty triple-double that he had in Game 6 of the 2010 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Celtics, right before he ripped his Cavs jersey off and then ripped the hearts out of the fans who supported him through his seven-year career.
Like Gibson, it was Mike Miller who caught fire from beyond the 3-point arc and lifted the Heat to the win. Even in Game 4, when LeBron suddenly got "cramps" (perhaps they were menstral), it was Mario Chalmers who stepped up and capped a ferocious comeback to put the Thunder on the brink of elimination.
ESPN and all the national pundits of the world want you to "get over it" already. But Joe Cleveland lives here, is one of you, and I say, NO, YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO SQUAT!
If you want to get over it, great. If you still have feelings of anger and resentment, so be it. LeBron James didn't leave ESPN in the lurch. He left CLEVELAND in the lurch.
He embarassed this town, his old team and, quite frankly, himself when he did his special in July of 2010. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to rub our noses in it.
He didn't have to preen and shuck and jive with his buddies Wade and Bosh the following night in Miami, promising a slew of championships that he found out just aren't that easy to win, even if you've supposedly "beat the odds" in doing it.
He didn't have to comment that all the folks who rooted against him could go back to their pathetic lives after his team lost Game 6 to the Mavericks last year.
He didn't have to film that ridiculous "What should I do?" commercial for Nike, which didn't help his image in the slightest.
And, he didn't have to toy with Cleveland's emotions midway through this season when he said he'd be open to coming back and playing with the Cavs.
LeBron James showed just how self-absorbed he really is when he called winning the NBA Championship "the best day of his life." Glad to know LeBron Jr. and Bryce Maximus or their mother that you finally got engaged to, Savannah, really don't matter that much to you, "champ."
Funny that LeBron's old high school coaches Keith Dambrot and Dru Joyce celebrated that title. However, LeBron didn't throw the love back at them in his postgame comments.
Funny that LeBron didn't even have any comments directed at Cleveland, although he couldn't resist taking a shot at Cavs owner Dan Gilbert when he said, "I have never, in life, taken any shortcuts."
Did those jersies you received as a "gift" from the sporting goods store, which cost your high school team an undefeated season, count as a shortcut?
Did that Hummer your mom "purchased" for you in high school, which had you investigated by the OHSAA, count as a shortcut?
Did skipping college to go straight to the NBA count as a shortcut?
How about getting all of your cronies hired to the Cavs? Did that count as a shortcut?
That three-year contract you signed with a player-option for a fourth (that you were never going to exorcise) after 2007, did that not count as a shortcut?
Convincing the Cavs to abandon all long-term planning and go for short-term success, like signing Shaq and squandering draft picks, did that not count as a shortcut?
And, as you realized that you couldn't deliver a championship to Cleveland, as you promised, you decided to tuck tail and sign with another team with two other All-Stars in the hopes that it would make you a champion.
That, by any definition, is a shortcut.
Dan Gilbert was right in calling you out. Unfortunately, he made some dumb comments (guaranteeing the Cavs would win a title before LeBron would was ridiculous, and, I'm sure, had ESPN piling on after LeBron won) that has cost him.
In a way, I'm relieved he won. It was tiring rooting for someone to fail so hard and so strong. The albatross is gone.
Sometimes, the best way to make something go away is to ignore it. I'm ready to ignore LeBron James and focus my energies on the teams and athletes we have here in town.
Teams like the Browns, who drafted two exciting offensive playmakers in Trent Richardson and Brandon Weeden, and have several players who are staying true to Cleveland, like Josh Cribbs and Joe Haden.
Teams like the Cavs, who drafted an exciting point guard in Kyrie Irving and are poised to add another exciting player with the fourth pick of Thursday's NBA Draft -- whether they move up or down or package picks or whatever.
Teams like the Indians, who, defying all logical belief, are still somehow in first place in the AL Central Division and are in position to be movers and shakers in a month at the trading deadline.
Teams like Ohio State, who brought in Urban Meyer to be the new head football coach and has immediately hit the ground running with a great recruiting class and some tough love (enjoy that one-game winning streak, Michigan). And their basketball team, that reached the Final Four again under Thad Matta and continually bring top hoops recruits to Columbus and succeed.
And, teams like Cleveland State, who are poised to become a mid-major breakout team after Butler left the Horizon League for the Atlantic-10. Gary Waters keeps bringing in talent that thrives in his system. The Butler roadblock to the NCAA Tournament has been lifted, and the Vikings are ready to kick down the door.
Let's not forget teams like Kent State baseball, that became the first team from the state of Ohio since Mike Schmidt's Ohio U. team in 1970 to reach the College World Series, and then sent No. 1-ranked Florida packing in a thrilling elimination game. Yes, a warm-weather sport like collegiate baseball can be successful in Northeast Ohio.
Congratulations, LeBron. You won a championship. So, when does Browns training camp open up?
Until next time, remember that Cleveland Rocks!
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