PLEASE BOYCOTT PAPA JOHNS

Lincoln Had A Secretary Named Kennedy

    

     So, in another long line of NBA conspiracy theories, the latest involves the recent slew of 3-year deals signed by some of the NBA’s elite, including Lebron James.  The rumor, as puported by our own Cleveland Plain Dealer, claims the reason that Lebron, Dwayne Wade, and Toronto’s Chris Bosh all signed 3-year deals is because the NBA is trying to line them all up to land in NYC in 3 years.  This has to be fake, right?

     Being insecure and from Cleveland, I have to think this has some merit.  However, if this does happen, the NBA should just come out and say that they are as scripted as the WWE.  Stern & Crew are only kidding themselves if they try and say that it wouldn’t be a dream situation to have them all playing in New York–they only been trying since the Patrick Ewing draft to get a winner in NY. 

     Now, the article doesn’t say that they’d all be playing for the Knicks, just that they’d be all playing in the NY area (including the Nets).  Given that they’ve pulled the strings to land Ewing in NY, and many think to land Lebron in Cleveland, this is entirely within the realm of possibilities for the Association.  The bottome line is, if there’s a conspiracy and Cleveland is involved, don’t expect to win.

Cleveland Still Reigns as Most Insecure City

      

     In a move about as anti-climatic as is gets, LeBron (through his agent) has said that he will re-up with the Cavs when he can do so on July 12.  For some reason this takes a full week to consider, even though he’s known what his options would be all year long.  That’s besides the point. 

     All week long, Clevelanders were subject to reminders of the many times we have been stabbed in the back, or had our hearts broken by our athletes.  You know the list:  Manny, Thome, Boozer, and The Guy Who Sold His Soul to the Devil.  Anyway, so we all revert to our insecure ways and start believing that LeBron could pull the same crap.  Then, then day comes and Lebron finally agrees to sign. 

     Hooray for us right? Of Course Not!  Apparently, Brian Windhorst is reporting that Lebron isn’t going to sign the max contract, but instead a version of the max deal that gives him an out after 3 years so that he can extort our city for more money when there is a new CBA in place.  Effing perfect.  Now we have just subjected ourselves to three more seasons of talk about Lebron bolting as soon as he can go out and make a ton of money, excersize the “secret” clause in his Nike contract that pays him double in big city’s, and basically end basketball in Cleveland once and for all.

 I don’t know what to think.  I guess we’ll know a lot more after he actually signs his deal, but it’s just one more reminder of how insecure we have become as sports fans in Cleveland when we can’t even celebrate the signing of the best athlete in Cleveland since Jim Brown.  I would like to believe LeBron–that he really likes playing in Cleveland, he wants to bring us a championship, wouldn’t want to play elsewhere, etc…But i’ve also wanted to believe Thome who said almost those exact words.  Or the previous Browns ownership who made such quotes as “I would never leave Cleveland, Cleveland is my home”, and “If the Browns don’t win the Super Bowl in 3 years I’ll sell the Browns and get out of football”.

     So, I guess in the meantime, we’ll just continue to hope LeKing can bring us a championship before he bolts town and wins the Super Bowl for the Ravens, leads MLB in HR while playing for the White Sox, verbally commits and then signs with another team (Jazz), Moves the Cavs to Baltimore  he does it for another city.  All the while looking for signs, like him wearing a Yankees hat, that he is leaving.  Speaking of which, why is posing for the Heisman?  Does that mean something?

Cleveland Teams Hate Me

     I've always felt that I was bad luck to my favorite teams.  As I've mentioned before, the first Browns game played after I was born was the Red Right 88 playoff game against the Raiders, and the first game I ever went to was a 42-0 loss to the Bills and resulted in the firing of our Head Coach Bud Carson.  The first Tribe game I went to they won with a walk-off homer in 14 innings–but only after I was forced to leave early because I had school the next day.

     Recently, this trend has been getting worse.  I was at yesterday's "business man's special", and the Tribe played like they were taking the day off like everyone else in the stands.  The last game I went to was the Memorial Day schalacking they took at the hands of the White Sox 11-0.  That means the Indians have scored a grand total of 1 run the last 18 innings of baseball played in my presence!  Seriously, I have seen this much bad baseball since little league.  They are a cool 1-3 in my presence this year.  I think I should just stop going all together.

     As far as the other teams go, I went to 4 regular season Cavs game last year (all losses), but I did go to Game 1 of the playoffs which was a win.  Cavs=1-4 in my presence.  For the Browns I have season tickets, but the two games I chose not to go to were wins (Bears, Titans). 

     I guess though, that since Cleveland teams typically have losing records as of late, it should be quite hard to attend a game and see a win.  But still, I'm starting to forget what it's like to watch your team win.

Cleveland Sports Teams Hate Attention

    

 That's what I'm starting to think.  Is it a pre-requisite that all Cleveland teams must suck tremendously whenever they are playing in a nationally televised game?  The Tribe have played in two ESPN Sunday Night games this year.  Last night was a 14-2 shalacking with our ace throwing, and the other was a season-opening crushing at the hands of the White Sox where our ace got put on the DL.  In total the Tribe is 0-3 in national broadcast games this year.

     The Cavs seem to have no better luck in the spotlight, including getting blown-out 3 times to the Pistons on ABC's Sunday afternoon broadcast (the last two coming in the playoffs, the final one being game 7).  I don't have the actual numbers for Nationally broadcasted games, but the Cavs were consistently coming up emtpy on the grand stage.   

     Then there are the Browns.  0-1 last year on ESPN, with that being a blow-out loss to the Steelers in P*******gh.  In 2004 they were also 0-1, with that being the Sunday Night game where Ed Reed returned a last-second Jeff Garcia interception 107 yards to end the game.  In fact, since the Browns returned to the NFL in 1999, they are an amazing 1-6 in nationally televised primetime games.

     so what is it with our teams?  Why do they hate being in the spotlight?  Are they ashamed that they are from Cleveland?  Do they not like the fact they they are in HD?  Does that freaky SkyCam thing scare them?  I need some help on this one.

Larry Hughes Is In Love With a Stripper

    

     Since, I'm guessing, nobody visits this site for sports news, you've probably already seen this somewhere.  But, it's still worth bring up.  So apparently Larry Hughes, one week removed from tragic death of his brother and the Cavs game 7 defeat, felt that the best way to heal those wounds was hanging with some strippers.  Two of them. 

     This photo is priceless, and I think it actually makes me like Hughes a little more.  After all, nothing says "all a part of the mourning process" like hanging with strippers at Urban Beach Week in Miami.  I don't know what's better, the t-shirt, the dangerously young girls posing with him, or the smirk on his face.  Another example of your ticket prices at work!

Special thanks to Deadspin for bringing this to my attention.

Baseball Just isn’t Cutting it Right Now

     

     That's what I kept wondering last night while watching the Indians come back from a 4-run deficit, only to blow it against the Twinkies.  It's really hard to get into the baseball grove in May when your basketball team just took it to a game 7 of the Conf. Semi's against the best team in the league.  Hard to watch a baseball game and cheer when you know there's still 120 games left.  I actually lost so much interest that at one point I watched at least 30 minutes of the NBA draft (fixed) lottery.

     On the flip side, I found it VERY easy to get all pissed of when the Tribe blew it in the 10th.  And to top it all off, the Tigers and Sox had to go out and win to complete the trifecta.  Yeah, our baseball team (who won 93 games last year) is under .500 and 9 games back of the division leading TIGERS.  Football season can't come quick enough.  And look at that, less than three months until the Browns first pre-season game!  Hopefully we're not counting down the days in August because our Tribe is out of division race.  That would make for one long summer.

…Or Not.

 I think, like a lot of Cleveland fans, I'm not real sure how to react to this past weekend.  I feels like a classic Cleveland collapse, especially since we were up 3-2 with a chance to close out at home.  But, for some reason I don't have that feeling I got when the Browns blew their 17 point lead late in the playoff game agains the Steelers.  Or When Pedro came out of the bullpen for 6 innings that end our season.  For some reaosn this wasn't as bad as all of the classic Cleveland failures of the past.

     The main reason why we don't have to be all worked up, is because we were such an underdog.  I mean, none of the PD writers picked the Cavs to win more than 2 games.  The fact that we took it to seven games (and actually it was Detroit that took it to 7) was an accomplishment in itself.  At the beginnng of the season if you would have asked a Cavs if they would be satisfied with a playoff berth and a first-round win almost all would have said yes.  Of course, that doesn't change the fact that we were 3 points away in game 6 from advancing. 

     Either way, if anyone was downtown on Friday it was a great day to be a Clevelander with all the buzz that was going on and the "Go Cavs" flyers in the office windows.  I just hope it's not too long before it gets that way again.  It has to be said, but it should really bear some meaning this time but I just can't WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR…

P.S.  A big F YOU to ABC for airing the "Cleveland Heartbreaks" mini-documentary at the end of the game.  That was a kick in the crotch.