The Greatest Defeat

The Greatest Defeat

Written by:  The Cleveland Fanatic

Hello Fanatics and thank you for reading through this, my first blog.  In the last few days I have had a chance to gather my thoughts after the Cleveland Indians recent Game 7 World Series loss to the Chicago Cubs.  There are few words that I can use to describe the game itself.  For anyone who was lucky enough to watch the game unfold you surely realize you watched possibly the greatest 7 ever, at least the greatest of my lifetime.  The Cleveland Indians after leading the series 3-1 (more on this later) heading into game 5 in Chicago with a chance to end it all came up one run short.  The Game 5 loss set the stage for a phenomenal end to a rather uneventful (respectfully) series.  When I say uneventful I am simply speaking to the lack of lead changes in the first 6 games of the series.  Only two time has a team scored first only to lose the lead at any point heading into Game 7.  If you are anything like me when you woke up that Sunday morning prior to Game 5 and had an uneasy feeling that what happened just four months earlier in the Cavaliers unbelievable and historical comeback in the NBA Finals, also down 3-1 to the overwhelming and record breaking Golden State Warriors.  I told a friend that very morning that the 3-1 lead absolutely worried me.  Now I am not one to say that Karma played a part in the outcome of the World Series but to not consider it would be foolish, unless of course you do not believe in such things.  After the Game 5 loss I was asked if I was still worried, on the surface I was not, but deep down I was very unnerved.  The 2016 Indians were an incredible team to watch with such a dynamic underdog story that for any Cleveland fan around it felt like the rug was ready to be pulled out at any time.  I know, for those of you reading it seems as though I do not believe in our sports teams, and that could not be farther from the truth.  I love these teams and I always have hope that until that last second, until the last out or the last buzzer this year is always THE year!  I just simply felt that if a win in Game 5 did not happen that the overwhelming series favorite Chicago Cubs would make history.  This team was loaded with MVP candidates (Rizzo and Bryant) and 2 Cy Young candidates and a former Cy Young Winner (Hendricks, Lester and Arieta respectively).  The best record in baseball, the best pitching staff and the best offense in baseball was never going to be easy to take down.  The Indians in the face of all that, coming off of two straight series wins against the Red Sox and the Blue Jays in which they also were underdogs, never showed their fear.  This club came into the series knowing they could win it all and they came so very close to doing just that.  Back to Game 7, the Indians got off to a rocky start as their Ace Corey Kluber making his 3^rd start of the World Series was chased after he faced just one batter in the 5^th inning.  Kluber in the series was absolutely as dominating as he was throughout the playoffs and the hope that he would pitch the Indians into history was taken away rather early.  The team continued to battle back to make it 5-3 Chicago in the 5^th only to see Chicago score again in the top of the 6^th to stretch their lead to 6-3.  Fast forward to the bottom of the 8^th with hope fleeting and Aroldis Chapman entering in the inning with one runner on.  The chances of the Indians coming back was all but gone, but then something magical happened.  Brandon Guyer hit a double that scored Jose Ramirez who reached on a single to second.  Then the at bat that very nearly changed the course of history happened.  One of the unlikeliest of people, Raji Davis who had struggled (Batting Average wise) so mightily throughout his limited playing time in the Playoffs, fought off pitch after pitch, 100+ mph fastball after another to take Chapman deep to tie the game.  This was it, this was the moment, and the Cubs went quickly in the 9^th to set the stage for late inning heroics.  Unfortunately the Indians were unable to score in the bottom half and sent the game into extra innings.  What came next may not have even been accepted by Hollywood for a movie script. A rain delay, of course why wouldn’t there be a rain delay in a Game 7 where there were 176 years of combined droughts between the two teams.  Extra innings and a rain delay, to my knowledge this has never happened in World Series history.  The delay lasted 18 minutes and the ensuing inning was not what we were hoping for.  Chicago scored twice and Raji once again drove in a run to make the deficit one run in the bottom of the 10^th.  Michael Martinez would ground out to end the game and folks for the love of the game of baseball the next moment was special.  As a lifelong Indians fan I had to take a moment and appreciate the beauty of seeing the Cubs 108 year title drought come to an end as we Cleveland fans saw our combined 52 year title drought broken by the Cavaliers.  Every emotion we felt 4 months earlier was now being felt by Cubs fans everywhere.  It was hard to see my team lose in such spectacular fashion once again, but this feels different.  This was not a Cleveland team that dropped the ball, or was wildly overmatched.  This was an underdog who fought through to the bitter end, until the 30^th out (10 innings) of Game 7 and never quit.  I am so proud to be a Cleveland fan and these Indians embodied what it means to be a fighter, the same as the people from northeastern Ohio know all too well.  Thank you Indians for giving me the most memorable season I have ever watched and for fighting til’ the end of what I was always remember the Greatest Defeat of my lifetime.  Next year is real, the same as it was for the Cavaliers I believe this too is the last year, we say Next Year for the Indians. 

Why I Care

Why I Care

Perspective of a Fan

            The other day my roommate asked a sports related question that I was honestly stumped by.  This for me is not something that happens often especially when the person asking is not much of a sports fan.  This is not to say I know everything about sports but for the most part I usually have at very least an educated guess to send someone’s way.  He asked me the following question, during game four of the 2016 NBA Finals.  Why do you care so much about this?  Now this doesn’t seem like a hard question to answer but put your mind in a position where you are watching your lifelong favorite team losing en route to a 3-1 series deficit.  I was sad, disappointed and slightly angry with the fun he was poking at my ill feelings towards the game, again he is no fan of either team and he just wanted to see me get a little roused.  So here I am a sports fan for 25 years, a man who prides himself on being an above average knowledgeable fan, and I had absolutely no response to this question.  I looked at him with hurt in my heart and sadness in my voice and simply said “I do not know”.  

            The answer to my above question is not easy to explain and it took me three days and a win in game five of the NBA Finals to find an answer.  I love sports, there is no other way to say it other than I have an unadulterated and unwavering love to the sports teams in northeastern Ohio.  I grew up being taught our both poor and rich history among the Cavaliers, the Indians and the Browns.  I knew of all of the success in the 1960’s for the Browns behind none other than one of the greatest running backs of all time Jim Brown.  There is also the heartache that has been (choose any of the 30 for 30 Believeland clips) the looming shadow over the city of Cleveland since 1964.  I personally watched the Indians World Series losses in both 1995 and 1997 to Atlanta and Florida respectively.  These were some of my earliest sports memories as a child, I was four years old during the ’95 season, so why would I subject myself to that kind of torture for the next 21 years?  Does it make me crazy to continue to watch every single year, let down after let down?  There is one answer to both questions, HOPE.  Hope that next year will be the year that it ends, next year will be the greatest joy a sports fan can find.  As I currently write this, it has been 52 years since the city of Cleveland has won a professional championship.  As a loyal Cleveland sports fan we all sit and wait for the day that the drought ends.  I hope that this NBA Finals will be the one that it all finally happens.  If it does not happen now, maybe the first place Indians will end it in October, or dare I say the Browns may pull off a miracle and complete the job in February of 2017.  So maybe this will be it or maybe it will not, but what is for sure is that this man will continue to watch until that day finally comes.

            Hope may be the driving force behind why I watch, but it does not explain why I care.  Why do I care so much about a team of grown men, some younger than I, play a sport that I loved growing up as a child?  I was never good enough to play at that kind of level, but I found no greater level of enjoyment in my life than playing game of pickup basketball or being a part of a High School baseball game.  Sports bring people together who otherwise have no common ground and forge a bond toward one common goal, to win.  I may be crazy for caring so much, but that does not dissuade me from hanging on every moment as if it were the last.  Finding something in life to love is one of the best things one can find, and as I said before I love sports.  So with that being said, why would I not find so much joy in watching a game that I love so very much?  I may end up disappointed at the end of each season but if I do not care then what would be the point of watching?  I may spend more of my time watching these games than I should, but I do not care, I will watch and love these teams as if they were my own.  So I suppose the answer to my question, why do I care, is because I have found something so much bigger than just me to love so very much.  I will watch until the end of my life whether you give me what I want or not, I will continue to love you and I will always care.

                                                                                              

  -Kyle Jones

RETURN OF THE KING

RETURN OF THE KING

Lebron James' Return to Cleveland

A Fans Perspective

By Kyle Jones

Dear Cleveland Sports fans,

Please take a moment to read through a small story I have prepared as a pure sports fan.  I will deliver stats and records because you can find that elsewhere.  This is simply my personal view of an athlete who many of us have come to admire.  Enjoy.

Cleveland, the Mistake by the Lake as we have been so reluctantly named.  The name truly does fit, bad weather, crime, corruption and miserable ends to every single professional sports season since 1964.  Browse through the past of our city and see let down after let down and heartbreaks so bad that you feel you are reading a fiction story rather than looking at real life history.  The shot, the drive, the fumble, the sweep and many more that happened long before my lifetime.  I was raised as a Browns fan, an Indians fan and yes a Cavaliers fan.  While looking at our past and wondering what we did to deserve such despair and misery, one can ask did any of these hurt as much as the Decision.  That sad day when our King Lebron James abandoned his throne and headed to rule paradise in Miami.  Hell who could blame the man?  How many people who grow up in Northeastern Ohio do not think about leaving the weather behind and head for warmer weather and bigger parties?  That is correct folks, he did what most of wish we could do, ESCAPE!  What did we do? We cursed the man, we soiled his name and some people even burned his jersey and wished him the worst time ever on his new life.  His departure was so damaging to an already frail city that I personally wondered if we would break all together.  Who can forget the terrible performance he put on in the series losing game against Boston to end the 09-10 season, 9 turnovers and the image of him removing the Cavaliers jersey for what would be the final time.  Then he left, in a fashion unmatched by any other athlete in recent memory.  

After four long years of lottery draft picks and a playoff drought, something happened.  Something occurred on a day in the summer of 2014 when a letter emerged seemingly out of nowhere.  It was a letter delivered by Lebron James on his decision to return to Cleveland, his home.  On the day that the letter was posted by Sports Illustrated the fans of Cleveland quickly changed their views about our rightful King.  All had been forgiven and hope and optimism had returned to a championship starved city.  The sports world paused and covered the story as the top headline.  Many people outside of the loyal fans of Cleveland were upset or annoyed by the fact that he was on the move again.  This move however, seemed different, it was not about doing what was in his best interest as a player, it was what he wanted as a man.  A prideful man who loves his home and wanted nothing more than to return to the team that drafted him to provide joy and maybe even…dare we say it? A CHAMPIONSHIP.  

No true fan needs a rundown of what occurred this past year for the Cavs.  I will post only the headlines.  Return, trade for Kevin Love, Kyrie’s max extension, doubts about Blatt being the right man.  Then we saw the terrible start and here we go again, the Cavs are going to let us down.  There were a few trades to add some pieces to help change the culture, enter Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Timoffey Mozgov.  Most importantly, goodbye Dion Waiters (Thank you David Griffin).  What happens next was like magic.  The Cavaliers fresh off their makeover would go on to finish second in the Eastern Conference, but let’s be honest they felt like the best team in the East.  

Welcome back to the postseason Cleveland, we have arrived with optimism and a reason to once again believe.  Sweep the Celtics in a fashion the world expected.  Here was a bit of a roadblock coming out of this series, exit Kevin Love thanks to a severe shoulder injury.  The King is down one of his best sidekicks.  The Cavaliers would face the Bulls in the second round and get past them in 6 games.  Some buzzer beaters and the legacy grows.  The King has built an army that cannot lose.  Along come the Hawks, the Eastern Conference’s top seed and a team who looked poised to challenge the throne.  Yeah on second thought, they appeared to be little birds who were sent to prepare the King’s army for their final challenge, a date with the Warriors of Golden State.  

Here we are folks, a showdown with the NBA’s best team.  The King versus the young Prince.  Game one would prove to be the ultimate and nearly fatal blow.  Kyrie Irving fell to a terrible knee injury which would end his hobbled playoff run and leave Lebron down his last All-Star.  Game two and three were spectacles that fans could only sit back and enjoy.  Victories for the Cavaliers and a 2-1 series lead.  Lebron played out of his mind and got contributions from everyone who touched the floor.  This is it Cleveland, this is finally the year that our misery ends.  It has to be this year, I mean why not this year? Right?  NOT so fast, yes that is right we all witnessed a 3 game swing that would end the hope and the dreams.  The Cavs fell in three straight to lose the series.  It was all over and the celebration for the Warriors began.  Lebron James produced one of the single greatest performances in NBA Final’s history.  He led BOTH teams in scoring, rebounding and assists, a feat that had never been accomplished.  He truly left it all on the floor and gave his all for the city he wears on his chest and carries on his back.  

So there you have it Cleveland fans, another year gone and another reason to believe we may never taste a championship.  More of the same, more reason to doubt and feel bad about ourselves.  NOT SO FAST!!!  The future for the first time is bright.  Next year will actually come.  There is hope for ultimate victory and a team that we can all believe in again.  There is one man to thank for this hope, this belief and it is none other than Lebron James.  Not only because he returned home but because he showed the fans of this city that he will not quit on us again, he will leave his soul on the floor if it means a Ring to the Rock City.  So I plead with the fans to hold out hope and put your faith in our King, he has returned and he will not leave us again.  

Be easy on me folks, this is new to me, but this is something I believe in.  I love the city of Cleveland and the players who put it all on the line for our entertainment every night.  Thank you for reading and feel free to leave some comments or share with your friends.  

Sincerely,

A loyal and loving fan