Cleveland Rocked.....

Is there a sports city that needs a hug more than Cleveland? The Indians while flirting with championships haven’t won it all since 1948. The Browns are making their fans suffer through what might be the worst stretch in their history, and haven’t won a championship since 1964. The Cavaliers are doing well, but they have never won it all, and face the possibility of LeBron James leaving them in the summer of 2010. This is a good sports town. How much is too much?

Three weeks ago, Cleveland sport fans watched the 2007 and 2008 AL CY Young Award winners face off against each other in Game 1 of the World Series. The problem for the fans was that sixteen months prior, those two pitchers CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee were in the Indians' rotation and the two of them won those awards while pitching for the Indians.

For Indians’ fans, the current tailspin can be traced back to when the Indians blew a three games to one lead against the Boston Red Sox in the 2007 ALCS. After dominating the Sox to take the commanding series lead in the series, and with Sabathia starting Game 5 in Cleveland, things looked good for Indians’ fans. Instead disaster occurred, and Boston crushed the Indians by a combined 30-5 score in the last three games to go on to face the Colorado Rockies in the World Series, which Boston won.

The Indians have a descent core of young players, and a fairly good farm system to work from. They will rebuild and compete again, but after getting so close in 1995, 1997, and then again in 2007, and then seeing their top two pitchers leave in 2008 and 2009, they must wonder if they need the movie “Major League” to become a reality before they will ever win it all.

As for the Browns, what can you say besides the current situation is horrible, and the road to recovery looks very long and slow? No matter who eventually comes in to take over the team, they will have to overcome the poor player personnel decisions made at the quarterback position in order to move forward.

After a good 2007 season, which saw the Browns win ten games, the Browns decided to reward the quarterback who led them to those victories, Derek Anderson. Anderson, who was only in his first full season as a starting quarterback threw for 29 TDs, and seemed to be poised to lead the Browns’ future. This all seems to be good, except there was a problem. That problem was the Browns drafted Notre Dame’s Brady Quinn in the 2007 draft with the 22nd overall pick, and in doing so, also invested a good amount of money in him.

Some would say that was no problem, because what team would not want two good quarterbacks pushing each other forward. Well, it turns out that neither Anderson or Quinn are NFL caliber quarterbacks Cleveland thought they were when signing them and investing in them, and the Browns are stuck with both of them. Plus the team has no QB for the future to help them out of this mess. Add in that their lead running back is 30 year old Jamal Lewis, who has lots of mileage on him, plus they have no real quality receivers (especially after trading Braylan Edwards) and this is not a good combination.

Matter of fact, the combination on offense is so bad, that after nine games this year, the Browns have only scored 78 (5 offensive TDs) and has only produced 1929 total yards (rushing and passing). Meanwhile, all on his own, Titans running back, Chris Johnson has 1353 total yards and 9 touchdowns after his first nine games..

The Browns best player is return specialist Josh Cribbs, who does get his hands on the ball occasionally on offense, but he is now out with a head injury suffered on the last play of Monday Night’s game against the Ravens. You would say, “Well that’s just football”, but the Browns were down 16-0 at the time, and were running a “hook and lateral” type gadget play, for a reason which is still not known. It was during the confusion of the trick play where Cribbs got hit, and injured. Right now, that play defines what Browns football is at this time.

Because of the quarterback situation, and no real impact players on either side of the ball, it will take a while for Cleveland to get back on track. Browns fans must wonder after the1980 playoff loss to Oakland, “The Drive”, “The Fumble”, and then having their franchise moved by Art Modell, when they will see their payoff.

Then Cleveland fans have their Cavaliers. After being the laughing stock of the NBA for so many years, the Cavalier fortunes turned in 2003 when they drafted LeBron James straight out of high school. After a rough rookie year, James has carried the team to five straight winning years, highlighted by a trip to the NBA Finals in 2007 and last year’s 66 win campaign. Unfortunately, while last year looked like a championship year, The Cavaliers fell to the Orlando Magic during the second round of the playoffs.

While the 2009-2010 season should see LeBron again guide the team into the playoffs and possibly more, there is a cloud that overhangs above it all. That cloud is that this is the last year of James’ contract with the Cavaliers, and everybody associated with the NBA is well aware of it. For about the past 3 years, NBA fans, reporters and other teams have pointed towards the summer of 2010 and speculated to what James would do when the contract expires. LeBron has only helped with the speculation about him leaving Cleveland. Whether it is wearing New York Yankee hats, openly talking up his friendship with Dwayne Wade of the Miami Heat, or just not embracing Cleveland, it swirls the questions.

It wasn’t until recently that James told reporters that he will no longer answer questions about his contract and the upcoming summer. While that may help him and his teammates concentrate on the year ahead and task at hand, Cavalier fans will be left with that uncertain feeling about the future of King James and their Cavaliers.

Cleveland fans are never talked about in nasty ways like you hear about fans from Boston, New York, Philadelphia or even Los Angeles. So why are they going through this long stretch of fans’ torture? If they can’t get a championship, can they at least get a hug?