My 10 favorite moments as a Cleveland sports fan

1. Cleveland Cavaliers win the 2016 NBA Finals. This was SO improbable. They were down three games to one against the best regular-season NBA team that ever was, with two of the three remaining games in Oakland. It’s been eight years, and I still can’t believe I actually saw that happen! The Warriors were 73-9 that year, but LeBron, Kyrie, Kevin and company managed to win four out of seven! It still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it! “Cleveland, this is for you!”

2. Ohio State Buckeyes win the 2002 college football national championship (January 2003), upsetting the heavily favored Miami Hurricanes. It was the first time I ever saw one of my teams win a title (at age 31), and I’ll never forget it. It does bear mentioning that it wouldn’t have happened if not for a controversial pass interference call against Miami, but I will go to my grave thinking it was the correct call. And Maurice Clarett, a running back, managed to make the defensive play of the game when he stripped a Miami defender of the ball after an interception in the end zone.

3. Len Barker pitches a perfect game against the Blue Jays in 1981. I was nine years old (turned 10 a month later) and watched the entire game with my late father. I had just read the book “Baseball’s Greatest Moments,” which mentioned Sandy Koufax’s perfect game; I didn’t know there had been others. But still, Barker’s was only the 10th perfect game in major league history. The image of Rick Manning catching the last out and jumping with joy at the end of the game will be with me as long as I live.

4. Ohio State Buckeyes win the 2014 college football national championship (January 2015), beating Oregon. This was slightly less meaningful than the 2002 title, mostly because it wasn’t the first time I’d seen it happen. But also because it wasn’t that dramatic a game. The semifinal game against Alabama (42-35) was a much better game. Regardless, Ezekiel Elliott scored four touchdowns in a 42-20 rout. Admittedly, it was 21-20 OSU as late as the penultimate play of the third quarter. It was definitely fun to watch, anyway.

5. Bernie Kosar’s Browns pull out an unbelievable comeback playoff win against the Jets, 1986 season (January 1987). The Browns were the top seed in the AFC, and the Jets were a wild card, so we were supposed to win. But the Jets were strong out of the gate, scoring a touchdown on a flea-flicker. I love the flea-flicker in general, but that particular one sucked. (Ha!) Anyway, when the Jets turned a rare Kosar interception into a touchdown with less than five minutes left, it was 20-10, Jets. But we managed to score a quick touchdown and then got a field goal from the last straight-on kicker, Mark Moseley, to send it to overtime. It took a second overtime, but we pulled it out!

6. Rajai Davis ties game seven with a three-run homer in the 2016 World Series against the Cubs. We all know how that game turned out, but good lord, was that an exciting home run. It was the eighth inning, and my wife and kids had all gone to bed, so I had to cheer quietly. That was Davis' only season in Cleveland, and he’d only hit one home run all season. The last thing I expected was to see that ball go onto the home run porch, but that’s exactly what happened. Unbelievable.

7. The Indians take a curtain call after their 22-game winning streak comes to an end, 2017. It was the second-longest winning streak in MLB history, though it has to be said that the 1916 Giants' 26-game winning streak did include a tie that got called due to darkness in the days when games were only played when the sun was out. Terry Francona led the players out of the dugout after a tight 4-3 loss to the Royals ended the streak, and I shed an actual tear.

8. Cleveland Browns upset the Steelers in the playoffs, 2020 season (January 2021). The final score was 48-31, but it really wasn’t that close. We scored a VERY fast touchdown after a bad snap went over Ben Roethlisberger’s head on the very first play from scrimmage, and we were up 28-0 after the first quarter. So much fun to watch.

9. Indians win game four against the Red Sox, ALCS, 2007. This was extra-meaningful because I attended the game (shelling out something like $400 for tickets for me and my girlfriend, who is also my current girlfriend all these years later). Jhonny Peralta’s fifth-inning home run came close enough to us that we were on SportsCenter the next morning; I actually thought I might have had a shot at catching it when it was making its way toward us. Sadly, that would be the last game the Indians won that year.

10. Cavaliers win game five of the Eastern Conference Finals in double-overtime, opening a 3-2 lead over the Pistons in Detroit. The incomparable LeBron James scored 29 of the Cavs' last 30 points, including ALL of their last 25. As great as LeBron has been, I’ve never seen him play as well as he did at the end of that game. He was freaking unstoppable.

 

The name game

 Last night at 7:14 eastern time, Sebastian Aho of the Islanders scored a goal against the Blue Jackets. At 7:15 eastern time, Sebastian Aho of the Hurricanes scored a goal against the Canadiens. The two gentlemen are not related.

Another season-opening loss

Well, losing to last year's AFC champions in their home stadium isn't the end of the world. But man, this was a winnable game. Jamie Gillan's fumbled snap was a back-breaker, but of course, any time you lose, you can always point to a few key moments that might have made a difference. I don't fault Baker Mayfield for the interception that sealed it. He was in a desperate situation, trying to make something happen.

The Browns lost this game, but they proved that they're going to be a force to be reckoned with this year. They gave up a lot of points to a great offense, but the defense did some good things today. Stopping Mahomes and company on a three-and-out on their last real drive was clutch. It at least gave the offense a chance to come back.

The Browns' offense was on fire in the first half, but they couldn't keep it going in the second half, unfortunately. I would have liked to see them run the ball a little more. They averaged 5.9 yards a rush for the game. Nick Chubb's fumble was obviously very costly, but he did run for 83 yards on just 15 carries. When you've got a horse like Nick Chubb, you've got to ride him.

Oh, well. Like I said, it's not the end of the world. The Browns acquitted themselves well against a very, very good team. I look forward to seeing what happens next week against the Texans.

Some random thoughts

Carl Yastrzemski, whose grandson is now playing in the majors, had an interesting career. He was a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and rightly so. Take a look at his numbers. He was phenomenal in the '60s. Won a Triple Crown, along with two other batting titles, and there's a ton of black ink all over his stats from that era. But Yaz played until he was 43 -- and played REGULARLY until he was 43 -- but had his last really good year at age 30, in 1970. I was born in 1971, and am therefore old enough to remember Yaz's last few years (he retired after the 1983 season). But I never saw CARL YASTRZEMSKI. I saw a decent player by that name, but not the player he once was.

***

MLB hasn't expanded since 1998, with the Rays and Diamondbacks. And both of those teams have won at least one pennant. Of course, the Backs won it all in their fourth year of existence, in a thriller against the Yankees. I don't really have a point, except that it's been a long time since any team has been able to use expansion as a legitimate excuse. Of course, in the NFL, our Browns tried to use that as an excuse after, like, 15 years of existence. Seems like if you've been around longer than most players' careers, you can't say, "Oh, but we're so new."

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When does the Mayfield Bake-off start?

***

My 7-year-old daughter and my 6-year-old niece just played "rock paper scissors" over whether to fall asleep to "The Grinch" or "Open Season." My niece won the first throw, so of course my daughter had to go best-two-out-of-three. She won the next two throws, and my niece got mad and stormed off. I mean, she did win the first throw and thought she was home free. And she's never seen "Open Season," so she figures it probably sucks, or she'd have seen it. So my daughter caved and turned on "The Grinch." I don't have a point here, I just thought it was funny.

Kevin Love ran off the court at the end of tonight's Cavs game

Well, since my last post, we've seen the Cavaliers win a title and the Indians come ever so close. We've seen the Buckeyes get sent home in tiny bits from the college football playoff. We've seen the Browns come perilously close to putting the "0" and "16" in 2016. We've even seen the Blue Jackets come within one game of tying an NHL record for consecutive wins. (You guys were watching that, right? Because that was pretty cool.) There have also been some politics.

So naturally, the event that sparks me to post something is the tail end of a regular-season Cavs game. It wasn't just any game -- it was a loss to the Spurs on our home court. But really, the framework of what inspires me to post in general these days is fourfold: (1) Something unusual must happen. (2) I must think of something interesting to say about it. (3) It must be something I don't think anybody else noticed. (4) ... And this is the most important one: There must be no small children around asking me for cereal or chocolate milk or toilet paper or shoes or where that one doll is that they're pretty sure they played with a couple of months ago and REALLY, REALLY NEED RIGHT THIS SECOND.

All right, well, as noted, the Cavaliers lost to the Spurs tonight on our home floor. This is nothing to be ashamed of, of course. If we played the Spurs 10 times on our home floor, we'd probably win six or seven. This happened to be one we lost. We probably aren't going to play the Spurs in the postseason, so it's not a major concern. You could make the argument that we should beat everybody on our home court if we expect to be a championship team. Are you saying that? Well, if you are, shut up. No team has ever gone undefeated at home. Not Jordan's Bulls, not Kareem and Magic's Lakers, not even World's Cavs. It was a hard-fought game, and we very nearly won.

The last play of the game involved Kevin Love getting an open look at a 3 that would have tied the game and sent it into a second overtime period. You can't ask for a better play than that in that particular situation. Love is an excellent shooter, especially for a big man, and when his hands hit the ball, there were three-tenths of a second left. Three-tenths, of course, is considered the minimum number of seconds required for a player to catch the ball and shoot it. Any less than that, and it's got to be a tip-in. Which is pretty difficult to get three points on.

Love missed. Hey, it happens. Even the best shooters miss more than half of their three-pointers. The thing that surprised me the most? Love missed and then IMMEDIATELY ran off the floor and into the locker room. I found that rather stunning. He practically sprinted away from the court. LeBron James and Kyrie Irving both went over to congratulate Greg Poppovich (I'm not sure I have the correct number of G's and/or P's, but I'm not going to look it up right now; shut up). Poppovich and/or Popovich and/or Ppppoppppovich was mad at his team for leaving Love open for a 3 in that situation, but that's totally irrelevant. I'm digressing all over the place.

Where was Love going? (I'm going to resist the urge to make a Supremes joke right now (The Supremes sang "Where Did Our Love Go?")) Why was he in such a hurry to get into the locker room? How badly did he have to go to the locker room? Did he have to go stand next to something or sit on it? Or perhaps kneel next to it? Was that something made of porcelain? Was the porcelain imported? Was it Italian? Why are the Cavs importing porcelain from Italy? What's wrong with American porcelain?

That's all. I found that funny. And I got 678 words out of it. Including this one.

Of David Blatt

So the Cavaliers fired David Blatt today. Blatt is the winningest coach in Cavaliers history, based on winning percentage. (On a side note, "winningest" does not pass the spell checker. I find it interesting that Google classifies "winningest" as a non-word, but you see it in sports stories all the time. Sportswriters are always making up new words. I think I've gone quite far enough on this tangent.)

As my good friend Jeff Brown noted in a text, "David Blatt goes 83-40 (.675) in 1.5 seasons with the Cavs, and in his only opportunity took the team to within two wins of the NBA championship, and he just got fired. Blatt has the highest winning percentage (I already covered that, so instead of typing it again, I'm going to type far more words explaining why I'm not typing it again. You know, to save time and irritation on my carpal tunnel. I'm going to purposely end this paragraph with a punctuationally incorrect drop-off. And yes, you're right, "punctuationally" is not a word, according to Google.)

Jeff continues, "What more do they want from a coach?"

Well ... Does anybody think the Cavaliers can beat the Warriors OR the Spurs the way they're currently going? They were utterly embarrassed by the Warriors just four days ago. Destroyed. Turned into quivering lumps of protoplasm. Sure, they're 30-11. Yes, they are the best team in the East. As long as LeBron stays healthy, we're pretty much going to get a bye to the Finals. ... I know, I shouldn't say that, you never know, everybody starts at 0-0 in a playoff series, but who's going to stop us? The Chicago Fools? The Atlanta Caulks? The Toronto Crappers? Well ... yeah, you never know. Those teams aren't going to just lay down for us. But we're easily the odds-on favorite. We have the most expensive team in NBA history, and just look at how much talent we've got on our roster. (You all know who we've got, so I'm not going to belabor the point.)

But, provided we make the Finals, the West is going to produce a very, very good team for us to play. Probably the Golden State Warmers or the San Antonio Spuds. (I like my names way better than the ones they're using. They should have called me.) And the way the Cavs have been playing, I really don't feel we could beat either of those teams. We've played them both tough on their home floors, but ... yeah, Monday. It was the worst home loss of LeBron's career. And he's, what, 42? Really, can you imagine those Cavaliers beating those Warriors in a seven-game series? I just don't see it. (In another side note, I find it interesting that, with Steve Kerr taking back his rightful spot on the Warriors' bench tonight, both teams from last year's Finals changed coaches on the same day. (I know I'm overusing the parentheses, and I should just do footnotes, but I'm too lazy for footnotes. And anyway, what is this, Encylopædia Brittanica?))

I do feel that David Blatt mismanaged the Finals last year. He ran his starters ragged, and left very good players rotting on the bench. You all know the story, so I'm not going to belabor that either. But it isn't particularly germane to this discussion anyway, because obviously he wasn't fired for that. He'd have been fired right after the Finals if that were the reason. I've heard that he had "lost the players," which is a very common thing to hear when a coach is fired in any sport. (Or a manager. I know.) I've never been a professional athlete, but I've had bosses who had lost the workforce, and it's not a good place to be.

Here's the thing: David Griffin put this team together. He knows the situation much better than I do, and he's probably smarter than I am too. And I don't say that about very many people. That doesn't mean he's incapable of a mistake (he's not the freaking Pope, after all), but I just don't feel I have enough information to disagree with him.

Also, one other point -- Tyronn Lue has gotten glowing reviews from a lot of different people who know him and have played with him or played for him. Griffin made it clear that he has a lot of confidence in Lue. Blatt may not have been fired if Griffin didn't feel he had a very capable replacement for him.

I don't know if this was a good move. It certainly surprised me. But I can definitely see a lot of the reasoning that went into it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the team responds.

Quick thought on the Browns ...

Yes, that was an extremely satisfying win by the Browns over the Ravens yesterday. I was against McCown being reinserted as the starter after Manziel won his only start, but I will cheerfully admit I was wrong about that. He was phenomenal yesterday. He is now the only Browns quarterback in history with three consecutive 300-yard games, and yesterday he set a new club record for passing yards in a regular-season game. (Nobody seems to be mentioning that Bernie Kosar actually threw for 483 yards in that double-overtime win over the Jets in the 1986-87 playoffs. I wish I had a VHS tape of that game. And also a VHS.)

In any case, I haven't heard anybody mention this, but if the NFL hadn't introduced the two-point conversion as an option 21 years ago, the Ravens would probably have won yesterday. The Browns went one-for-two on two-pointers yesterday, so if they'd just kicked extra points, they'd still have finished with 30 points. The Ravens only attempted one two-point conversion, and failed. At the time, it certainly appeared to be the right play -- they were up five with 5:56 to play, and it made sense to try to make it a seven-point game instead of six. But the conversion failed. Had they just kicked an extra point and everything else had gone the way it did, the Ravens would have taken a 31-30 lead on that field goal with 25 seconds left.

And this, my friends, is why I love the two-point conversion so much.

I'm a bit tardy with this post, but ...

On Thursday, my good friend Jeff Brown treated me to a front-row seat at the Browns' preseason game against Buffalo. Well, a business acquaintance of his gave him his season tickets. So I guess technically, that guy treated both of us to the game. In any case, Jeff was kind enough to invite me along. I never realized regular people such as we could ever wind up in the front row, even for a preseason game, but of course, you always see people sitting there when you watch the games on TV, and whether those people are bajillionaires or not, they still have red blood just like you and me, and their pants-donning method is identical (or at least highly similar) to yours and mine.

In any case, I took this picture with my phone before the game:



That was taken from the actual seat I was actually sitting in for the actual game. Sure, it was just a preseason game, but still, that was pretty awesome. That blue thing in the lower left-hand corner of the photo is the instant replay machine. Had there been a replay review, it would have taken place directly in front of my seat. Sadly, there were none.

I used to work at The News-Herald in Willoughby, first as a member of the copy desk, and then as an assistant city editor. I left there in 2007, but the newsroom staff has changed very little in that time, and I spotted former colleague Michael Blair, the N-H photographer, on the sideline. I was so close to the field, I yelled out his name at a not-particularly high volume, and he immediately turned around and saw me, waved and snapped my picture, presumably to show his co-workers who he saw at the game.

Here's a selfie Jeff took:




The row behind us did eventually fill up, in case you're wondering. Those people were just a little late.

As for the game? Well, of course it's just preseason, but it seems to me Manziel played a little better than McCown, albeit against the second-string defense. But that's about the extent of my analysis at this time. I unfortunately don't really have enough time to go into any depth.

On Corey Kluber

Anybody who thinks Corey Kluber isn't the pitcher he was last year should have watched tonight's game against the Twins. The dude pitched a complete-game one-hitter on just 98 pitches, striking out seven. The one hit was a home run, so no shutout, but yeesh, that dude is really something. I would even go so far as to say I think he's the best Indians pitcher I've had the pleasure to watch. And he didn't even make the All-Star Game this year. Tut, tut.

In case you're wondering, the best Indians hitter I've seen in my 44 years on this planet was, without question, Manny Ramirez. No, he wasn't the best all-around player, but he was the best pure hitter.

But speaking of offense, the Tribe entered tonight's game having scored 461 runs in 114 games. That includes their recent offensive explosion, upon which I'm about to expand, but in any case, that's an average of 4.04 runs per game on the season. They've routinely had runners on base and been unable to score any of them; every Tribe fan knows all about that. But here's the Indians' runs scored over the last seven games: 9, 17, 8, 5, 2, 6, 6. That's an average of 7.57 runs per game. Obviously that 17-run outburst against the Twins a few days ago is an extreme aberration and skews that number upwards; nonetheless, the Indians have scored at least six runs in five of their last seven games.

That'll play, folks. That'll play.

And one other thing. There's a good deal of rambling in this post, and I've decided that's probably my new style. I hope you "enjoy" it.

(Putting "enjoy" in quotes is a reference to George Harrison and Monty Python. Google it if you don't believe me.)

ADDENDUM: My cursory Googling indicates Google doesn't help with that particular episode. Sorry to have misled you. But I'm not going to tell you the backstory, because I don't remember enough details even to fake it.

Indians' dominance?

As long as I'm posting to this blog, I might as well share with you an email exchange I just had with my friend Jeff Brown. (I'm pretty sure Jeff won't mind.) I emailed him this morning under the heading "Indians are actually the best team in the AL Central."

Me: Check this out:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/

According to this page, the Indians have actually played like the best team in the American League Central this year. They've just been deeply unfortunate. According to what the nice folks at Baseball Prospectus call "3rd Order Winning Percentage," no team in the division has had better underlying statistics than our Tribe. Bad luck has shortchanged them out of 11 wins this season (rounding off).

It's apparently some sort of proprietary formula, but this is how BP defines the stat:

3rd Order Winning Percentage: A team's projected winning percentage, based on underlying statistics and adjusted for quality of opponents.

Of course, none of this helps them in the standings. But still, I thought it was interesting.


Jeff:  This is fascinating stuff!

It looks like the Indians get the second-highest adjusted win total (10.6 more wins) in MLB... second only to the Oakland Billy Beane's with 11.7.

Oakland would be 63-52 if third order winning percentage was the law, instead of their actual record of 51-64.

I guess it kind of makes sense for the Tribe, which has gotten numerous stellar pitching performances but lost the game because they couldn't hit the damned ball!

On the other side of the coin, it appears that the Minnesota Twins are actually much worse than their record of 57-56 shows.  Their third order winning percentage would place them at 48-65 with their league-leading 9.4 adjustment downward.

Of course, this is just one way of looking at things and although very interesting, it doesn't meet the eye test because it indicates that the Indians ought to be 64-48 and the Royals ought to be three games back at 61-51, and everyone in the Milky Way Galaxy knows that the Royals are a better team this year than the Tribe.

What do you think?

Me: Oh, come on. There are lots of folks on Rigel 7 who have no idea how good the Royals are.

But seriously, are the Royals truly better? Based on end results, it would appear so, and that's really all that matters. But the fact that it seems obvious that the Royals are better, doesn't make it so. It used to be obvious to everyone that swinging too hard was a bad strategy, that you might hit a few balls out of the park but that would be more than offset by the number of fly balls that would find their way into outfielders' gloves. Then Babe Ruth came along. ... It used to be obvious to everyone that a walk was purely the pitcher's fault, that the hitter basically just got lucky. Then Bill James came along. ... It used to be obvious to everyone that we were all better off if black and white people were kept separate from each other. Then Martin Luther King Jr. came along. ... So what I'm saying is, if you think the Royals are better than the Indians, you're a racist.

Just kidding. The Royals may truly be a better overall team than the Indians, but this chart throws that belief into question, at least for me.

* * *

Jeff hasn't replied to that yet, and I'm assuming that's because he sees my point and agrees with me.

Incidentally, I have since researched the star Rigel, which it turns out is part of the Orion constellation, and there is no evidence it has any planets, much less inhabited ones. But Rigel 7 (or Rigel VII) has often been the setting of much alien-related fiction, as you can discover more information about here.

First post in four years

OK, so I haven't exactly been active on this forum, but I'm watching the Browns-Redskins preseason game, and I have one thought: I don't like this longer extra point business. What if you want to run a fake and go for two after all?

That's all for now. I may decide to start posting regularly again. I don't write for a living anymore, so maybe I ought to get back into this. Baby steps. And this is about the babiest step I can think of.