Carnage in the Cleve: How LeBron Disembowelled a City

It is a shame LeBron James isn’t nearly as wise or as worldly as Jack Donaghy. “For God’s sake Lemon, we’d all like to flee to The Cleve and club up at the Flats and have lunch with Little Richard” he tells Liz as she considers leaving New York and moving to Cleveland, affectionately referred to as The Cleve, to be with her boyfriend Floyd.

Floyd dreams about “moving back to Lakewood, maybe even Shaker Heights, Big Creek Parkway. Send the kids to St. John Bosco’s. Maybe even cheering the Tribe at the Jake.” Liz is smitten with The Cleve, charmed by its friendliness and warmth of spirit. She is told she is skinny enough to be a model, a man gives up his spot in the hot dog line for her, she is cheerfully asked if she would like to pat a police horse. This is The Cleve and Cleveland rocks.

Well, it did, at least on an esoteric level until LeBron James gutted the city and tore out any semblance of self-worth and belief in qualities like loyalty and home town heroism and hope.

Even when overcome by decades of economic decay, sports brutality and downright mean-spirited luck, they have always shown a certain resilience. This kick in the balls from LeBron James, however, may have the city down for the count. This is the end of hope for many in C-Town. It is certainly the death of trust. Cleveland will never again give themselves over fully to a possible sports hero again.

The Cleve is quite rightly mired in bitterness right now and they may drown in the resentment.

There are few sports cities that have suffered as much as Cleveland. The town is loyal, enthusiastic, dogged and tough but they have been rewarded with a never-ending torrent of trauma, disappointment, failure, mediocrity and sadness. The Australian equivalent is probably a combination of being a Sharks fan combined with barracking for Fitzroy or the North Sydney Bears and even that doesn’t do Cleveland sports justice. Hell, there is even a blog titled God Hates Cleveland Sports, such is the star-crossed fortunes of a city so devoted to their franchises.

The history of Cleveland sports is a history of carnage, despair and misery.

Cleveland has not won a national title since 1964 when the Browns won the NFL at a time before the Super Bowl was even a twinkle in America’s eye. The Indians have not won the World Series since 1948 and have won the World Series only twice since their birth in 1915. In over forty year’s existence, the Cavaliers have never won an NBA title and only once made the NBA finals.

The Browns are the most loved team in Cleveland and they have provided the most ball-crushing heartache imaginable with such playoff misfortune unparalleled in sports.

There was Red Right 88 Click Here the infamous passing play in the 1981 divisional playoff game against the Oakland Raiders when, in freezing conditions that reached lows of -16° C with a wind chill temperature of -37.8° C and the Browns in field goal position 13 yards out down 14-12 with less than a minute to play, coach Sam Rutigliano called a passing play. The pass was intercepted and the Raiders went on to win the Super Bowl and the hopes of a city were crushed.

There was The Drive Click Here. The Browns played Denver in the 1986 AFC Championship game in Cleveland and the Browns led 20-13 with 5 minutes remaining and Denver on their own 2-yard line but John Elway drove the Broncos 98-yards to the game tying touchdown and with the momentum built guided Denver towards the Super Bowl in overtime. The Browns did not force Denver into a fourth down all drive.

A year later there was The Fumble. The protagonists were once again the Browns and the Broncos and the setting was once again the AFC Conference championship game. The Browns had fought back from a 21-3 halftime deficit to get the scores to 31-31 before Denver regained the lead 38-31 with four minutes remaining. Led by running back Earnest Byner, Cleveland drove to the Broncos 8-yard line with a minute and change on the clock. Byner then took a draw run and looked certain to score a touchdown before the ball was stripped at the 2-yard line and recovered by Denver.

The real gutshot came in 1995, however, when team owner Art Modell announced that the team was moving to Baltimore and the Browns would no longer exist. Modell was involved in a stadium dispute with the city and played his ace when moving the Browns. A football city first and foremost, Cleveland was outraged and devastated and would not have a team until the 1999 season when the new Cleveland Browns began play. Modell cannot even step foot in Ohio these days without fearing for his safety.

The Indians and the Cavs have provided their kick to the long and storied misery of Clevelanders. Michael Jordan landed The Shot to knock the Cavs out of the 1989 season on the Cavs home court, one of Jordan’s greatest clutch plays that provided an unlikely victory against one of the Cavs best ever teams. Jordan again finished the Cavs with a buzzer beater in 1993 to eliminate Cleveland from the playoffs. The Indians were three outs away from winning the 1997 World Series before closer Jose Mesa blew the 2-1 lead in the bottom of the ninth in game seven of the Series before a Tony Fernandez error in the bottom of the eleventh led to a Marlins win. That blown series came only two years after Cleveland lost the 1995 World Series to Atlanta after having the best record in baseball and choking at the final hurdle against a Braves team renowned for October failure.

In a city that is defined by its blue collar working class identity, hope comes through sports. Cleveland has held the faith for so long. They have suffered for generations. And then this. Then LeBron not only flees The Cleve but he utterly humiliates the town, betrays its people and brings the hammer down hard on the head of hope.

James may be from Ohio but he will never be welcomed back. There is more chance of Sonny Bill Williams being embraced by the Belmore faithful than there is of LeBron ever being liked in the city of Cleveland. He is now in the Art Modell stratosphere of hate and Modell stole their football team.

It wasn’t so much that LeBron left Cleveland but more how he did it and where he decided to go. He left Cleveland amid weeks of lies and deception and then he nauseatingly revealed to the world that he was slinking off to Miami in an hour long television special. In the words of Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert, it was “a several-day narcissistic self-promotional buildup culminating with a national TV special of the decision unlike anything ever 'witnessed' in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment." James did not have the class to even inform team management that he was leaving. He left Cleveland as the supposed king but he never bought the town any titles and little success. He led the city up the garden path for weeks further deepening the hole of his hometown team. James showed no honesty, no compassion for the city of Cleveland and no understanding of the hurt he caused. He didn’t leave to go to the best basketball situation, which was in Chicago where James could remain the big dog with an outstanding number two in Derrick Rose as well as promising big man Joakim Noah and cap room to land another top free agent. He didn’t flee to for the fame and the brand, which was in New York where the LeBron James brand would exist in the world’s largest market and where he had the opportunity to rescue a flagship franchise that is on its knees. He went to Miami, an awful sports city, and he went because he didn’t believe he could lead a team to an NBA title. He didn’t want that responsibility and he couldn’t come through. By heading to the Heat, LeBron James has told the world that for all his skill, he doesn’t have the intangible qualities to carry a team to a title. He lacks the competitive drive. He even had the gall to play the Good Samaritan and case his announcement as a charity event in the deluded belief that it would maintain his positive image. It was the final insult and it just showed the bubble James exists in.

His reputation as a basketballer has taken a beating that it will never recover from and even a string of titles with Wade and Bosh in Miami will not make up for his betrayal or his hometown or mean even nearly as much historically as one lousy title would as the team leader in Cleveland or even Chicago or New York. His reputation as a human being, one capable of compassion and loyalty, is now nothing more than horseshit on a hot summer’s day.

There is nothing in the history of Australian sport that equates to the manner and mechanics of LeBron’s decision to scuttle off to Miami like a rat in the night. Gary Ablett fleeing to the Gold Coast would sadden and anger the Geelong faithful but Ablett won titles for the Cats and his leaving will not cripple the team or the town. Sonny Bill Williams’ abandonment of the Bulldogs was probably a greater dog act but he never meant to the Bulldogs what James meant to the Cavs and his popularity among the Canterbury faithful was never universal. Chris Judd leaving West Coast was cruel but he was always clear about his intentions to return to his hometown. Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau betrayed rugby league but neither ever attained any great affection from the rugby league public. Only Andrew Johns leaving Newcastle for the Roosters or Manly before he won a title with the Knights would have been on par and despite his faults, Joey stayed true to his team for his entire career.

Cleveland is a town reeling right now. It is like a town full of Pakistani cricket fans only with a genuine reason for outrage. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert wrote a scathing open letter calling James cowardly and a player who quit on the team. The 10-story tall mural in downtown Cleveland of James is being ripped down. The Cleveland public is ready to burn down his house, spit on his dog and eat his unborn children.

It is so sad to see a career that could one day have challenged Michael Jordan’s smashed to pieces by an out-of-control and misplaced ego, a lack of understanding of basketball history and sheer gutlessness. Jordan never would have rounded up the best available and relied on them to carry him to riches. He would have dug deeper and beaten them. He did it his entire career. Jordan never tried to recruit Magic or Bird or Hakeem. He did it with Luc Longley, B.J Armstrong, Stacey King, Scott Williams, Bill Wennington and Steve Kerr. Jordan had a clear and talented number two in Scottie Pippen and some quality role players but he was the only superstar on the Bulls and he never looked to recruit any others. James took the cheap option, the low road, the tacky route and history will hang the bastard for it.

It is even sadder to see a great city like The Cleve get whipped like a mongrel jumper once more. To see that whipping come at the hands of a local boy who should know better is just unbearable. This act of humiliation and betrayal should never be forgotten. LeBron James is dead to many. To Clevelanders, he is a traitor. To basketball purists, he is lacking in courage. To those with a heart, he is the personification of selfish.

The best we can all hope for now is a career that ends in no titles and years of failure and misfortune. James certainly deserves it. So does the city of Cleveland.