Top 10 Cursed Cleveland
Sports Memories
By CRS Staff
You may remember last year that ESPN2's
Cold Pizza & ESPN.com featured a countdown of the Most Cursed Sports Cities. Week after week they counted
down the cities with the worst sports luck on ESPN2, while recounting each town's most painful moments on their web site.
As each new city was introduced on the way to #1 (in this case, a designation you really didn't want), it became more
obvious that our delighftul sports city of Cleveland was assured of finally finishing #1 in something.
Once it became official, ESPN.com reported
its version of the worst moments in Cleveland sports. Some of their choices I agreed with, while others I did not. Here
then for your enjoyment, is CrookedRiverSports.com's version of the worst moments in our city's sports history.
Let the cursing begin.
Top 10 Worst Moments in Cleveland
Sports History
10) “Bottlegate” Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Cleveland Browns,
December 16th, 2001
It’s debatable what the worst part
of this experience was – Browns fans throwing thousands of plastic beer bottles, trash, debris, and whatever illegal
beverages they smuggled into the stadium at the field on a cold December afternoon, or Team President Carmen Policy attempting
to defend their actions after the fact. Either way, “Bottlegate”
gave Cleveland another public relations black eye it didn’t
need, reminding sports fans nationwide that the dark days of battery-throwing at old Cleveland Stadium were not as far in
the past as everyone may have thought. And still, no one remembers that if Quincy
Morgan hadn’t dropped that 4th down pass, none of this would have happened in the first place….
9) Cleveland
Browns vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, AFC Wild Card Playoffs, January
5th, 2003
It’s true that Cleveland and Pittsburgh
have played some epic games over the years, and it’s also true that the Browns have won a few of those games it shouldn’t
have (an early 90's game in which Eric Metcalf saved the Browns with two special teams touchdowns comes to mind). However, none in recent memory were as gut wrenching as the Browns pitiful fourth
quarter collapse against the hated Steelers on a dreary day (are there any other kind when the Browns play the Steelers?)
in Pittsburgh. As
an observer you had to wonder if Butch Davis and Foge Fagio had ever seen footage of the Browns “prevent” a trip
to the Super Bowl in the 1986 AFC Championship Game. If they did, they certainly
didn’t learn from history. The Browns threw every DB on the roster into
the game during the 4th Quarter and dared journeyman Tommy Maddox to beat them with his arm. He obliged, and the new Browns ended their first playoff season in much the same heartbreaking fashion
as many of the former Browns did.
8) 10 Cent Beer Night, June 4th, 1974
Only in Cleveland would two of the top ten worst moments in sports history not even involve the actual
players. Anyways…. Yes, the
Indians were a joke even before Hollywood starting making
movies about their ineptitude. I really would’ve loved to be a fly on the
wall when the Indians brass was contemplating this promotion:
Indians Management: “How do we
pack fans into a dilapidated old football stadium to watch a last-place baseball team no one cares about?
Indians Marketing Department: “Hmm,
let me see – we could, umm, give away free beer?
Indians Management: “Is that legal?”
Indians Marketing Department: “Umm,
well, we could charge ten cents per beer? Then it wouldn’t actually be
free…..”
Indians Management: “Brilliant! Let’s do it!”
Really, if any more thought went into
this idea, Hollywood should make a movie about THAT. Combine vast amounts of cheap alcohol, summer heat, and blue collar types who comprise
the backbone of the Cleveland community, and you have a recipe
for disaster. Which, after several stoppages of play, a fight between fans and
several players and an eventual forfeiture, is pretty much what you ended up with.
7) Red Right 88 – Cleveland
Browns vs. Oakland Raiders, AFC Divisional Playoffs, January
4th, 1980
During the 1979-80 season, Brian Sipe
could do no wrong, and either could the rest of the Kardiac Kids. Sipe, the southern
Californian quarterback who somehow managed to fit in as if he’d lived in Cleveland his whole life, led comeback after
comeback on his way to an NFL MVP season. To be fair, the Browns lost their share
of close games that year too, but no one remembers those games after a season like they had.
Down 14-12 on a windy day so cold even Sipe’s relatives in California
could feel the breeze, the Browns were a pooch FG away from another amazing comeback for the ages, with time for one more
shot at the end zone and the only sure victory. During a final timeout, legend
has it Browns coach Sam Rutigliano told Sipe that if no one was open, he should “throw the ball into Lake
Erie”. Seconds later, Sipe wished he had, as Oakland’s
Mike Davis became the first of many 1980’s NFL playoff villains in Cleveland. If only we Browns fans knew what pain and suffering still lay ahead…
6) The Shot – Cleveland
Cavaliers vs. Chicago Bulls, May 7th, 1989
In my honest opinion, this might be a
slightly inflated ranking given the stakes of the game. Although the Cavs were
considered favorites to win the East by many media types that year, it was only a deciding game in the first-round of the
playoffs, and Michael Jordan’s Bulls didn’t use the game as a launching pad to the title that year (losing to
Detroit’s Bad Boys in the Eastern Finals). Regardless, after countless replays on ESPN, this game is remembered nationally as Michael Jordan’s
playoff coming-out party. In Cleveland,
it’s considered the turning point of a team that seemed destined to become the team of the 1990’s. Instead, the Bulls became that 90’s dynasty, and Cleveland
fans were left with another disappointing end to a promising season.
5) The Fumble – Cleveland
Browns vs. Denver Broncos, January 17th, 1988
What can you really say about this game? A year removed from the first AFC Championship debacle (see #4), the Browns found
yet another way to lose a close playoff game. In some ways this one was even
more painful, as you had a sense the Browns couldn’t possibly get back to this point every year (it would be 13 years
before the Eagles would come along and lose three conference championships in a row).
The way this game started with Bernie Kosar throwing an INT that appeared to bounce off Webster Slaughter’s helmet,
Browns fans had to know this wasn’t going to end well, either. The sad
irony here (among many to choose from), is that Earnest Byner was supposed to be the safer alternative to Kevin Mack because
he had a lesser penchant to fumble than his backfield mate. Seconds after Byner
crossed the Denver goal line and scored the would-be game-tying touchdown without the football, Browns fans everywhere had
to be asking themselves,”Who the hell is Jeremiah Castille??” No
matter. Castille joined Oakland’s Mike Davis
and Denver teammate John Elway on Cleveland
1980’s playoff villain list (hey, can we blame this one on Art Modell too?) the moment he stripped Byner of the ball.
4) The Drive – Cleveland
Browns vs. Denver Broncos, January 11th, 1987
This one edges out the The Fumble on
the merits of being a more memorable finish, at least on a national level. Many
people consider this game to be a young John Elway’s coming-out party (do you see a pattern here?), much like The Shot
was for Michael Jordan a couple of years later. Although 5:32 is an eternity
by today’s pass-happy Peyton standards, in the 1987 season it wasn’t, and the Browns defense seemed incapable
of giving up a 98-yard, game-winning drive to anyone. It’s debatable whether
Browns coach Marty Schottenheimer threw gasoline on the fire by going conservative on defense, but honestly, when D.D. Hoggard
pinned the Broncos on their own 2-yard line on the kick-off, did anyone think it would really matter? At one point, facing a 3rd-and-forever, Elway backed up in the shotgun and watched the ball
bounce off a teammate ‘s leg into his waiting hands. Forget the Vance Johnson
TD pass to end The Drive, or the phantom overtime FG kick by the barefoot Rich Karlis, Browns fans should’ve realized
the game was over right there.
3) Game 7, October 26th, 1997 World Series
– Cleveland Indians vs. Florida
Marlins
This game is remembered (as it should)
for Jose Mesa’s blown save in the bottom of the 9th, with the Indians just two outs away from their first
world championship since 1948. As Omar Vizquel would write of Mesa that night in his biography several years later, “Jose’s own eyes were vacant.
Completely empty. Nobody home. You
could almost see right through him.” Ouch.
But this game had many side stories that were far more interesting than Mesa, who had
struggled earlier in the playoffs in saving the Divisional Series vs. the Yankees, and the ALCS against Baltimore. Chief among them was the story of
21-year old Jaret Wright, the kid pitcher who came within two outs of an almost assured World Series MVP award. Wright came all the way from AA Akron to the brink of a championship in the span of one season, only to
watch Mesa blow it in the end like the rest of us. Injuries derailed his career in Cleveland,
but one has to wonder if a World Series hangover didn’t have something to do with that too. Most painful of all for Cleveland, who surrendered Atlanta’s only WS win since their annual pennant run began in the early 90’s,
is they had to watch a Florida Marlins team with only 5 years of history (approximately one year per fan who actually cared)
celebrate a championship while their 40+ year drought continued.
2) The Catch, September 29th, 1954
The year was 1954, and the Indians had
just won 111 games, an AL record at the time. With 2 men on in the 8th inning of Game 1 in New York’s
Polo Grounds, the Indians were threatening to break open a tight game and move one-step closer to a World Series title. You know the rest. A young Willie Mays
sprinted to the outfield wall making a spectacular catch, then managed to double off the runner from second base, killing
a Tribe rally. Imagine that, a young superstar from another team making a name
for himself in the postseason against a Cleveland team. Good thing THAT never happened again or else we Cleveland
fans would really be miserable. Of course, it would be 41 long years before the
Indians would sniff the postseason again.
1) The
(old) Browns last home game, December 17th, 1995.
If you’re not a Cleveland fan, I know what you’re thinking – how could this be the most painful
moment in sports history when you got your team back five years later? Well,
as forlorn Browns fans filed out of cavernous Cleveland Municipal Stadium after a competitively meaningless victory over the
Bengals, many believed they had witnessed the last Browns game to ever be played in Cleveland.
Even after five years of the so-far unimpressive new Browns era of football, the idea of a football-less Cleveland
still seems like a ridiculous thought, but it would be months before NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue formally agreed to put
a team back in Cleveland. In the meantime, Browns fans were left only with
memories and a few anti-Modell signs after the last play of the 1995 home season (well, some also took home a few rows of
seats, but that’s another story). As painful as many of the games mentioned
above may have been, you always had one redeeming thought to fall back on – there’s
always next year. But for Browns fans in December, 1995, after decades of
history and football tradition in Cleveland, there wasn’t.
