They saw Art Modell leave for Baltimore and there was nothing they could do about it. Same goes for Jim Thome. They saw CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee get traded and even though they understood it, there was nothing they could do about it. They’ve accepted that the current rules in Major League Baseball are designed to give the teams in the larger markets the greatest chance to not only retain their best players but to continue to poach the smaller-market teams of their best players as they near free agency.
You could argue that the only league with a level playing field and a franchise in Cleveland is the National Football League. The Browns returned to the NFL in 1999 shortly after their old team won a Super Bowl as the newly-minted Baltimore Ravens.
Since their return to the NFL 11 years ago, the Browns have gone through countless starting QBs and five head coaches. So even though the parity that exists in the NFL is unlike that in any other sport, the Browns had the misfortune of having to build from scratch.
Again, disadvantage Cleveland.
We like to think that sports are even. There’s an outstanding book written by Michael Sokolove called The Ticket Out. It’s the story of the 1979 Crenshaw High School baseball team —considered by many to be the greatest high school baseball team ever assembled.
Sokolove writes that the Crenshaw Cougars, from South-Central Los Angeles, looked at baseball as the only thing in their lives that was fair. Because of that, it became a means with which to get even with their wealthier, white counterparts from the suburbs—kids who were just lucky because they were born into wealthier families than them.
But to the Cougars it didn’t matter how shiny their opponents’ uniforms were, how expensive their pitching machine was, or how pretty the team bus was. As long as there were nine players on each team, four bases, and 27 outs, they were going to make you pay.
You see sports is supposed to be the one arena in life where everyone competes on a level playing field. But it’s not.
However, in the case of the NBA that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The NBA, at least until next summer, gives teams an unfair advantage when it comes to retaining their own players. In the interest of building loyal fan-bases, teams are allowed to go above the salary cap to sign their own free agents.
After years and years of watching all-stars in every sport leave Cleveland for more money, they finally had almost everything going in their favor when it came to LeBron James.
This kid was from Northeast Ohio. Just like them. They didn’t have to worry about the kid from Cincinnati or Southern California who their team drafted but wanted to play for his hometown team like Ken Griffey, Jr. and Darryl Strawberry had done.
This guy knew who Bernie Kosar and Kevin Mack were. More importantly, he knew who Earnest Byner and Jose Mesa were. He might not have been an Indians or a Browns fan, but he knew the pain of the Cleveland sports fan. That meant a lot to them—more than you and I could probably ever understand.
They didn’t have to worry about him leaving because another team could offer twice as many years and twice as many dollars as the Cavs could. In fact, the Cavs could offer one more year and around $30 million more than any other team could.
They didn’t have to worry about him leaving a moribound franchise that annually missed the playoffs for one with greater prospects. Sure they had been bounced out of the playoffs earlier than expected but they had won 127 games over the last two seasons, had the league’s best regular season record both years, and had made it to the NBA Finals just three years earlier.
On top of all that, they had an owner willing to do whatever it took to make him happy. He hired his friends and let them travel with the team, he’d stocked the locker room fridge with LeBron’s kids’ favorite snacks, and was willing to spend, spend, and spend.
And yet he still left.
If he wasn’t going to stay, with all of those home-field advantages, then who would ever stay?
It wasn’t just that he left Cleveland but he fled to Miami. He was leaving one of the nation’s best sport cities for it’s worst. I’m not saying that the real Heat fans or the real Marlins fans suck because they don’t. I’m just saying that there aren’t a lot of them.
Metaphorically speaking, LeBron was leaving his wife of 30 years and the mother of his children for a 21-year-old tramp with fake breasts and the opportunity to wear flip-flops and linen suits in February.
Was all of that really worth it?
He announced he was “Taking his talents to South Beach.” It wasn’t the “taking his talents” part that was so bad. How soon we forget that in 1996 Kobe Bryant decided to “take his talents” from high school to the NBA.
It was the “South Beach” part that irked many. Not Miami, but South Beach. That would be like Steve Blake announcing he was “Going Hollywood” after signing with the Lakers last July.
What should LeBron have said? Here’s what I would have said:
“Unfortunately, we only get one career. I felt that I’d taken the Cavs as far as we were going to go and the opportunity to play in Miami alongside two of the best players in the league will put me in the best position to win multiple championships going forward.”
But he didn’t say that. Instead he chose the lamest and most cowardly way to leave.
And that wasn’t the only thing we realized was lame about LeBron.
A kid from Northeast Ohio who was a fan of America’s bandwagons, the Yankees and Cowboys?
Lame.
The pregame talcum powder ritual? In hindsight, lame.
The lip-synching of every rap song blasted over the P.A.? Lame.
The choreographed dances with his teammates and fake prescription eyeglasses off the court? Lame and lamer.
His attempts since leaving Ohio of trying to turn Akron against Cleveland? You guessed it. Lame.
It turns out the Emperor has no clothes.
The guy who claimed to be one of them was anything but and they should have seen it coming.
At the conclusion of this season, the NBA’s current collective bargaining agreement will expire. There are many who believe it needs fixing not just in how the owners and players share revenue but in how the small-market teams are supposed to compete with the large markets.
The problem is that the LeBron situation has proved that it can’t be fixed. As long as a kid from Ohio leaves his hometown, 60-win team, for millions less to play for a franchise that has to instruct it’s ticket-holders on how to behave as fans, there will never be a perfect solution.
You can’t blame the city for still having a grudge. Because they don’t just have a beef with LeBron, they have a beef with life and it’s cruelties. For the first time, they had all of the advantages and somehow, some way they still lost.
You’d still be angry six months later too.
Andrew Ungvari is professional screenwriter and co-lead blogger for SirCharlesInCharge.com. Follow him on twitter.