Imagine being famous for being terrible or being the rear end of endless jokes. That’s what Cleveland sports are known for. Over the past few decades every Cleveland sports team, including the Browns, the Cavaliers and the Indians, have been consistently dreadful to watch. It was almost as if each team had forgotten how to play their respective sports; however, this year Cleveland sports have been changed. The Cavaliers won the NBA Finals becoming the first professional sports team from Cleveland to win a championship in 52 years.
Not only did the Cavaliers bring Cleveland a championship, they ended a curse. A whopping 147 combined seasons passed by for Cleveland teams with no championship. The curse spanned from 1964-2016, dating so far back that the NFL had not even started having Super Bowls yet.
The Cleveland sports curse centers mostly on the Browns, who for some reason just can’t seem to get anything right from coaching staff, to their head quarterback, to moves in the draft each year. The Browns won their last NFL championship in 1964 and have never been to a championship game since. From 1994 to 2015 the Browns have started 24 different quarterbacks and still seem to be having trouble picking a stable QB to lead their franchise. Browns fans seem to have adapted to the losing lifestyle and can even make fun of it themselves.
The Cavaliers, the team that ended the curse, saw its first NBA Finals in 2007 led by LeBron James. Shortly after their loss in the championship, James decided to jump ship in 2010 and play for the Miami Heat. This caused handfuls of fans to hate LeBron for leaving the team after they saw hope of a possible championship. James returned to the Cavs for the 2015 season and again they went to the Finals, but lost. Finally, this year in 2016 James again led the Cavaliers to the Finals and beat the Golden State Warriors to end the Cleveland sports curse and bring the franchise its first championship.
Finally, the Indians also were cursed like the other Cleveland teams, last winning a world series in 1948. In 1995 the Indians made it to the World Series and lost in 6 and in 1997 they lost in bottom of the ninth of Game 7 when Jose Mesa blew the save and lost them the series. The team made it to the playoffs a handful of times, but always seemed to give up their lead by letting teams come back from a 3-1 deficit or by making errors. The Indians round out the unfortunate squad of professional sports teams in Cleveland.
Hopefully now that the curse is broken, we will see a day where the Browns make it to the Super Bowl and win or maybe a season where the Indians don’t choke. Until that day comes, we will all just need to pay a little more attention to Cleveland sports teams to see if they can actually be good or if this was just a fluke.
