12 Days- Merry Christmas Eve!
December 24, 2008Merry Christmas From WFNY
December 25, 2008
That is how ESPN Outside The Lines is referring to Seattle this year. I know it isn’t a competition, but by their standards, Seattle’s 2008 was even worse than Cleveland’s 1995. Seattle lost the Sonics like Cleveland lost the Browns, but that same year the Indians made the World Series. This year’s Mariners lost 101 games.
Now, I can see the point and all, but I don’t know which is worse. Losing 101 games is really bad, but at least there isn’t much trauma involved. Getting so close to something, anything good, the way the Indians did in 1995 only to fail against the Braves isn’t exactly a consolation to losing the Browns as it raises hopes only to send them crashing down into the abyss of sports misery.
Anyway, as I said, it isn’t a competition. It sucks to be a Cleveland fan and unfortunately for Seattle it sucks to be a fan there right now too. I felt for them in a major way last year when they were screwed out of their basketball franchise. I feel for them now that their other sports have gone south so quickly. At the same time, if it was a competition, I would argue with pretty much anyone in the world that a city can’t equate its love for an NBA franchise with the love (obsession?) that Cleveland fans have with the Browns. There are other NFL cities (Green Bay, Pittsburgh) that can claim an exact same level of love for their football team, but I can’t imagine a city laying claim to an NBA team with the same veracity.
Still, can’t we just be brothers in misery with Seattle for the moment and until they get an expansion Sonics team back? Oh, except if they win something. Then they can go jump in a lake with their heavy rains, Starbucks and uber-cool music scene.
2 Comments
I agree that Seattle fans have had a terrible year. Beside losing the Sonics, their hopes for a great 2008 baseball season and reaching the playoffs was quickly erased by the end of May. Their 2008 NFL team was supposed to easily win their division, and soon that crumbled too. (Sound familiar?). Being an ex-Clevelander now living in Portland, Oregon, I receive all of Seattle’s sports teams broadcasts, so I am painfully aware that both cities have had miserable MLB and NFL seasons this year. So pick up a grande latte and enjoy the Cavs games and be happy that you are not a Seattle fan this holiday season. As for having heavy rains, you won’t find that in the Pacific Northwest today, the past 10 days has been dubbed Snowpocalypse. Imagine Cleveland snow with no plows or salt, and drivers not used to anything but rain…. Yet another reason to be happy in Cleveland today.
As bad as things have been (and, in many cases, still are) in Cleveland, I definitely feel bad for Seattle. First of all, I find it silly to compare the Indians’ ’95 run to the current Mariners situation. Think about how young and exciting our baseball team was back then – despite the loss, we knew that we had the pieces to be a legitimate contender for years. Can’t really say the same thing about the Mariners…. they have nothing going for them outside of Felix Hernandez and Ichiro, I guess. If you wanna compare losing the Sonics and the Browns, that’s fine, but remember that Cleveland was promised an expansion team, pending the construction of a new stadium. I’m not sure where the NBA and Seattle stand, but I haven’t heard anything indicating a new franchise being located there anytime soon. And, for the sake of comparing the two cities’ third major teams, the Seahawks have been terrible this year, but the ’95 Cavs were a playoff team. Nothing great, but at least they were winning games. Expecting the worst and perpetually being let down are definitely staples of being a true Cleveland sports fan, but let’s be realistic: what’s going on in Seattle is much worse than anything we’ve ever had to fathom. I feel for them, and I hope that they can turn things around as soon as possible.