Monday, February 13, 2006

Cleveland already had its Moses

It's apparently God's Wrath Week here at Cole Slaw Blog. After inundating our reader(s) with a veritable white-out of snow-related photos, it's time to examine another possible form of God's vengeance. Namely, His utter contempt for Cleveland sports fans, which He expresses chiefly by using the Browns, Indians and Cavaliers as vessels to convey His displeasure.

What did we do? I don't know. Perhaps too many of those mammoth brunch scrambles at Skip Church's restaurant, if you know what I mean. Or perhaps Clevelanders became tall poppies, and committed the sin of pride, living as most of them do in a city that defaulted on its loans, had a river catch fire and was recently named the poorest major city in America.

Or maybe He's upset that we dropped the 'a' from Moses Cleavleland's name? Might explain explain the 40-years-and-counting in the also-ran wilderness.

But whatever it was Cleveland fans did to deserve The Catch, The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, Game 7 presented by Jose Mesa, Red Right 88 and getting punk'd by Tommy Maddox, haven't we suffered long enough?

Apparently not. Did I mention the time God smote Ernie Davis after the Browns traded Bobby Mitchell for him? It was kind of like the whole Len Bias thing, but in a straight-up tragedy instead of a morality play. (We have our own Len Bias, anyway. His name was Don Rogers.)

Regardless, it's an impressive amount of misfortune, to be sure. But I'm not willing to believe that it's the result of a supernatural vendetta (although if God were a San Francisco 49ers fan with a grudge going back to the AAFC, it would make sense).

I'm not ready to blame Cleveland's misfortune on God, but fortunately for you, the superthin slice of the reading public with a yen for cabbagey side dishes and sporting angst, someone else is. That someone is Mike of God Hates Cleveland Sports, a new Cleveland sports blog that is, despite being a bit of a downer, an excellent read. You get the uncomfortable idea that this might be how the perky, bright-eyed youngsters at Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times might turn out after another decade or so of Cleveland sports beatdowns.

GHCS skips the optimism. It's all about why God hates Cleveland sports, with posts entitled: "Giving us the finger" (on Larry Hughes' accursed digit) "Our national nightmare" (about the Steelers winning the Super Bowl) and "How God will punish us tonight. (something tells me this one might become a regular feature).

The blog's habit of cutting right to the (inevetably miserable) conclusion is actually kind of refreshing in a way. Except where the Coco Crisp-Andy Marte trade is concerned. Even Mike, my favorite vaguely blashphemous blogger, was in favor of that one.

And why not? That one's totally going to work out for us.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I feel like we as a city have been shot in the face by Dick Cheney, metaphorically speaking...

Flop said...

See, everything I've read seems to suggest that taking a bunch of birdshot in the ol' grille is really not that big a deal at all ... I don't know what angry liberal websites you read, though.