This diary can be sub-titled "Barack Obama and Cleveland Sports" because it's about that Hope thing that the Junior Senator from Illinois is so famous for and which is so vital to those of us who care passionately about politics and also about teams who wear the word "Cleveland" on their uniforms. What do they have to do with each other? We'll be back with the answer in a minute ... right after this word from fire-brewed Stroh's Beer.
Back in the mists of time, the same year The Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan -- 1964 -- the Cleveland Browns beat the Baltimore Colts 27-0 to win the NFL Championship. (The Circus Maximus known as the Super Bowl was still three years away from coming into existence.) That was the last time a Cleveland sports team won a championship game or series. In the ensuing 44 years, the Cleveland Browns of the NFL, the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA, and the Cleveland Indians of MLB have endured loss after loss, often under excruciating circumstances.
For many of those years, of course, the teams were simply lousy and we Cleveland fans couldn't even summon enough hope to imagine ultimate success. But every now and then, our boys managed superb, memorable seasons, only to have their (and our) hopes dashed. There was the well-below-freezing day of January 4, 1981, when an ill-conceived pass play called Red Right 88 resulted in an end zone interception with less than a minute to play that doomed the Browns to a 2-point loss to the Oakland Raiders in the playoffs. There were back-to-back AFC Championship Game losses to the Denver Broncos in 1987 and 1988, games summarized in Cleveland sports infamy with the terse phrases "The Drive" and "The Fumble." The Browns eventually abandoned Cleveland for Baltimore, leaving the city without a football team for several years until it was granted an expansion team. The New Browns are only now slowly making their way back to respectability.
The Cavaliers, an expansion team that entered the NBA in 1970, were terrible for years. They finally put together a great lineup in the late 1980s, headed by Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, and Larry Nance, only to serve as foils to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, beginning with the infamous (from a Clevelander's perspective) playoff game of May 7, 1989, again summarized tersely as "The Shot." This past June, led by the transcendent LeBron James, the Cavs won their first Eastern Conference Championship, only to be swept in four games by San Antonio.
The Indians last won the World Series in 1948, four years before I was born. Their general manager engineered a terrible trade (Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn) in 1960 that seemingly doomed the Tribe to years of mediocrity until the team's resurgence in the mid-1990s. They won the American League pennant in 1995, but then lost the World Series to the Atlanta Braves (it would be the only WS triumph the Braves would enjoy during their dominant run). Two years later, the Tribe led Game Seven of the World Series going into the bottom of the ninth inning, only to see closer Jose Mesa blow the lead ... the Indians lost the game and the Series to the expansion Florida Marlins in the 11th. This past year the Tribe was back in the post-season and led the Red Sox three games to one before suffering a pitching meltdown that cost them a chance to return to the Series.
So what does all this sporting misery have to do with politics? Well, from my perspective as a liberal Democrat, everything! Except that my political losses have been far more costly to the country and the world than the stumbles of my Browns, Cavs, and Tribe. I was 11 years old on November 22, 1963, when my 6th grade class was interrupted by the tragic news from Dallas. I was in 10th grade in 1968, proudly wearing my Bobby Kennedy button through the halls of Shaker Heights High School. Then came the middle-of-the-night call from my older brother, attending college in California, with the appalling bulletin from the Ambassador Hotel. I was hoping for Bobby and I got Humphrey ... and soon thereafter, Nixon. In January, 1972, I left college for a couple of weeks to travel to New Hampshire to work for George McGovern. He won the nomination, but was swamped in November. In 1976, I was hoping for Mo Udall and got Jimmy Carter. In 1988, I got behind Mike Dukakis early in the process and he won the nomination ... then I spent a few weeks in Italy in late summer and read in the International Herald Tribune that the election issues were the Pledge of Allegiance and Willie Horton. I got Bush I. In 1992, I was hoping for Paul Tsongas and got Bill Clinton. In 2000, I was hoping for Al Gore and got Bush II. In 2004, I was hoping for Howard Dean and got John Kerry.
In short, my hopes in the political realm have been dashed with an eerie similarity to my hopes as a devotee of Cleveland sports. I simply have no experience knowing the joys of celebrating a meaningful sporting or political victory. And frankly, I'm pretty effing tired of it!
But today, Cleveland Indians pitchers and catchers (including Cy Young Award-winning C.C. Sabathia, who will probably bolt the team as a free agent after this season) report to Winter Haven, Florida. And today, my candidate for President of the United States, Barack Obama, campaigns in Wisconsin as the slight front-runner for the Democratic nomination. It's a day of hope, and as much as I've seen my hopes for a world title and a successful liberal presidential election go by the way-side these past 44 years, my capacity for hope remains boundless. Hope, after all, was the little creature left at the bottom of Pandora's Box, giving solace to the human race even after all the world's evils were unleashed. Despite what some pundits and some rival candidates proclaim, Hope is indeed a most precious jewel.
Can the Tribe get back to the Series this year, and maybe win it?
Yes, they can! (Hey, batta-batta-batta ... swing!)
Can Barack Obama go all the way and justify my many years of hoping for someone deeply inspirational in the White House? Can we all work together and make it happen?
Yes, we can!