Cleveland vs. Pittsburgh

After the Super Bowl, I got to ponder further the relationship between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.  Having lived in Cleveland for nearly 40 years out of my 51 years on this earth, I have observed much about these two cities. 

There are a lot of transplants between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.  I know personally three transplants and they walk defiantly with their Pittsburgh terrible towels.  We give them grief jokingly, but secretly we admire the winning tradition and the fact that they have a team that consistently wins. 

If you go to eastern OH say around Youngstown, you will find more Pittsburgh Steeler fans than Browns fans.  The state of Ohio does not assure allegiance.  However, none of those fans would even contemplate rooting for a college team in Pennsylvania.  We are all Buckeyes when it comes to college sports. 

The Browns have beaten the Steelers only once in the past 15 tries and that was last year when our team despite its record actually won.  We gloated about that for weeks.  Steeler fans don’t take nearly the pleasure out of beating the Browns because it just is expected.  Reminds me of when I was a kid, I would sucker punch my big brother and then run away.  Eventually he would find me and beat the tar out of me.  I enjoyed the sucker punch but it was clear who was the stronger one (at least at that time). 

I am hoping things will change eventually, but I am not holding my breath.

The Death of the Small Market Sports Team

The haves and the have nots.  That is the world of professional sports.  I live in a small market sports city, Cleveland, OH.  You know we have had our share of heartache.  I have written in previous blogs about my shriveled Cleveland sports heart.  However this post is not unique to Cleveland but the whole balance of competitiveness. 

Cities like Cleveland, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh in sports like baseball and basketball have the odds definitely stacked against them even with the “luxury tax” and the “salary cap”.  New York has multiple individual players that make more than the entire Cleveland baseball team.  So every few years the team is forced to unload and reload. 

Think about it that Cleveland has had two recent Cy Young award winners in CC Sabbathia and Cliff Lee.  Had they had any reasonable chance of signing them, they would not have traded them.  I am drooling thinking of what having those two would have meant to our team.  Most recently, the Indians went on a trading binge dumping 5 of their veteran players to contenders.  So we now have a minor league team playing in a major league ballpark and charging major league prices.  Well if I am going to watch a minor league team, I will go up the road to Eastlake or Akron and watch one for far less money.  I think baseball in particular is in for a really rough patch when it becomes the big cities and the rest of the teams are there for batting practice.  

At least with football you get to see guys hitting each other at high speed.  Browns training camp started this week.  Oh, I digress.