Being a Cleveland sports fans is exhausting. There really isn't much to cover that someone else hasn't already said. It's agonizing to watch one team after another down in mediocrity for seasons only to put together a squad that is just not good enough not to win a championship.
Only two teams in the past forty years rank up there as dominate in their league for their time. The '86 Browns and the '95 Indians. Both fell short of the ultimate goal. The other teams with marginal success were just that, marginal playoff teams.
But after the missed opportunities of the '80s Browns, the '90's Indians, and then loosing football to Baltimore, and then selling two Cy Young winners in back to back years; I had finally had all the die hard beaten out of me. I have finally had all the homer bias beaten out of me.
And I so much more enjoy watching sports now.
Maybe it's a factor of just getting old; but I can more clearly see and appreciate good play when I'm not so invested in creating excuses for my teams lack of talent, or why my most hated rivals aren't as good as they seem. I can create constructs or concepts that explain how the sports world works that has a logical consistency. It has the same effect as letting go of political party ideology. It's liberating!
I still would like to see "my" teams win. There isn't anything I'd like to see more as a sports fan than a superbowl win for the Browns. But I can't sit around and just watch lousy play by the same inept teams that we've had for decades. I'd much rather watch well played games between teams that
know what the hell they're doing. I've watched enough bad baseball,
football and basketball to cover a dozen sports fans.
So while I may not watch as much as I used to, I still enjoy talking sports and sharing my observations of Cleveland sports as a recovering abused fan.
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