Well , it materialise . Not in the five - game spank all the analysts seemed to bode , but it happened . The Cubs pull ahead the series . The curse lifted . A interior tale fulfilled . And it seems like everyone in America , from Bill Murray to Eddie Vedder to Hillary Rodham Clinton , is well-chosen about it . Everybody , of course , except the good people of the city on the banks of the Cuyahoga .
No one wanted this for Cleveland except Cleveland . Poorly photoshoppedjokes ( From TBS , mind you … TBS , a connection that , outside the playoff , would have no ratings if not forSeinfeldandFamily Guyreruns ; a duct for whom the top of original programing wasMy Boys ) and fellatic interior coverage of the Cubs made it perfectly clear-cut that the goodwill we ’d engendered fromThe Comebackwould not lead itself to the World Series .
It was Ohio against the world , but this time , no one cared . We were no one ’s lovable underdogs but our own . And that ’s poor consolation when half the pellet of the Jake ( yeah , it ’s still the Jake ) are filled with Cubs fans ( to Tribe ticket holders who sold Game 7 tickets to Chicagoans : I pick up Miami is great this time of year , and they ’re always unforced to take on bandwagon fan ) .
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In sports , greatness happens against Cleveland .
What this loss has demonstrate , if the Browns were n’t a reminder enough already , is that we ’re far from bulletproof . The NBA title was electrifying . It lightened the internal chip on my shoulder joint I ’ve feel since I was sure-enough enough to understand what Cleveland looked like to the rest of the man . Even now , I can feel it take some of the sting from this corporate Game 7 hangover .
But our past and our formula ca n’t be wipe off . We were the city on whom The Shot and The Drive were carry out ; we ’re now the town where the Curse of the Goat was broken . In sports , greatness happens against Cleveland .
It takes time to crawl out of post - industrial hell . It ’s not give-up the ghost to hap , for our summercater teams or our city , all at once . And if it did , as Mike Polk pointedly asked , who would we be ? Boston devotee ? Gross .
The year 2016 has been a kick - prat oneto be in Cleveland , but we still have employment to do . Not just offseason training : We have to rebuild our school system . We have to feed our athirst and food - insecure . And we have to dig deep and take ourselves : Are we really OK withthis team name and mascot ?
Greatness happens against us , it ’s true . But it also materialise because of us . We have learned , fourth dimension and meter again , the true statement of the words of LeBron James : “ In Northeast Ohio , nothing is given . Everything is clear . You ferment for what you have . "
Now that the Cubs have broken their century - long drought – and sure , congratulations to them – the deed falls to us . We ’re back to being the ( potentially ) lovable underdogs again .
I do n’t think we ’d have it any other way .
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