Character Matters. The Johnny Manziel Fiasco

In college Johnny Manziel was a superstar.

Cleveland baseball and football fans have had a pretty rough go of it during the past sixty years. The city's bad luck in baseball was so legendary that a book was written about it: Terry Pluto's The Curse of Rocky Colavito. Cleveland Browns fans haven't fared much better. In fact, the last bit of really good news for Browns fans was when owner Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore but allowed Cleveland to retain the Browns name and uniforms. 

Bill Bellicek was head coach at that time, with an outstanding record in the works when, mid-season, Modell announced the move. Things quickly unravelled and have never been the same.

One good thing about a losing record in the NFL is that you get top draft picks. The worst teams become first in line for the annual crop of college stars on the auction block.

In 2014 the Browns selected Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel to lead them back to becoming a contender. The kid had talent, they said. The moment he was drafted, however, it became apparent he was missing something. Flaunting his mega-millions contract, it seemed plain that this was not going to be the hero who would carry this team. It's truly a shame because the opportunity was right there in front of him. Instead, he derailed his career with a combination of poor decisions and personal issues. 

Here's a short list of reasons Johnny boy failed in Cleveland and was unable to get a gig with any other NFL team afterwards.

His off-field behavior was a constant issue. He faced legal troubles, including allegations of domestic violence, bar fights, and reckless driving. These incidents tarnished his reputation and led to disciplinary actions from the NFL and his team.

Substance abuse was another issue, primarily alcohol and partying, which negatively impacted his performance and behavior. His partying lifestyle was well-documented in the media, and it raised concerns about his commitment to football.

His lack of preparation was similarly indicative of his lack of commitment to Cleveland success. Leaders lead by example. Tom Brady's preparation for games was legendary. There were reports that Manziel did not put in the necessary effort to prepare for games and improve his skills as a quarterback. This lack of dedication and focus on his career hindered his development as a professional player.

By his inconsistent performance on the field it became apparent to all that he was in over his head at the pro level. Combined with the distractions of his personal life, legal issues and public disputes, it's easy to see why Manziel stumbled. Add to this his unwillingness to assume responsibility for his own behavior and you have the kind of player who becomes odious to fans. He disrespected his team mates as well as the Browns organization that had recruited him. After two years his NFL career was over. 

Such a shame.

Moral of the Story: Pride goes before a fall. 

Character counts. It doesn't matter how smart or talented you are, if you lack character you will very likely undermine your dreams of future success. 

Manziel photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Eleven Minutes Is All It Takes. Go Browns

"At some point, and I really don't know when, the city of Cleveland became one with its football team. Together they rise and fall, in victory, in defeat. It's inseparable. For better or worse, the Browns are Cleveland." --Opening lines of the History of the Cleveland Browns

In the first ten years of the Browns franchise, the Cleveland Browns won 84% of their games and won seven titles. The team was organized in 1946 and many, if not most, of the players were just back from military service. Paul Brown was a tough disciplinarian, but these guys weren't intimidated by that. Football, compared to combat, was a piece of cake.

The Browns were charter members of the All-America Football Conference which began in 1946. They won the AAFC title in every year of its 4-year existence. The had a 29 game winning streak that went from late 1947 to 1949. They never lost a game in 1948 and finished the season 14 and 0.

In 1950 the Browns joined the NFL and they were ready. All the sportwriters picked the NFL 1949 champion Philadelphia Eagle to win. They assumed the Browns domination of the AAFC was due to the weak competition. NOW they would play real football teams.

Haha. Browns crushed the Eagles 35 -10. The Browns were emotionally ready to show the NFL that they were not a fluke. Marion Motley running back led the league in rushing. The defense led the league in fewest points allowed with 55 takeaways under their belts. 

Paul Brown was one of the great coaches of all time and some of the game's other great coaches years later had been players for Brown and his Browns: Don Shula and Chuck Noll. (I touched Chuck Noll's mailbox once in suburban Pittsburgh. I was walking with someone who said, "Chuck Noll lives there." Such an ordinary nice house in an ordinary nice neighborhood.) 

Paul Brown was the greatest innovator in football coaching history. It was he who invented the concept of the playbook. He famously said, "Football is played with the mind as well as with the heart."

* * * 

According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

This afternoon the Cleveland Browns will be playing the Kansas City Chiefs in Round 2 of the playoffs. Two talented young quarterbacks will be on display here, Pat Mahomes and the Browns' Baker Mayfield. The Chiefs are favored, but Browns fans are undaunted. Something historical can happen on any given Sunday.

What Will It Take For the Cleveland Browns to Ever Win Another Game?

My card from when Browns last won championship.

It's hard being a Cleveland Browns fan these days. Even though I moved away from Cleveland more than 50 years ago I still carry those loyalties in my heart... to the Browns and the Indians. It's hard to imagine diverting my loyalties elsewhere, so I continue to watch the scores and follow the standings. And if you're like me, there's little evidence of hope that we'll ever have a championship football team again.

Not only have the Browns lost every game they've played this year, they lost the last six games of their season last year. We're now on a 19 game losing streak with no end in sight.

I have a few friends and acquaintances back in Cleveland so I asked one of them how they were taking it this year.

Seeing these players laughing on the side line when they are losing just blows my mind. To me it just seems like a fraternity of dudes getting overpaid that care only about their paycheck.

Players are getting soft. No more blood and guts. Now its precautions and time off. Plus I’m sick of astro-turf. Mud and blood are a winning combination.

I CAN’T CARE MORE THAN THE PLAYERS. I’VE TRIED AND I’M TIRED OF IT.

As a Clevelander, you see what the Cavs and Indians did and you fall in love with it. The passion and drive to give everything for the sake of the team.

The NFL's Ten Worst Teams

If the Browns fail to win a game this season, they will have achieved the ignominious distinction of being listed here in the NFL's ten worst teams ever. The very top of that list is the 1974 Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a record of 0-14. I'm sure it wasn't much fun being on that team. The team was shut out five times and quarterback Steve Spurrier threw only 7 touchdowns all year. When coach John McKay was asked about the execution of the offense he quipped, "I'm in favor of it."

The 1990 New England Patriots weren't much better, losing fifteen games in a 16-game season. The 1973 Houston Oilers were 1-13 as were the 1971 Bills. The '73 Oilers not only had a dismal offense, their defense gave up 447 points.

The 1981 and 1991 Colts weren't much better. But guess what? Even though they set a record in 1991 for fewest points in a 16-game season, there were silver linings on that cloudy season. One year later this team had a winning record! In 1992 they were 9-7.

A look at NFL history reveals that even the worst teams have eventually reach first. How do they achieve this?

Mike Ditka's Story

Ditka by artist Jen Dietrich

Sometime around the year 2000 I had a chance to hear Mike Ditka speak at a conference. His aim was to teach principles of success for small business owners and he did this by means of stories, the most memorable being the story of his first year coaching the Chicago Bears.

I don't believe Mike Ditka had been a head coach before taking the helm of the 1985 Chicago Bears. He had, however, been an assistant with one of the great coaches of all time, the Dallas Cowboy's Tom Landry. In addition to being a 5X Pro Bowl caliber tight end, he also had experience in the the playoffs and knew the special pressures of performing under pressure in the big games.

After retiring as a player he was given the opportunity to coach under head coach Landry, which taught him many new facets of what leadership is all about. And in 1985 he was given the opportunity to become head coach of the Chicago Bears, the team he began his NFL career with more than 25 years earlier.

Mike Ditka had this to say about his first day on the job, the first day of training camp. I can't recall if he'd placed a placard on the wall by the door or simply suggested it be visualized there, but his first statement to the teams was something to this effect: "The only reason I'm here is because I believe we can win the Super Bowl."

Ditka knew the talent that was sitting in that room. Walter Peyton, Jim McMahon, "Refrigerator" Perry and the rest. When he made his opening remark, many players in the room joshed it up and said, "Hey cool, we're gonna win the Super Bowl." They laughed like it was something fun and funny. But Peyton, McMahon and Perry didn't laugh. They had had this same dream many times before. They slowly lifted their heads and looked square into the eyes of Coach Ditka, searching his face to see if this was just a pep talk or something he seriously believed.

During the weeks of training camp Coach Ditka successfully traded off all the players that laughed and made a joke of his opening remarks. He wasn't kidding around. It wasn't just optimistic self-talk to pep up team morale. By the season's end, the players on this team all had their dreams fulfilled and were privileged to own the Super Bowl rings many other players only dream about.

When I read my friend's comment about Browns players laughing on the sidelines while the team was racking up such a pathetic record, this Ditka story came to mind.

* * * *
Earlier this year a friend shared with me a book about how great organizations differ from other teams. The book is called Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. The authors compare different corporate cultures so as to identify what makes some companies or "tribes" confident and others self-defeating? I look at how the Browns have been playing and I can't help but wonder what's going through their heads as they prepare for their next game? In the NFL every team has talent, so how do you create an atmosphere of confidence in which your team enters the arena with absolute confidence that this day is yours? What are the dynamics that produce dynasties?

Vince Lombardi once used to say, "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." What will it take for the Browns players to believe again?

Things I Learned about Jimmy Brown from Reading Terry Pluto’s Things I’ve Learned from Watching the Browns

In case you don’t know, I’m a Browns fan. Cleveland Browns. NFL Football. I don’t always wear it on my sleeve, but it’s always there like a genetic disposition. I was born in Cleveland in 1952 and my earliest memories were formed during the glory years of the Cleveland Indians and the Browns. Even though I moved away in my twelfth year and have spent the rest of my years elsewhere, the Browns have never moved far from my heart. Browns fans everywhere know this feeling.

Back in those days the sports page each week would print the rosters from both teams so you could learn the numbers of all the players and follow them during the game. Bill Glass, Vince Costello, Lou “The Toe” Groza, Gary Collins, Leroy Kelly, Frank Ryan and our hero of heroes, Jimmy Brown.

From nearly the beginning the Browns training camp was at Hiram College, which just happened to be where my parents met as students and eventually married upon my dad’s early graduation. This may have contributed to our Browns fandom, though proximity to Cleveland gave the primary impetus. It also gives one a bit of Browns cred to be able to say “My dad once watched the Steelers play the Browns from the Dawg Pound.” (It wasn't really the Dawg Pound yet, though. They were the cheap bleacher seats in the end zone where the beer turned fans into rowdies.)

In the fall of 1963, my last full year in Ohio, I opened a pack of football cards and got a Jimmy Brown card. It was as if the gods had smiled. Life was good. And then the unthinkable happened. Some of the packs of football cards we acquired had been stolen. My younger brother was caught red-faced and red-handed, and a police car paid our home a visit. Somehow the punishment seemed excessive because Ronnie had been the thief, but all of our football cards were to be burned, including mine. As the cards were being dropped onto the flaming charcoals I found myself holding Jimmy Brown and could not bring myself to do this dastardly thing. I ran to the garage and slid the card in between the cinder blocks that formed its foundation. I would never see the card again, but knew it would be preserved from the fire. (Several decades later I visited my childhood home and that garage, along with its treasure, had been demolished.)

Terry Pluto is one of the great sportswriters of all time in my estimation. He’s certainly a most respected journalist in Cleveland where he has remained a faithful advocate for high ideals and all things good there.

If you are a Browns fan and do not already have Pluto’s Things I’ve Learned from Watching the Browns, then you're missing something special. Every chapter is a treasure, beginning with “Being a Browns fan is completely irrational. But you already know that.” Ten pages later the story every Browns fan needs to read is about the Fumble. Pluto demonstrates unequivocally that “The Fumble didn’t cost the Browns a chance to go to the Super Bowl.” Every Browns fan knows which fumble we're talking about here.

So now let’s talk about Jimmy Brown, the greatest running back of all time. Chapter 9. The Browns almost didn’t draft Jim Brown. How Jim Brown became a Brown is a story in itself. If the Hall of Fame Browns quarterback Otto Graham hadn’t retired when he did, the Browns would have continued to be a great team. In his last three seasons as QB the Browns only lost six games. But the year after he retired the Browns were so weakened that it became their only losing season in their first 28 years as a pro franchise. The upside was a chance to get a high draft pick in the first round.

Coach Paul Brown (another great chapter in this book is dedicated to this “greatest Browns Brown”) was eager to nab a quarterback to replace Graham, but the three he had his eye on were snatched before he could get his mitts on them. Upshot was this Son of Hercules, this Superman of an athlete who became a Browns legend.

Man on the move, Jim Brown.

Most of us who watched Jimmy Brown as fans knew how powerful he was, and we also knew the psychological game he played with opposing players. After every run he got up slow. You’d think he had exhausted his strength, or was hurt in some way as he lumbered back to the huddle. Then he would explode again into the line, dragging opponents downfield, sometimes carrying them on his back. We knew, too, how he never made a show when he scored a touchdown, as if to say, “Been here before. Will be here again. All in a day’s work.” Brown’s greatness was unquestioned and to this day no runner has ever averaged more yards per game over an entire career than Jimmy Brown. In fact, he is the only player to average more than 100 yards per game (104.3) lifetime.

Terry Pluto gives Browns fans an overview of the star's college achievements and amazing high school stats as well. Brown earned 13 high school letters in five sports. His senior year he averaged 38 points per game in basketball. He set new records in track. He averaged 14.9 yards per carry in football. Seems like having Brown on the team would have been an unfair advantage for any school.

Once with the Browns Jim Brown not only played every game, he never missed practice. One year he played an entire season with a broken wrist. He was tough, not just physically but mentally as well. Said Brown, “If you were a marked man like I was back then, you had to be tough. You had to take the pain.”

In Brown’s autobiography Out of Bounds, he shared how opposing defenders would sometimes take gravel or dirt and fling it in his eyes to blind him after they tackled him. Pluto tells how when tacklers got their hand inside his facemask, he would bite their fingers. These images of the game aren’t always visible from the stands.

There's plenty more to tell, but that's it for now. The rest of what I learned is there in the book. And much, much more.

Thank you, Terry Pluto, for yet another gift for Browns fans everywhere.

The team I remember best was the best. 

Five Minutes with Cleveland Sports Journalist Terry Pluto

In the early nineties when AOL was king, before the real Internet stole us all away, every NFL football team had an AOL meeting-place for its fans. The most populated group of them all consisted of die-hard Cleveland Browns fans. Sadly, being a Browns fan these past forty years has been an exercise in futility. The only thing more painful than being a Browns fan is being a Cleveland Indians fan.

Nevertheless, even though Cleveland has left us little to cheer about in terms of championships, we have many great memories of great moments and, win or lose, we have some great sports journalists who continue to write with passion and earnestness. One of these is Terry Pluto, whom I first became aware of many years ago by seeing his name associated with The Amy Awards, in recognition of the best of Christian journalism.

But his awards don’t stop there, and I get the impression based on his output of 22 books or more that his writing is not going to stop anytime soon either. His book The Curse of Rocky Colavito was one of the most enjoyable and insightful sports stories I’ve ever read. This book should be mandatory for any living fan of the Tribe. I now understand what was behind the demise of the Indians that I witnessed in the early Sixties.*

On my current reading list, downloaded to my Kindle, is his exposition of the Browns’ more recent struggles, False Start. Perhaps what makes his writing zing is its pointedness backed by keen observation. You can tell he's well acquainted with his subject matter and has done his homework, or rather, legwork. For what it’s worth, whenever I want to check in on my Cleveland Browns, I look online for the Cleveland Plain Dealer columns of Terry Pluto.

Terry kindly accepted my request to be interviewed here about both writing and sports journalism.

Ennyman: You make a living as a sports journalist who has been continuously cranking out copy for 30 years. Have you ever had writer's block and how did you deal with it?
Terry Pluto: I hope it's a little better than "cranking out copy," or I wouldn't be around for 30 years. A big key is deciding what you want to say and how to say it... My job is to write, and it matches my passion. There always is something going on in sports if you are willing to look at high schools, small colleges, etc. Not just the pros.

E: Can I assume that you have been from Cleveland all your life? Describe briefly what it is like to be an Indians and a Browns fan the past forty years.
TP: I worked in Greensboro, Savannah and Baltimore when I was a young writer. I like sports, but love to write. My passion is finding good stories for fans who love sports... I prefer the teams to win because it's much more fun and makes for better stories but I never let the millionaires ruin my day when they lose or make a bad trade.

E: Why were Browns fans optimistic when owner Art Modell took the team to Baltimore?
TP: It seems like they became a start-up again. Most fans didn't understand the perils of expansion. I wrote a book about it, False Start.

E: What's been harder, being a Browns fan or an Indians fan and why?
TP: Browns fans are more passionate and have had far less success. The Tribe receives far less patience and harsher judgment from fans. Not sure why because the rules make it far easier for the Browns to be successful than the Tribe.

E: Which came first, being a writer or being a fan? If you had not been a sports journalist, what would you have been writing about these past many decades?
TP: I love to write, so I would have been writing something, somewhere. I do have a degree in secondary education, and spent much of my senior year teaching history at Lincoln-West. So I am a certified high school teacher, but I prefer to write.

E: You never saw Otto Graham play, a true great Browns quarterback. How would you compare Frank Ryan, Brian Sipe and Bernie Kosar?
TP: Kosar was the most polished in terms of reading defenses and squeezing the most out of the offense. Sipe was very close. Ryan was an above average QB surrounded with tremendous talent.

E: How many years till we have a Browns team that can be competitive?
TP: If I knew that, I'd write it.

Terry, thank you.
To other readers here: You can find more about Terry Pluto and his writings at the following Internet places and spaces:

Terry Pluto: terrypluto.com
Facebook: facebook.com/terrypluto

Sports stories: cleveland.com/pluto/blog/
Faith stories: cleveland.com/pluto/faith

*When I attended the 1963 All Star Game in Cleveland, there were no home town players on the American League squad except pitcher Jim "Mudcat" Grant, who was no doubt selected as a token for the hometown fans. Pluto's book explains why this was so.

Playing For Pizza

His books have sold over 250 million copies. For this reason alone literary critics might be unable to call him a "great" writer. His work is simply too accessible, too readable, too much fun. In point of fact, he knows how to tell a story that connects so as to keep readers fully engaged.

I've read a few Grisham books, his claim to fame being the legal thriller genre. Who doesn't enjoy this genre made famous by Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason? Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent is likewise gripping, and dripping with the legal drama that keeps pages turning.

So it took me by surprise to find Grisham tackling the subject of Italian football. What's more, the story begins with the Cleveland Browns, my first and only love in football, though the central character's a quarterback whose claim to fame is as Cleveland's greatest goat, not star. (Echoes of Ernest Byner, for whom I momentarily feel pity.) In fact, the poor Rick Dockery is possibly the NFL's greatest goat. At least that is the reputation he earns as his prima dona quarterback lifestyle crashes beneath a heap of linebackers.

And finally, the clincher event that made passing on the book near impossible... it takes place in the vicinity of some people I have recently begun to fall in love with, in Northern Italy. This statement needs further embellishment.

Earlier this may I received an unexpected email from Mario Monasterolo, who it turns out has become utterly fascinated with capturing the history of his region. Of special interest are the personal stories of old timers whose memories reflect the rich vast past in ways that history books often fail to capture.

Through our correspondence I learned that Mario had been utterly fascinated with my father-in-law's book, especially as it touched upon Italy, because of the unpretentious and down-to-earth observations of an young man with fresh eyes who recorded his impressions without an eye to impressing editors, but simply for his passion of preserving memories.

A brief introduction to Mario: When I was about forty, I began working as a professional in a new and growing sector of our region: historic-cultural heritage safeguard, and its promotion through tourism. I got in strong touch with our wonderful territory on a regional scale and I got to know its history from the point of view of the smaller towns. Torino and Piemonte were industrial areas (they are still now) which had forgotten their past. Cultural heritage was considered of little importance till twenty years ago: now it’s enjoying growing attention, tourism is growing, too, also thanks the Olympic Winter Games 2006, and Piemonte is considered a national leader as far as safeguard and promotion of cultural heritage are concerned. Not ‘cause of me, naturally! I’m just a very small... ant!

Well, this is one "ant" we have grown to love, and certainly he is one more reason we're falling in love with Italy.

John Grisham fell in love with Italy, too. He was doing research in Bologna for a 2005 thriller caller The Broker, and whether it was the food, the wine, the countryside or the whole mix, his heart had been stolen.

This is not the book I expected. And the impression I get is that the food, the music, the charm of the people, the Italian countryside you experience if you ever get a chance to go will exceed anything your imagination attempts to conjure up if you get a chance to take in this boot-shaped land that plunges deep into the Mediterranean. I challenge anyone to read this book without a longing for the food Grisham so wonderfully describes when our hero Rick Dockery first discovers the cuisine of Parma.

What a great world! Still so many treasures to discover.

Here's an excerpt from Amazon.com's interview with John Grisham about his book Playing for Pizza.

Q: American football in Italy seems like an unlikely subject for a John Grisham novel. What was the inspiration for Playing for Pizza?
A: Three years ago when I was in Bologna researching "The Broker", I discovered American football. One of my guides in the area played football for the Bologna Warriors for 10 years. I couldn't believe that American football actually existed there, but the more I heard about it the more intrigued I became.
Q: There is some great football writing in this novel. What kind of research was involved in capturing how this American institution is played in small town Italy?
A: The only way to research the book was to go to Parma and watch a game. The coach is an American who played at Illinois State, and he proved to be extremely valuable. I met many of the Italian players and the story simply unfolded.
Q: Speaking of research, you write lovingly of Italian food and wine in this book. What's your idea of the perfect Italian meal?
A: First course: prosicutto and melon; second course: stuffed tortellini; third course: roasted stuffed capon, all served with a great Barolo wine.

Well, check it out if it's in your library. I listened to the unabridged audio version and just finished two hours ago. I think you can tell I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Photos of green Italian hills courtesy Mario Monasterolo. Click to enlarge.

1960

1960 was a big year in my life. That was the year I got out of school for three weeks in spring and went cross country with my grandparents. From my home in Cleveland to Reno, NV, all by rail, through Chicago, Salt Lake City, prairies, mountains, day and night for three days each way. Destination: my cousins, aunt and uncle an hour outside Reno. Uncle Dale did geology and the Wolfe family lived a free, remote life. Later that same year we went to Niagara Falls with cousins, aunt and uncle on my Dad's side...

That's not the reason, however, that 1960 is today's theme. This year is an election year. 1960 also proved to be a significant election. Perhaps all are, but 1960 seems especially so. John F. Kennedy electrified voters with his oratory skills, charm and wit, and in November was elected the youngest president of these United States, breaking new ground as the first Catholic to sit in the Oval Office.

I've heard said that Obama is being compared to JFK. This week I can see a bit of that. He has charm, and panache. And so I went online (everything is but a click away these days!) and found a site that assembled JFK quotes, among others. Here are a few that pertain to the arts.

"Too often in the past, we have thought of the artist as an idler and dilettante and of the lover of arts as somehow sissy and effete. We have done both an injustice. The life of the artist is, in relation to his work, stern and lonely. He has labored hard, often amid deprivation, to perfect his skill. He has turned aside from quick success in order to strip his vision of everything secondary or cheapening. His working life is marked by intense application and intense discipline."

"We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth."

"I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty...an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft."

"In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation."

I chose these quotes about the arts, several from remarks made at Amherst, because 1960 was also the year that artist/poet/musician Bob Dylan emerged on the scene in NYC. Behind me here in my office is a Sept 1960 poster announcing that Dylan would be performing on the 19th at the Underground Cavern in Greenwich Village.

To think that Dylan is still making music today, 48 year later, and that that other beacon of 1960 was snuffed out 45 years ago...

Thinking of Kennedy brought to mind this very short essay by Jorge Luis Borges, which I discovered in a Fall/Winter 1970-1971 edition of The Antioch Review.

IN MEMORIAM J.F.K.

This bullet is an old one.

In 1897, it was fired at the president of Uruguay by a young man from Montevideo, Avelino Arredondo, who had spent long weeks without seeing anyone so that the world might know that he acted alone. Thirty years earlier, Lincoln had been murdered by that same ball, by the criminal or magical hand of an actor transformed by the words of Shakespeare into Marcus Brutus, Caesar's murderer. In the mid-seventeenth century, vengeance had employed it for the assassination of Sweden's Gustavus Adolphus in the midst of the public hecatomb of battle.

In earlier times, the bullet had been other things, because Pythagorean metempsychosis is not reserved for humankind alone. It was the silken cord given to viziers in the East, the rifles and bayonets that cut down the defenders of the Alamo, the triangular blade that slit a queen's throat, the wood of the Cross and the dark nails that pierced the flesh of the Redeemer, the poison kept by the Carthaginian chief in an iron ring on his finger, the serene goblet that Socrates drank down one evening.

In the dawn of time it was the stone that Cain hurled at Abel, and in the future it shall be many things that we cannot even imagine today, but that will be able to put an end to men and their wondrous, fragile life.

~by Jorge Luis Borges

Go Browns!

"Browns fans, this was a day your team made you proud. It was a day when they proved worthy of your loyalty that has never wavered through rain, sleet, snow or a move to Baltimore." ~ Terry Pluto
Dec. 16, 2007

Pluto is a sportwriter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. And he is a fan of the Cleveland teams that I grew up learning to love. Till I was twelve I lived in Cleveland, then moved away, but the Indians and Browns continued to live in my heart.

OK, so we have not had much to cheer about for a while. Like, a very long while. The Indians came surprisingly close to representing the American League in the World Series this year, which was good. Then the walls crashed in. But they gave us a thrill.

Most people do not remember how dominant the Indians were in the 1950's. When my parents brought me home from the hospital in 1952, they named my four teddy bears after the Cleveland Indians starting rotation. My favorites were Feller and Lemon, one of the best one-two combos ever. In 1954 the Indians were the first team in baseball history, and the only team since, to have a pitching staff with four twenty game winners. The Tribe, as they are affectionately called by fans, won a pennant that year and came in second at least a half dozen times during that decade. Then, the bad thing happened.

Terry Pluto wrote a book about it, actually: The Curse of Rocky Colavito. (Thanks, Terry!) It is a book about how the team management decimated a good team for money, and about how the bad behavior of that team owner resulted in a perpetual cloud of bad luck to hang over the city and it team of perennial also-rans. It's an entertaining book for all Indians fans and I recommend it heartily. It helped explain why there were no Indians on the team when I went to the 1963 All Star Game in Cleveland's municipal stadium, and why there were no fans at so many of the games I went to at that time as a kid.

But today, we're talking about the Browns. The Cleveland Browns, one of football's great traditions, have been having a surprisingly good year. Like their baseball counterpart, the Browns have likewise had a disappointing history these past four decades. The glory days of Jimmy Brown and Leroy Kelly, Lou "the Toe" Groza, Frank Ryan, Paul Warfield, Bobby Mitchell, Gary Collins... well, it may have been a long time ago but the precious memories are very present. The legacy since that time includes a three year stint when we had no Browns at all. The team had been moved to Baltimore. Ack!

Well, we all know that the Browns are not Super Bowl bound because, ahem, our former coach Bellicek has built one heckuva a dynasty up in New England, if those Colts in Indy don't squash us first. Nevertheless, it's exciting to watch a team that has the potential to win every week, like they're supposed to. It's been a long time since I have read "the latest line" and found our Brownies actually favored almost every week. Woof! Woof Woof!

Check out this 1963 Cleveland Browns football card. Them Browns was great, weren't they?