Gut Yom Tov

Happy LeBronnukah. Hard to believe it’s been a year since The Decision. If I had a dollar for each sneering jagoff I’ve heard advise me to get over it, I’d still be unable to let go of my anger and disgust, hoping for every NBA game LeBron James plays to be his last.

Frankly, I don’t even grasp the concept of getting over it or letting go. Cleveland fanhood defines me in as primal a way as gender and race; it always has. My fanaticism is derived from the odd nature of Cleveland sports for the past half-century: Over and over, in every sport, moments of hope on the very brink of transcendent glory have — without exception — turned bitter and ugly, dying in defeat.

I know that Cubs fans feel entitled to whine about waiting longer for a championship. I don’t begrudge them their bitchery. But it’s like comparing a paper cut to a slit jugular vein. The Bulls enjoyed an NBA dynasty. The White Sox won the World Series, the Blackhawks a Stanley Cup, the Bears a Super Bowl — and by the way, no bastard stole the Bears out of Chicago, either. Nor have the nation’s media spent the past 40 years crapping on Chicago’s head.

Hey, if you think pro sports success makes no real difference in a city’s quality of life, nothing I can say will change your mind. All I can tell you is that I know how much civic pride the Steelers and Penguins have given Pittsburgh, what the Pistons’ and Red Wings’ titles have meant to Detroit. Two generations of die-hard Cleveland sports fans have lived their lives with no experience of ultimate triumph in any pro sport — only the misery of trudging season after season with the bluest balls in all the land.

LeBron James was supposed to change that; the son of a bitch told us he wouldn’t quit until he did. Then he quit trying, and ran away from home, and spent an hour on the TV kicking our nads to jelly. I’ll get over that as soon as Dr. Oz starts pitching for White Castle.

This I believe: Someone someday will win it all for Cleveland, and the town will bust a nut so fine and rich that the grin will never flee its face. I may not live to see that, but just last night I listened to Tom Hamilton calling Travis Hafner’s walk-off grand slam, and Hammy went silent for a full fifteen seconds — a radio eternity — while the roar of Cleveland fans filled my soul with jubilation. I love that noise like life itself, far more than I hate the Whore of Akron.

Alea Iacta Est

It’s a glorious day, the beginning of the end of the longest season in NBA history. It began way back on July 8, 2010, when ESPN gave away an hour of prime time and any vestige of its own journalistic credibility to the Whore of Akron, LeBron James, so that James could inflict as much pain as possible upon the city of Cleveland and Cavs fans while being fluffed by Stuart Scott and Michael Wilbon. In a few days, it will end as it began — with myth in place of truth, with the well-kept media poodles panting hotly, and with Cleveland fans left to ponder, as we’ve done for half a century, what might have been but never is.

Were I the sort of man who’d wager on so sad an outcome, I’d take the Heat in 6.

*****

To those who feel I’m selling short the Dallas Mavericks: I hope you’re right. I can imagine Jason Kidd, whose brilliance is past all doubt, leading the Mavs to a win or two, but I don’t think Dirk Nowitzki will light up the Heat’s defense on a consistent basis, and I can’t see Dallas outscoring Miami four times — not without playing the same withering, brutal D that kept the Celtics and the Bulls close enough to lose incrunch time game after game. I can’t see that, either.

*****

The second-worst aspect of this season — I’ll get to the first further down — has been the build-up to the storyline that will rule these Finals: The Vindication of LeBron. There are live horses to beat in objection to it, but no point in doing so. This is America: Winning! is proof beyond reproof, rendering moot all evidence and argument to the contrary. If the bastard wins the NBA title, then he chose rightly, suffered unfairly for doing so, and surmounted his travails as a hero.

That’s the storyline that will be rammed home this week, not because it’s true, but because LeBron has become such a crucial brand. To the NBA, to Nike, to ESPN/ABC/Disney, the Whore of Akron is an earner —  which is exactly why, even if the Heat lose, the story of LeBron will leave behind his villainy to focus on his singular greatness.

And this is — it grieves me to admit — as it ought to be. James’s play during the Heat’s title run is old hat to Cleveland fans. He has been the NBA’s best player — by far — for at least three seasons. Until Games 5 and 6 against the Celtics in last year’s playoffs, no sentient Cavs fan ever thought of LeBron as a choke artist, much less a quitter, which is precisely why his tank job inspired such fury and ugly speculation. Only a year and three weeks ago, the Cavaliers were still a betting favorite to reach the Finals, and not even the most cynical pundit had James leaving Cleveland. But to expect the national media or fans around the NBA to hold a grudge on behalf of Cleveland is absurd.

Still, it would be nice if folks would leave behind the ignorant trope that casts Cavs fans as ex-girlfriends.  For anyone aware of what soccer means to billions of fans around the world: Imagine that the world’s best player grew up in Spain, or Sweden, or Saudi Arabia, led his national team to the verge of winning a World Cup, and then — while still in his prime, while claiming to grasp the fans’ hunger for a triumph they’d never known — not only decided to take his talents to some other land, but did so in a manner that humiliated his country of birth. People would scream for his blood — not because he had behaved like a bad boyfriend, but because he was a traitor, hated rightly and forever.