The biggest crybaby in Cleveland.
Now I am going to start out this post by making an admission – I am not really a basketball fan. I haven’t really been a basketball fan even growing up in SoCal during the heyday of the Showtime Lakers. I had grown up more of a fan of the Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Dodgers, hell even the Los Angeles Kings had my loyalty more then the Lakers ever did – especially after Gretzky came to town.
That being said I can’t help myself but comment on the reaction that Cleveland is having right now because LeBron James has decided to “take his talent to South Beach”. I know that I might shock some of my readers in Cleveland, but I really feel that I need to impart some old school advice to the city and to its fans:
GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!
Right now Cleveland, you are starting to sound and act like a bunch of Tea Partying yayhoos who crash a Town Hall meeting so that they can organize a lynch mob to go after those of us who want Health Care. Yeah I get that you are in serious grudge mode right now, but you have just proven to everyone else in the rest of the country why you are thought of as “The Mistake by the Lake”. There is a reason why the entire country thinks of you as nothing more than a town full of losers – its because you act like a bunch of losers!!!!
Winners do not whine!!! Winners do not vilify someone for taking a chance at success by going elsewhere!!! Winners do not immediately send out a poison e-mail calling a departing player/employee a “coward” or a “traitor”!!! Winners do not then immediately start burning said player/employee in effigy and start dressing up dummies in his gear and hang them from the end of ropes.
Only racist idiots lynch a young black man in effigy.
And speaking of which, that is pretty much what Cleveland Crybabies owner Dan Gilbert has practically called for in Cleveland. His e-mail was so incendiary that people were taking to the streets in order to demonstrate their displeasure. Now we have all seen this scene before in relation to sports events, and usually with tragic results. We’ve seen people take to the streets and loot local businesses, start fires, and engage in violent acts against innocent bystanders because their team either won or lost a championship game or series. We know how bad that makes the fans in that city look, and we all know how much that hurts local businesses.
Not that Dan Gilbert gives a rats ass about the local businesses he might have endangered. He might not even care about how his behavior makes the city of Cleveland look. It looks like we are seeing the true nature of the relationship between LeBron James and Dan Gilbert. And that begs the question, if Gilbert hated Lebron James this much while James was playing for him, why did he try to keep him, or did he even make an effort to keep him? Did he make any kind of effort to keep a player who has been an economic and jobs boon for Cleveland, or did he just say “good riddance” and then dynamite the bridge as soon as the words “South Florida” were out of Lebron’s mouth?
And he’s not the only crybaby out there by the way. Keven Hench got into the act over at FoxSports.com along with Jason Whitlock who refered to LeBron as a “clown” and a “villain”. Engaging in this kind of behavior is dangerous as we have seen this same type of incitement practised by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Riley, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin when it comes to vilifying another successful African-American – namely President Obama. We’ve all seen how well that has worked out. We’ve all seen how that has inspired some crazies out there to take up arms and brandish them at Town Hall meetings to try to intimidate and terrorize those who would disagree with them. So now FOXSports is taking a page out of the book of FOXNews?!?!?
So tell me something Mr. Gilbert, how are you going to feel if someone tries to firebomb the house that LeBron James’ mother currently resides in in Akron, Ohio? Would you feel bad if someone assaulted her because of all of this, or would you take a page out of the abusers playbook and say that it’s all LeBron’s fault, and that if he really loved his mother he never would have put her in that position by leaving Cleveland?
If you choose the latter sir, then not only does your team deserve to lose, but you would deserve to lose your stake in the franchise that you now own. Look, David Stern has slapped Mark Cuban around for the things that he has said. So you should expect to get a call from the Commissioner’s office any day now. If I were David Stern I would tell you that if any harm comes to LeBron James or any member of his family, then I as Commissioner will be holding you personally responsible for it – and you should expect punishment up to and including the loss of ownership in the Cleveland franchise.
Now I hear you working it Cleveland. Your saying that “hey come on BigDaddy, that’s going too far!!!” Uh, no it’s not going far enough. If any of you Cleveland Crybaby fans payed Mrs. James and her family a “visit” in Akron, then I would say that not only do you derserve to go to jail, but Dan Gilbert would deserve to go with you. I’m pretty sure that the state of Ohio has anti-lynching laws still on the books, so don’t do anything that would associate you with the Tea Party or The Klan. Remember that this country has a dark history when it comes to lynching and race in this country. You really want to become part of that history by going after a young black man and his family?
And speaking of which, where are Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton during all of this? Why are they not expressing their outrage at Dan Gilbert for practically inciting not just a riot, but what amounts to a lynch mob? Where is the NAACP? Why are they not demanding that David Stern bring them Dan Gilbert’s head on a silver platter? This is not just about who wins the NBA Championship any more, as you can see. This has so much potential to be a really bad episode when it comes to not only sports, but also how we think of employees doing what’s right for not only themselves, but also their families.
Would we even be having this discussion if LeBron James were not a basketball player? Would Cleveland be this bent if he were some minimum-wage clerk who left his job in Cleveland for a higher-paying gig in Miami? How many of us have ever left a job for one where there were better working conditions, better pay, etc? And now you are going to fault LeBron James for doing the same thing? Would we even be having this discussion if Lebron James were white? It’s worth thinking about Cleveland. There is a reason why you have a bad reputation as being a bunch of losers – it’s because you act like losers, and you are just showing the rest of us that nothing has changed!!!!!!!
What championships have you won lately Cleveland?!?!? Seriously, since when have you ever had a reputation for being anything but a town full of losers dressed up like Dogs throwing dog biscuits at opposing players? Your baseball team hasn’t won a World Series since 1948! Your original football team hadn’t won an Championship since 1964 and then they got smart and moved to B-more!! Now the expansion team that replaced them has done nothing but lose – they’ve lost on the field and they’ve lost on draft day!!! I mean Tim Couch, Brady Quinn?!?!? Come on!!!!!!! You only ever had one NHL team, and they merged with the Minnesota North Stars after two seasons, and the closest the Crybabies will ever get to the NBA Finals is if they buy a ticket!!!!!!!!
Look, LeBron knew that he was not going to win a ring as long as he was in Cleveland. Now that he is in Miami he has the best shot to win a ring that he is ever going to have. Like I said before Cleveland, winners don’t whine. Winners pick themselves up from a setback like this, dust themselves off, take a look around them and say “okay, what have we got left to work with, how can we add to it to replace what we lost, how can we then win with this new lineup?” But that is not what you are doing right now. You are looking around, trying to blame losses that haven’t happened yet on a player that is no longer wearing your uniform, and trying to blame your future failure on him.
Cleveland, have you even given any thought as to who you could try to go after now that LeBron is no longer in your locker room? Have you thought about who to go after to try to take his spot. Have you thought about how you can win without him, or are you talking smack and saying that you are going to win before him because you know in your heart that you are not as good as the Miami Heat are now, and you’re just trying to cover up for the fact that you’re scared right now?
Dan Gilbert has talked smack, but I honestly don’t think that he has given one thought to the possibility of going out of the free agent market and trying to replace Lebron in the lineup. He’s too busy organizing the lynch mob to take down to South Florida to concentrate on that.
Look Cleveland, loyalty is a two-way street. You demanded that Lebron remain loyal to you no matter what, yet it is clear by your words and actions that you would never be loyal to him. So many companies these days cut their employees loose, showing that they have no loyalty to them, yet they can’t understand why their ex-employees would betray them by applying for unemployment benefits. This is the type of business world that we have right now, there is no such thing as loyalty anymore. Not when good-paying jobs are being shipped off to China or India in favor of paying slave wages to children, and not when ownership of a sports franchise thinks that the way to win is to call departing players “traitors”.
Maybe LeBron James and Art Modell knew something that the rest of us are now finding out…
…no one wants to play for a bunch of losers.
I don’t blame LeBron for leaving Cleveland – I blame you for losing him Cleveland. Just one more loss in a long history of losing.
And it doesn’t look like things are ever going to change.
Until next time…
