In our coaching days, we used to say there was a difference between wanting to win and hating to lose. Our favorite players were the latter.
Some people might think that is the same thing, but they are not. Everyone likes to win. It’s more fun, your peers love it, everybody is happy. But if you hate to lose, that means you will do everything you can to avoid having that feeling.
That means putting in extra work, studying the game, recognizing something your opponent does that you can take advantage of. It’s taking the extra step, so you don’t have the feeling you have after a loss.
We bring this up because recently there have been conversations on the sports talk shows around town about the ownership of the city’s three professional sports teams.
Some fans of the Cleveland Guardians have been upset because it has been suggested that the owners of the franchise don’t have the same attitudes as the Haslam family and the Gilbert family.
The first thing to point out is this has nothing to do with the success of the franchise. We know of the three teams, the Guardians have been the most consistent winners, making the playoffs seven times in the last 12 completed seasons.
The Cavaliers have won the only title northeast Ohio has seen in the last 61 years, hanging a banner after the 2015-16 season. They have been wildly successful since drafting LeBron James in 2003, and even without James, they have made the post-season the past three years and had the best record in the Eastern Conference this past year.
We all know about the woeful history of the Browns since they returned to the league in 1999. They have had three playoff seasons, but also 18 double digit loss years, including the infamous 0-16 in 2017.
The argument isn’t who has had the most success though, it’s what group would do the most to get a championship for the franchise and city?
We know Dan Gilbert did everything he could to win a title when James was here both times, and he spent all he could after the superstar returned, trading draft picks to put together a roster to achieve the title in ’16, and he has said he has no problem paying a tax to win again.
You have to know he would love to get a second title and one without James.
The Browns have made many ill-fated moves in order to get to the franchise’s first Super Bowl since the Haslam family bought the team. But you can’t say they aren’t passionate about getting to the championship game.
And we have every confidence that if the Browns were in that “one piece away” situation, the ownership would step up and do what it takes to get there.
We are sorry but we do not feel the same way about the Dolan ownership of the Guardians. There is a feeling they are in the class of being happy when they win, but if they don’t, well they don’t like it, but they don’t hate it.
With all the success the Indians/Guardians have had since 2013, the only time the franchise really “went for it” was in ’16 when they traded for Andrew Miller and don’t forget they had another deal in place for catcher Jonathan Lucroy that he vetoed.
Also remember, that team went to the World Series.
If they do have a burning desire to win a championship, they don’t communicate it to their fans very well. The attitude that surrounds the franchise is that of we hope we can get in the playoffs, and we’ll see what happens then.
We understand baseball has the flukiest post-season of the major sports, but the most recent example of last off-season echos. The Guardians were three wins away from getting back to the Fall Classic and decided to allocate less money to the front office than they did the year before.
We have said it before, and we will say it again. 1948 should ring throughout the bowels on the offices on Ontario and Carnegie.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 