Tag: regular season game

Cavs Road to Title Starts Tonight

Tonight is the night!

When LeBron James announced he was returning to the Cavaliers in early July, every fan of the wine and gold wondered what it would be like when he played his first regular season game back at Quicken Loans Arena.

Tomorrow, we will not have to wonder any more.

And hopefully, sometime next June we won’t have to imagine what it would be like if and when a professional sports team in Cleveland won a world championship any more.  The then 51 year drought (assuming the Browns won’t win the Super Bowl this season) will be over.

We understand that there are many experts, mostly from the national media, who say it will take time for a team that has so many new parts to gel in time to win a title this year.  However, it was just a few years ago that the Boston Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to go along with Paul Pierce in the off-season and then won the Larry O’Brien Trophy in their first year together.

Keep in mind, they are playing basketball, something they have done their entire lives, not doing nuclear physics.

Also, the playoffs don’t start until April, giving all of the players five and a half months to become acclimated to each other and their new coach, David Blatt.  There is plenty of time to become a well oiled machine.

Besides having two of the league’s top ten players in James and Kevin Love, they have a two-time all-star in Kyrie Irving and also start a solid rebounder and improving offensive player in Anderson Varejao, this team is also very deep.

In fact, their second unit is a such that it looks like a pretty decent NBA team with Shawn Marion, Mike Miller, Tristan Thompson, Brendan Haywood and Matthew Dellavedova.  And that doesn’t even mention Lou Amundson and James Jones, two veterans of the league as the possible 11th and 12th men.

And we haven’t mentioned the fourth overall pick in the 2012 draft in Dion Waiters.

This shouldn’t be a team that will have to depend on giving its best players big minutes on a night-to-night basis, meaning they should enter the playoffs as fresh as they can be after an 82 game schedule.

And with the salary cap increasing over the next few years, there is no question that GM David Griffin and James can continue to keep putting together a deep squad in wine and gold.

Will there be challenges?  Of course, if Derrick Rose stays healthy, the Chicago Bulls will pose a threat in the Eastern Conference now that they added Pau Gasol.  They play solid defense and are also a veteran laden team.

And whoever comes out of the West, assuming the Cavs can get to The Finals, will also be a tough team to beat.

James said in his essay announcing his return that winning a championship isn’t and won’t be easy.  The organization doesn’t want to make promises because they understand the same thing, and they are correct in doing so.

The whole process starts tonight and the focus of the basketball world is on Northeast Ohio.

The start of what we have dreamed about for 50 years could be tonight.

JK

It’s Opening Day!

Today is the day that signals spring is officially here in northeast Ohio.  It’s the home opener for the Cleveland Indians, a day for the even the casual fans around town to stop talking about the NFL draft and salute the return of the Tribe.

We have seen a lot of Opening Days in town and we thought we would share a couple of the most memorable.

The one that stands out right away is 1975, a historic day for the sport of baseball as well as the Indians.  It was Frank Robinson’s first game as the first African-American manager of a major league team, and he put his name in the lineup as the DH and hit a home run off Doc Medich in his first at bat, leading his team to a 5-3 victory over the Yankees.

The other obvious choice in most fans’ memories occurred 20 years ago, as then Jacobs Field played host to its first regular season game.  Walking into the new building after spending so many years at the armpit known as Municipal Stadium was a thrill.  You couldn’t believe a facility like this was built right here in Cleveland.

The game was a classic as well, and it was a harbinger of things to come.  The Tribe was being no-hit by Randy Johnson into the eighth inning before rallying to tie and then won the game in extra innings on a Wayne Kirby single, the first of many, many walk off wins by the home team in the new park.

People as old as we are still refer to Progressive Field as the “new ballpark”, and it is now 20 years old.

There were other more obscure games that we recall though.

The ’71 opener was a 3-2 victory for the Indians, highlighted by a game winning single by utility infielder Gomer Hodge who went 2 for 2 and proclaimed he was hitting 2.000 after the game.

In 1974, an opening day record of over 74,000 packed the old stadium to watch Gaylord Perry and the Indians outduel Mickey Lolich and the Tigers 2-1 on Chris Chambliss’ home run.

In 1980, the Tribe came home after a 1-5 west coast swing to beat the Blue Jays 8-1 behind the pitching of Rick Waits and a home run by eventual American League Rookie of the Year Joe Charboneau, who went 3 for 3 on the afternoon.

The 1986 loss to Detroit was perhaps the coldest opener we attended.  Phil Niekro started for the Tribe and seemingly went 3 and 2 on every Tiger hitter that day which made the 7-2 loss even more chilly.

The first home game in 1992 went 19 innings, before the Red Sox won 7-5 with Tim Naehring winning the game with a two run homer off Eric Bell.  In the starting lineup for Cleveland were these guys who were cornerstones of the teams that game the post-season year after year later in the decade:  Kenny Lofton, Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, and Sandy Alomar Jr.

The 1996 lidlifter featured the Indians getting their 1995 American League Championship rings in a 7-1 loss to the Bronx Bombers.  Why else was that game significant?  Yanks’ rookie SS Derek Jeter hit his first big league homer in the game.

Today, someone will have a memory that will stick with them for many years.  That is the magic of baseball and the home opener in particular.  It’s a special day especially if you are a real fan.

Finally, it’s here.  Let’s play ball!

MW