“Believeland” by ESPN: Is This The Best Article on Cleveland Sports… Ever?
Using the unique structure of moving through Cleveland block by block, and by spending almost two weeks in Cleveland talking and drinking with a wild cross-section of citizens, ESPN senior writer Wright Thompson has managed a feat probably only possible by a visitor: he’s managed to nail Cleveland’s obsession with sports through a meditation on the town’s recent heartbreak over “the player who left.”
Read the remarkable story here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=101201/Cleveland
By employing the concept of “two Clevelands,” writer Thompson has hit on a useful metaphor:
…and you will realize that there are two Clevelands: the one that exists today and the ghost city floating just above it, in the memory of the people who’ve been here for a long time, and in the imagination of those who just arrived. Everything is defined by these two competing narratives…
Encompassing the passions and perspectives of an eclectic range of Clevelanders (writer Charles Michener, Tech Czar Michael DeAloia, Dan Gilbert, Dennis Kucinich, chef Zach Bruell, Harvey Pekar, yours truly), and by happening upon Clevelanders being Clevelanders (Lithuanians cooking up moonshine to honor a deceased relative, Boobie Gibson sipping a Shirley Temple in a suburban sports bar, Writer Scott Raab placing a coin on the tombstone of Ray Chapman before Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, Steelworkers wearing long johns to work the furnaces, The guy who drives 500 miles back and forth from Connecticut for every Browns game), Thompson has achieved what few local scribes have attempted, and none have achieved: a reasonable understanding of the hold that Cleveland sports holds on so much of our region.
Our prediction: Wright Thompson moves to Cleveland within the year, drawn not so much by his fascination with Cleveland’s sports teams, but like so many people, by Cleveland’s people.
Read it and weep, for all the right reasons: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=101201/Cleveland
[Click here to return to the current issue of Cool Cleveland]