Saturday Sportsbook Special: New York, New York -- Mets, Jets, and Flyover Country

This weekend, while the Angels visit Cleveland from the West Coast to play our Indians, the New York Mets are in Pittsburgh to play the Pirates -- two teams from each coast’s biggest city converging in the heart of the Rust Belt. One nice thing about this is that it gives the City Slickers who live in New York and L.A. a good excuse to come see some ballgames, and expand their horizons by learning how lovely Cleveland and, yes, even Pittsburgh, can be. With the two cities and their respective beautiful ballparks only about a two-hour drive away from one another, this weekend provides a nice opportunity for folks from the coasts to check two ballparks off on the list of parks that they’ve visited. Surely even city folk have those lists, no?

Another nice, even great, thing about trips like this, is that they are a powerful antidote to the cancerous attitude carried by some folks that gives rise to the idea that our two cities are in a place called “flyover country.” Wikipedia defines “flyover country” as follows: “Flyover country or flyover states is a somewhat derogatory Americanism popular among entertainers, businessmen, and others concerned with doing business on the coasts. The name comes from the fact that many such individuals shuttle between coastal locations — e.g., Manhattan and Los Angeles — by air. "Flyover country" thus refers to the part of the country that such Americans only view by air. Even Chicago, one of the larger cities in the U.S., is often considered part of the region.”

Holy crap!!! What a bunch of jerks!!!

We get that these folks actually do "fly over" these parts of the country, so the term might technically be correct, but we think that use of the term signifies something rooted in ignorance -- a baseless disdain for, or fear of the "other." We’ve linked before to a great post at Waiting for Next Year that touches on this topic, which we feel rather strongly about. We think that most of the negative attitude about our towns comes from folks who are here just to do business, who don’t spend any meaningful time with the people who actually live here. In our experience, pretty much everyone we know who has come to visit us from New York, LA, Chicago, or similar “fancy” places has come away pleasantly surprised with what we have going on here in our respective river valleys. These people get to learn, firsthand, just how different life is out here than it is in their cities. Specifically, they learn that life is a lot different when folks don’t have to live so close together and in such small places. One common refrain heard from these visitors goes something like, “man, people are so nice out here.” Yes, we are. While there are surely numerous reasons for this, one simple explanation is that we don’t have to live so close together in such small places if we don’t want to. We're not saying one way of living is necessarily better or worse than the other -- just different, and certainly not worthy of derision or disdain.

Of course, there’s so much more to say on this topic, but not today, because we have to make some picks.

First, it’s the Mets at the Pirates tonight at 7:05. Pedro Martinez takes the hill for the Mets against Zack Duke. Pedro has never given up a home run at PNC Park. Duke has never lost against the Mets (2-0 in four starts). Will either or both of these remarkable streaks continue? With the Mets in first place by only one game over the Phillies in the NL East, and the Pirates lineup resembling a high school junior varsity team after trading Jason Bay and Xavier Nady, the Mets need this win more than the Bucs, and should get it. Of course, “should” doesn’t always work out in these matters, but we have a better reason to pick the Mets today than “should.” We admire the brave and thoughtful New Yorkers who are willing to look past common misconceptions, confront prejudices, and come to visit our towns and our ballparks. And we happen to know for a fact that some of them are doing this this very weekend. We expect that the Baseball Gods will smile on these hardy souls, and help to bring the Mets a victory, sending their fans back to the Big City with smiles on their faces, their souls aglow with Midwestern warmth and hospitality. The Pick: New York Mets -160 over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

And we promised a football pick today as well. So why not Brett Favre and the Jets tonight over the Washington Redskins? We like this pick mainly for reasons stated here, that relate to our support for Favre’s comeback. And also because the Redskins have been hot thus far in the preseason, with their quarterbacks playing well. This might mean that Redskin backers who don’t share our support for Favre’s comeback are helping to drive the line, and we’re happy to put our v-chips up against them. Finally, the Jets have backup receiver David Clowney on their side, who went bananas against our Browns last week with two 70+ yard touchdown catches. Perhaps more importantly, Clowney rhymes with Frownie. We’re so down-ey. The Pick: New York Jets -3 over the Washington Redskins.

Update: Baseball Gods, Mets, send fans home from Pittsburgh happy, win 7-4.

Jets lose, 13-10. Favre got off to a good start with his new team, completing 5-6 passes for 48 yards and a touchdown . Frownie favorite David Clowney led Jets receivers with 4 catches for 59 yards. Jets kicker, ex-Buckeye Mike Nugent, missed a 23-yard field goal as time expired that would have sent the game into overtime. Nugent also missed a 43-yarder in the 3rd quarter. Get in the game, Nuge! WTF???

Young Local Bloggers Blowing Up

Some of our favorite young local bloggers are up to big things these days. Kyle Kutuchief (Revere High School, '97) and Ben Keeler (Revere High School, '98), of the Akron Beacon Journal’s ohio.politics.com blog recently sat down with Governor Strickland in his office for an interview that you can see on video in three parts here and here. Kyle and Ben are the founding editors of The Chief Source, and the Keeler Political Report, respectively.

As for the interview, we’re impressed that Strickland took the time to sit down with a couple of twentysomething local bloggers. He appears to us to be a likeable and thoughtful man. As for the contents of the thoughts expressed, we think the bit on Obama is all so much nonsense, and is emblematic, to us, of Obama’s campaign at large. In sum, Strickland starts with the Chicken Little-esque notion that “we are facing a cataclysmic shift, driven by what’s happening around the world,” and then, without any substantive explanation, tells us that Obama is the man to see us through these violent times. Why Mr. Governor? Why? Why? Why? (Relatedly, and oddly enough, we read an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal this weekend: “While the Iraqi effort is almost exclusively American now, Afghanistan is a NATO mission. Sen. Obama, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on European and NATO affairs [who talks A LOT about Afghanistan], had never visited Afghanistan, and has not bothered to hold a hearing of the subcommittee covering the countries for which it bears legislative oversight responsibility.” How strange.)

The best part of the interview is where Strickland discussed legislation pertaining to our local fresh water source, The Great Lakes Compact. To paraphrase the money quote: “Growth that we’ve seen in Arizona and elsewhere in the American West can simply not be sustained without a supply of fresh water. This compact will ensure that the resources of the Great Lakes are managed by the States and Provinces of Canada that surround them." Word. Thanks for being on top of that, Gov. And nice work Ben, and Kyle.

Speaking of nice work, Chuck Kozelka (Revere High School ‘97), one of the original editors of The Chief Source, surely has himself some of that. Chuck is a lawyer who works at the Arizona Public Defender’s Office. Chuck’s most recent assignment has him defending the inalienable rights of one Earl Simmons, better known to some as the rapper, Dark Man X, or DMX, who has been indicted with felony charges of theft and identity theft. It’s remarkable that Mr. Simmons was appointed a public defender in this case, as the Judge notes in this video at TMZ.com (you can hear Chuck's voice in the background). While Chuck won’t be able to discuss his representation of Simmons due to his professional duties of confidentiality to his client, we are sure that this foray into celebrity justice will inform Chuck’s wisdom in a number of ways, and we look forward to this coming through in his writing at The Chief Source. Best wishes to Chuck, and to DMX, who is obviously the target of a government conspiracy. (Let’s not forget that Arizona was one of the last states to adopt Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday.)

In concluding, we should point out that it was only a few years ago that Ben, Chuck, and Kyle started with nothing but an internet connection, a blogger account, and a dream. Now they’re interviewing governors and defending rap stars. It’s true, kids. The world IS flat. The internet IS the wave of the future. Start your blog, TODAY.

2008 Cleveland Frowns Person of the Year Nominee: Latarian Milton

If you haven’t met Latarian Milton of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, you are in for a treat.

A local news report starts with an understatement: “Latarian Milton is not your typical seven year old, [because] few his age have ever driven an SUV up and down several busy streets.” As far as we know, Latarian might be the only one who has done so for several miles, with only so much as another seven-year old in the car to supervise. This joyride was not without casualties, as according to the report, Latarian “hit two mailboxes, hit two parked cars in a Cosco parking lot, and struck two moving cars near Wal-Mart.” But it’s not the mistakes we make that count, it’s how we react to them. Young Milton’s explanation for and reaction to this “incident” clearly demonstrates that his unquenchable lust for life coupled with his finely-tuned sense of justice and willingness to see it through makes him a leading candidate to be the first governor of history’s first real utopian society, and certainly a candidate for the 2008 Cleveland Frowns Person of the Year Award.

Photographic evidence of the young man’s excellence starts here (and directly below). Please review this two minute video carefully.



First we see that Latarian had excellent reasons for embarking on his voyage. He first explains that he “took [his] grandma’s car because [he] got mad at [his] mom,” which seems fair enough by itself, because grandmas generally rank higher than moms in the family chain of authority and must certainly bear some responsibility for moms’ actions. But this argument is unnecessary because Latarian then tells us that he had an even better reason for taking grandma’s car -- he had a friend over, and that friend “smokes with cigarettes.” A seven-year old who smokes with cigarettes is impressive. One of the very few things that could top that would be a spin in grandma’s Durango, so that’s what Young Milton did, going to the greatest lengths to conform to the ancient rule of “one good turn deserves another.” We should all have such good friends.

Even more impressive is the way that Milton didn’t crack when police officers and local news reporters attempted to break him down. He told them, simply and unwaveringly: “I wanted to do it because it was fun. It’s fun to do bad things.” Here, Milton obviously means that it’s fun to do fun things, and subtly makes the point that in today’s topsy-turvy world, “fun” is all too often held to be the equivalent of “bad” -- especially by meddling police officers, officious news reporters, and parents who are too lazy to properly raise their children.

Milton held up even stronger when the reporter went for a cheap shot by asking him, “[d]id you know that you could perhaps kill somebody?” Milton’s response: “Yes, but I wanted to do hoodrat stuff with my friend.” This is Milton’s reaffirmation of the basic principles of “one good turn deserves another,” and “it’s fun to do fun things.” Milton, confident in his driving skills, knew that he wasn’t going to kill anyone. He also knows that one has to break a few eggs to make an omelette. A few nicks and scrapes to some vehicles and mailboxes, maybe a whole weekend without video games? A small price to pay for the chance to simultaneously mete out justice to his mother and grandmother, and more importantly, earn the friendship and respect of not only the seven-year old who smokes with cigarettes, but also a number of others who were surely impressed by this episode.

We’d like to think that every seven-year old would make the same choices when confronted with the same incentives, but few if any seven-year olds are as aware as Latarian Milton is of the opportunities that exist for them. What we find so troubling is that the state of Florida seeks to punish Milton for this brilliance. This bad news is contained in this two minute follow-up news report on Milton (also directly below), stemming from an incident that occurred at a local Wal-Mart: “The problem began when Latarian asked his grandmother to buy him some chicken wings. She said no, he got mad, and walked over and ordered them anyway. [Such initiative!] When his grandmother[, Vikitta Stratford,] confronted him about it, Latarian snapped.” He began hitting his grandmother, “[in her] stomach, in [her] legs, wherever he could reach [her] that’s where he would hit [her].”



This sounds to us like a typical temper tantrum of a seven-year old, the source of which is easily explained by Milton’s grandmother himself, who appears not to have been seriously injured in the incident: “I know what causes this behavior because all he’s ever seen was his parents do physical, abusive, and verbal things . . .” Yet the state has intervened. They picked up Latarian from his home and took him to the hospital for a mental evaluation. Even worse, they are pursuing charges of grand theft against him, because “they want to get him into the system and get him some kind of help.”

By all appearances in these two videos, this rush to get Latarian Milton “in the system” is a ridiculous overreaction of the sort that probably happens all too frequently. Yet, apparently out of misguided love for her grandson, Ms. Stratford is OK with the state’s involvement here: “I don’t want him to continue in this direction, so I’m doing the best I can to get him help.” The report goes on to tell us that Ms. Stratford “hopes that health officials can diagnose the problem, and help him get the proper kind of help.” Here’s a diagnosis for Ms. Stratford and for state health officials: Latarian Milton is a bright seven-year old who comes from a tough background. That’s not a problem that needs to be diagnosed, it’s a life that needs to be lived and learned from. We admire Ms. Stratford for taking custody of her grandson from his parents. He is obviously gifted, and must be on a better track in her care. It looks like all he needs is some more enforced discipline. Some time in his room, without video games. Maybe even a spanking. What he does not need is for people to make him feel that he is weird, or “systematically” bad. It seems impossible that involvement in “the system,” which should be an emergency measure, won’t make him feel this way. It seems further impossible that the state bureaucracy can give Milton the simple yet fundamental kind of attention that he needs. To the extent that we’re correct about this, we hope that this nomination for our 2008 Person of the Year award may undo at least some of the damage that the state has done, or will do, so that Latarian Milton’s bright light may continue to shine forth as it should.

Thanks to Gregory Urbano of CBSSportsline.com for bringing this story to our attention.

The Curse of Chief Wahoo

Whatever one thinks of Chief Wahoo, the face of the Cleveland Indians, one must find remarkable that so few people talk about a “Curse of Chief Wahoo” here in Cleveland, the city suffering the longest and arguably most painful championship drought in major American professional sports. Surveys show that an overwhelming majority of Americans prefer to believe in some metaphysical order, so it’s no surprise that as bad results accumulate, speculation about the metaphysical source of those results -- a curse -- is soon to follow. So, if the Boston Red Sox had to endure an 86-year curse for trading Babe Ruth, and if the Chicago Cubs have been cursed for the last 63 years simply because they wouldn’t let a Greek bring his Billy Goat to a ballgame, why don’t more believe that the Indians, if not all Cleveland franchises, have been cursed for what many view as a hateful affront to the entirety of Native American culture and a callous disrespect for the beginnings of American history? The answer to this question lies in understanding that for a great many, if not most, Indians fans, Chief Wahoo represents something entirely different. It’s long past time for us to come to terms with the Chief. This will not happen until the activists and others who are so convinced of Wahoo’s evil can understand the good that he represents to so many others.

To understand why Chief Wahoo has endured for so long in this world that long ago turned Bullets into Wizards, and Redskins and Redmen into Red Hawks and a Red Storm, one must also understand that for so many Tribe fans, Wahoo represents the very best of “Take me out to the Ballgame.” In Northeast Ohio, one can live in beautiful country that is only a short trip away from a relatively big city. It’s no surprise that many choose to do this. And because such a small percentage of Tribe fans live in Cleveland proper, so much of the joy of going to a ballgame is inseparable with the joy of coming to the big city on the big lake. For so many of us, our first trips to the Stadium were our first times in any real city. So many of us can remember the wonder that came with seeing the bridges over the Cuyahoga for the first time, standing in the Flats and looking up at the city on the cliff, or craning our necks to try to see the top of the first skyscrapers that we’d ever seen. Our parents didn’t want to get stuck in post-game traffic in the Stadium lot. So they parked at the Terminal Tower, or in the Muni Lot, or southwest in the Flats, or southeast by the Greyhound station, and we made the trek through the city to the Stadium together with so many others of all shapes and colors. And many of us had never seen so many different people of so many different shapes and colors. And we saw, many of us for the first time, that those people were no different from us – at least because we all wanted the home team to win.

And at the end of this fascinating trek, as we crossed Route 2 and approached the magnificent structure on the lake, we saw it; the 35-foot tall neon-lit Chief Wahoo of glass and steel, perched atop the southeast corner of the Stadium roof, eyes gleaming, smile beaming, bat cocked, leg raised, ready to knock the next pitch all the way back down to Youngstown. And we didn’t think of Native Americans, or any kind of person at all. All of the magic of the trip to the ballpark coalesced in that smiling slugging alien angel of joy as we entered the Stadium gates. And then there was the magic of the ballgame itself, with Wahoo smiling in approval all the while -- from the stadium roof, our heroes’ uniforms, and seemingly everywhere else. Indians executive Bob DiBiasio touched on this when he told the New York Daily News in March 2007 that, "[w]hen some people look at our logo they see baseball . . . They see Bob Feller and Omar Vizquel and Larry Doby.”

Those who want to bury Wahoo have to acknowledge why he has lasted so long -- that in doing so they would be burying more than a racist caricature; they would be burying a part of our childhood and our culture. They must acknowledge that our collective attachment to Wahoo has little to nothing to do with an intent to disparage a race of people. So much of the resistance to attempts to get rid of Wahoo is a natural reaction by Tribe fans who feel that those who protest Wahoo are accusing them of racism, and telling them that there is something fundamentally wrong with those magical trips to the ballgame. This would offend anyone’s sense of justice. These activists must acknowledge the innocent aspects of our attachment to Wahoo before their appeals to his harmful effect will ever be well-received.

Once Tribe fans believe that our love for Wahoo is understood, we will be more apt to ask ourselves why we would want to be attached any longer to a symbol as potentially demeaning to a race of people as Wahoo is.

An honest examination of Wahoo’s origins would be a good place to start in answering this question. Any such look back gives lie to the company line that the Cleveland baseball franchise was named “Indians” to honor former Cleveland second baseman Louis Sockalexis, the first Native American to play Major League Baseball. According to an October 2007 story in a Maine newspaper, the Kennebec Journal, for which the reporter interviewed the author of a book on Sockalexis, Sockalexis’ arrival in Cleveland in 1897 “created such a sir that local newspapers jokingly dubbed his team, the Cleveland Spiders, the ‘Cleveland Indians.’” This was not done to honor Sockalexis’ Native American heritage, but rather because, "[r]acism was accepted in journalism in that day . . . Sportswriters would write things like, 'He's gonna be scalping people.'" Sockalexis was “burdened by alcohol abuse and racist taunts from opposing players and fans,” and his time with the Indians was short, ending in 1899.

In 1915, two years after Sockalexis’ death, the president of the Cleveland ball club enlisted the help of local sportswriters to rename the team, then called the “Naps” after star Napoleon “Nap” Lajoie, who had recently been traded to Oakland. The name “Indians” was chosen by the sportswriters. According to research conducted by the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance, none of the four daily Cleveland newspapers mentioned Sockalexis in reporting the name change. Three of these four reports (available here) refer to stereotypes about Native Americans. A January 17, 1915 report in the Cleveland Leader reported that “[i]n place of the Naps, we’ll have the Indians, on the warpath all the time, and eager for scalps to dangle at their belts.” The Plain Dealer of the same day included a cartoon titled “Ki Yi Waugh Woop! They’re Indians.” This cartoon (pictured above) depicts, among other things, a frowning umpire scolding a Native American: “When you talk to me, talk English, you wukoig.” “Wukoig,” according to the Plain Dealer cartoon, is an “Indian” word.

After reading these reports it should be difficult to disagree with Kansas City Star sportswriter and Cleveland native Joe Posnanski, who “find[s] that this Sockalexis story might be a bit exaggerated or, more to the point, complete bullcrap.” Posnanski points out that “the story never made much sense to begin with” because it raises the question: “Why exactly would people in Cleveland — this in a time when native Americans were generally viewed as subhuman in America — name their team after a relatively minor and certainly troubled outfielder?” Of course, they didn’t.

But despite the dubious origins of the name “Indians,” at least the name could conceivably honor Native Americans, something that Chief Wahoo could never do. Choctaw Nation member Gavin Clarkson, who teaches Native American Studies at the University of Michigan, points out that Wahoo reinforces the image of Indians as "anachronistic savages." Charlene Teters, member of the Spokane Nation and founder of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media told the Plain Dealer in April 2008, that Wahoo is “the most offensive racial icon in the country” and that his existence “really speaks to how invisible native people are in this country.” With alcoholism, unemployment, and poverty plaguing Native reservations across America, a grinning, hook-nosed, fire engine red-faced caricature that reinforces beliefs that Natives are subhuman is particularly harmful. What’s worse, as Esquire Magazine's Scott Raab has pointed out, is that Wahoo “could be interpreted as mocking the genocide of our nation's First Peoples.” New York Daily News columnist Filip Bondy puts this more pointedly: “One race can't commit genocide against another, then turn that race into a mascot. A soccer team in Hamburg would never call itself the Jews and adorn its uniforms with caricatures.”

With Wahoo seemingly standing alone as the only racist caricature currently accepted in American society, it’s hard to tell Natives like the ones quoted above to “lighten up.” Blackface has long since been understood to be unacceptable in this country, yet redface is alive and well here in Cleveland. How else to explain this disparity if Ms. Teters isn’t at least partially correct about the invisibility of Natives in America? So do we really want to be a part of reinforcing this invisibility? An insensitivity to these matters that was more understandable in the less integrated society of our parents’ day must certainly be much less so now. At some point our intention – the innocence behind our attachment to Wahoo -- ceases to matter.

Which brings us back to the Curse. Native voices have told us loudly and clearly that Wahoo offends; and given his origins and singular status among racial caricatures in America, it’s not at all hard to see how this might be true. If there is at least one Native in this country for whom Wahoo reasonably reinforces a belief that her or his race is invisible or subhuman -- thus making it even a little bit harder to engage in life’s everyday struggle -- isn’t that enough to bring a curse on our sports teams? It sure seems worse than trading Babe Ruth or banning goats from a ballpark. So why would we even want to take this chance? Haven’t we all had enough of the exquisitely painful losing? There are a lot of Natives buried in these parts. If it’s not the Curse of Chief Wahoo, what else could it be? What else would we want it to be? At least a Curse of Chief Wahoo makes sense. At least it’s a curse that we might do something to end.

So let’s not hesitate in giving Wahoo a dignified burial. In doing so, we should recognize that while Wahoo might have been born out of something bad, he turned into something very good for many of us. We should acknowledge the complexity of the lives of both persons and personifications. And we should acknowledge progress. We need not abandon the name “Indians,” and we have no shortage of persons indigenous to Northeast Ohio who would be worthy models for a new logo; one that truly honors Native Americans. We could call him, simply, “The Chief.”

Click here to sign an online petition to help end the Curse of Chief Wahoo and help bring a championship to Cleveland, and please pass this on.

Great Moments in Advertising: Bronx Zoo Sells New Yorkers a Slice of Home

This is some trick they're playing up in the Bronx. As best we can tell, the Bronx Zoo is trying to get people to come there by telling them that there will be cockroaches there -- over 100,000 of them, as part of a new exhibit showcasing the creatures and environs of the island of Madagascar. We’ve seen this roach infested ad campaign on this website, and as a banner ad on the New York Post website - the bugs crawl across the ad as the page is loading.

“Hey New Yorkers, are you bored with the same old cockroaches? Maybe you didn’t know just how creepy a cockroach could be. Well come on up to the zoo because we’ve got hissing cockroaches here. Yeah, that’s right. ‘Hssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!’ One at a time people. Plenty of room for everyone . . . plenty of room.”

Leaping f*cking lemurs. It gets better. According to The Architect’s Newspaper, there’s “an ‘immersion’ feature where visitors can step inside the pitch black, hollowed-out trunk of a simulated baobab tree. As your eyes adjust you notice that things are starting to move…because you’re sharing the trunk with over 100,000 cockroaches! They’re actually Hissing Cockroaches, indigenous to Madagascar and—so they say—completely harmless.”

Completely harmless? Until one of them decides to burrow into your ear, or somewhere else (!?). And then what, smarty?

What we’re having the hardest time understanding here is the way the roaches are prominently featured in the ad campaign, like, “yeah, lemurs are cute, and we did spend millions renovating this beautiful building to create a stunning exotic island environment, but once they see these roaches they’ll really come in droves.” We suppose there might be a “confront your fears/have a transcendental experience” angle to sell with respect to the roach tunnel, but it doesn’t look like they’re selling that. We can’t find a mention of the feature anywhere on the Zoo’s website.

Even with no roaches crawling near our holes we’re still scratching our heads because we’re sure that the Zoo paid lots and lots of money for these ads. We hope that someone at New York's esteemed Comptroller's Office might take a closer look at City procurement of advertising agencies. We’re not sure how the success of ad campaigns is measured, but if this one is somehow proven to work, maybe John Doe really does have the upper hand.

“What’s in the box?”

Short Frownie Bytes for a Long Day

Quote of the Day: “No man needs a vacation so much as the man who just had one.” -Elbert Hubbard, US Author (1856-1915) (pictured above).

Website of the Day: “On Being Bukharian in New York” - The Q&A with Iris Marcus on the right-hand side of the page is a must-read. An excerpt: "We used to live in Brighton Beach, and there were a lot of Russians there. The women would come in with mink coats and food stamps. And it was very annoying. They knew how to work the system, which we found very aggravating."

Lawsuit of the Day: Class action for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress brought by all persons named Peter against THIS.

Person of the Day: 2008 Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee winner Sameer Mishra, for the deadpan look on his face in this video when he asks “numb-nut?” before a national television audience. It reminds us of the South Park episode where Cartman pretends that he has Tourette’s Syndrome.

Look for an NBA Finals Preview on Thursday.

We are the World, We are David Stern's

Ed’s note: Due to a technical error, this post was deleted in its entirety when we tried to edit its labels for more accurate classification. We’ve had this problem with posts that include YouTube videos. Unfortunately we don’t have a copy of our original post. We do remember that we expressed our belief that the above video provided interesting food for thought, and that issues surrounding race might be particularly interesting in Japan because of “sakoku” (meaning “country in chains”), Japan’s foreign policy, in place for over 200 years until 1853. Wikipedia tells us that under sakoku, “no foreigner or Japanese could enter or leave the country on penalty of death” for over 200 years, until 1853. In this post we also predicted that the Lakers would beat the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. We noted that with the Chicago Bulls, of the NBA’s third largest media market, winning the NBA’s draft lottery despite the longest of odds, everything seemed to be coming up Stern; and also that this development, combined with the impending Celtics/Lakers NBA Finals, was further proof that it’s David Stern’s world that we all just live in.

Fan-imosity: An Ugly Side of Sports -- Special Report by Dennis B.

While no major American city has a sports history that’s as remarkably tortured as Cleveland’s, the city of Philadelphia is phoremost among the few that come close. Here at Cleveland Frowns, we believe that getting over our own curse is as simple as coming to terms (and getting rid of) the racist caricature, Chief Wahoo, that represents our baseball team (and something much worse). Burying Wahoo will be no easy task, for certain, but it seems to be something little compared to what it looks like the Philly fans must get over to break their own curse. To illustrate this point, we present the following piece by loyal reader and a friend who's been with Cleveland Frowns before anyone knew what being with us was, Dennis B., a Cleveland area native who was raised a Pittsburgh sports fan. Dennis went to Tuesday night’s Stanley Cup semifinals match in Philadelphia between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers, and has filed the following report:

Fan-imosity: An Ugly Side of Sports – by Dennis B.

I’ve never been big hockey fan, but after attending my first professional hockey game this week, I’ll quickly admit that playoff hockey comes second to none in the sports world for intensity and atmosphere. I learned this first hand Tuesday night at Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Penguins and Flyers here in Philly. The atmosphere was as intense as I've ever experienced at a sporting event. Think fast paced action of the NBA combined with the sudden death scoring element of soccer, and the punch-your-face-in element of a street fight – and all of it on ice. The Flyers were down 0-2 in the series and a 3^rd straight loss would have put the dagger in them. So let’s just say the crowd might have been a little more fired up than usual.

I grew up in Cleveland and was raised as a Pittsburgh sports fan so I’m a something of a lost sports soul living here in Philly. I had some idea of what I was getting into by representing Pittsburgh at last night’s game, but never expected it would be as bad as it was. I went to the game with three friends who are die-hard Penguins fans. Two of them were decked out in full gear while two of us simply wore Pittsburgh hats. We were harassed a whole lot which we expected and understand, to some extent. But when the harassment turns into physical confrontation and violence, it’s time for us to re-evaluate ourselves as fans of a game. (Read that last line again, this is all over a GAME.)

I'm no stranger to rowdy and hostile environments at sporting events (I’ve been to many Eagles, Phillies, Steelers, and Big Ten football games, among others), but have never been in a situation this bad. It was so bad that I decided to take off my hat halfway through the game to appear to be neutral. I told my friends (and they agreed) that pride could take a backseat to safety. We were seemingly outnumbered 20,000 to 4, and I saw no reason to be a hero in these circumstances. A few minutes later I was in the bathroom and watched as a fan in a Pens jersey had full beers thrown at his head while he was taking a leak. There were two 8 year olds in the men’s room at the time with their dad. I jokingly asked the dad if his kids heard this kind of awful language and saw things like this on the school bus. He shook his head in disbelief. Needless to say, I can’t imagine that this father, or others in similar situations, will bring his kids to another game. And what’s scary is that some of them do. Maybe that’s the problem. As I was walking back to my seat, about 10 ushers & cops in the arena went running past me towards the bathroom. I have an idea of what could have happened.

And here’s where it gets worse for our group. As we’re walking to our car after the game, the harassment continued, but in more dangerous form - full bottles and cans were continually fired at us in the parking lot. Even the die-hard Eagles fan who was in our group couldn't believe the hostility. (And Eagles fans are known to be the worst. After all, they booed Santa Claus one year at a home game in December) We were advised to pick up and carry beer bottles with us all the way to the car just in case something went down.

I understand and accept hard-core fans and home team pride, hell, I love those things, and I am those things. But I'll never understand resorting to physical violence and wanting to put someone in the hospital because they wear a different colored jersey. I realize that booze fuels a lot of this, but even buzzed friends can prevent friends from getting involved in this nonsense. I’m not pointing my finger just at Flyers or Philadelphia fans. It happens in every city to some extent. But it's a damn shame, especially for those of us who live in the city where it's most rampant. And after all that I’ve seen first hand at Philadelphia sporting events and elsewhere, I’m sure that it doesn’t get worse than it gets here. It’s also a shame that after this experience I’ll never find myself rooting for the Flyers, even though I came into the game as a relatively unbiased fan, and now call Philadelphia my home.

Of course, with all of that said, if the Pens look like a sucker bet in Game 4, there’s only one thing to do: pony up on the Flyers and root up, because, as Frownie up there knows well, bizness is bizness.