Cleveland on the Cover
Posted: May 20th, 2009 | Filed under: Cleveland | 23 Comments »
I was 20 years old in 1987. That was a banner year. I had this huge crush on a girl who just wanted to be friends. I had a broken down Pontiac T-1000 that would occasionally just die on the highway, not because of mechanical failure but because of exhaustion. I worked at a department store photo studio; my job was to harass people into coming in for their free 5×7 photograph. Four days after my 20th birthday, John Elway drove the Denver Broncos 98-yards through something that vaguely resembled the Cleveland Browns defense. The Cleveland Cavaliers, guided by a roundish point guard named John Bagley*, finished with a losing record for the ninth straight season.
*Bagley was the Cavaliers first-round pick in the famed 1982 draft. The Cavs had given up the first overall pick in a trade — the first pick turned out to be Hall of Famer James Worthy. But they made up for it by drafting John Bagley, and following that up by taking Dave Magley. Yeah. Bagley and Magley. The feeling was that Dr. Seuss was at that point the Cavaliers scouting director. Unfortunately, they were not able to find anyone else whose name rhymed with Bagley and Magley, though they did select Tony Hafley later in the draft, and that’s pretty close.
But there’s no doubt that the singular moment from that year for me was getting my Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue in the mail.
Yes, there it is again. Look how happy they are. Cory Snyder! Joe Carter! Wahoo! I have written about this before, of course, but I’m not sure that I have ever fully expressed how much that cover meant to me. Nothing at all seemed to be right in my life. I was smack-dab in the midst of 20-year-old angst, the nobody-loves-me-and-nobody-understands-me-and-I’m-going-to-be-a-life-failure college pain that, briefly, got me to listening to Led Zeppelin IV over and over again — there really was a bustle in my hedgerow. It felt like John Elway had driven the Broncos right over me.
Only here was Sports Illustrated — THE Sports Illustrated — saying that the Indians were not just good, they were REALLY good, no, they were the best team in the American League. Even I — as the world’s most optimistic Indians fan — had not dared hope that the Indians were the best team in the American League. But there was the best sports magazine on earth telling me to believe it. No, they insisted. They put an exclamation point at the end. Believe it! So I did.
You already know … it turned out to not be so believable. The Indians lost 101 games in 1987. They had the worst record in baseball — though that did lead to them taking shortstop Mark Lewis with the second overall pick in the draft (.258 average and 7 homers in 911 plate appearances for Cleveland), so they had that going for them.
All of this played around in my head this past week, more than 20 years later, when suddenly I found myself writing a Sports Illustrated cover story about Cleveland. I didn’t know that it would be on the cover while I was writing it … but I had a hunch. The Cavaliers have been so hot. LeBron is such a force of nature. The cover seemed like a natural.
Now, hey, I don’t believe in curses. I really don’t — curses, jinxes, announcers mentioning a no hitter or a long free throw streak, I don’t buy any of it. I don’t believe the Boston Red Sox were cursed after selling Babe Ruth; I suspect their failures had more to do with not signing a single black player until 1959. I don’t that a curse has kept the Cubs from winning the World Series all these years; I think it’s their habit for having Ivan DeJesus lead off for five straight years and sending Steve Trachsel out there for regular starts, trading Brock for Broglio, trading Sutter for the Bull*, losing Greg Maddux and getting (and playing) ancients like Gary Gaetti, Luis Salazar, Jeromy Burnitz. Signing Milton Bradley doesn’t seem like a winning move to me either.
*The Cubs never really got the whole closer thing together. In a relatively short span, the Cubs traded away Bruce Sutter. Lee Smith, Dennis Eckersley, Bill Caudill, Jay Howell and Willie Hernandez — all of whom had good or great careers as closers for other teams. The Cubs did make up for it by getting Dave Smith and Goose Gossage at the end of their careers.
And the SI curse? Feh. I don’t believe that it was the Sports Illustrated curse that sent Jeff Francoeur’s career reeling. This off-season there was an endless shelling of “How Jeff Francoeur turned his career back around” stories, and now the linked is probably the first of a stream of “He’s handling failure better” stories, but I don’t believe it’s curses or mental failings that haunt Jeff Francoeur. It is the slider that breaks outside the strike zone and fastballs in the dirt.
No, I don’t believe in curses. But, other do. And, of course, I did think about Cleveland being on the cover of Sports Illustrated again, just as the NBA playoffs gear up, just as my old hometown — already dealing with the horrors of YouTube jokes, unemployment, foreclosures, a dreadful bullpen, Eric Mangini — hopes and prays for its first championship since ‘64. The SI cover is hardly a new thing. This is LeBron James’ ninth appearance on the cover, and he seems to be holding up OK under the strain.
Still … I understand the feelings. I look at that 1987 Cleveland Indians cover. I still have the one I got in the mail all those years ago. It is pressed into a Cleveland scrapbook I lovingly kept back when I thought that it was our city’s turn to win. I write about much of this in the Sports Illustrated article — numerous people begged me to keep Cleveland off the cover until the championship was won. I told them that I don’t have any say in those decisions, and I don’t. But I also know that now Cleveland IS on the cover, and they’re on their with my name on it. As my friend Scott Raab says, in his own inimitable way: “Now we’re well and truly fucked.”
Sigh. The pressure’s on LeBron — else, they might never let me back in Cleveland again.
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Chin up. It could’ve been a lot worse than Mangini. It could have been Charlie Weis. Or Romeo Cr– never mind.
You gotta at least admire the font they used in that Cleveland tourism video.
Good luck to you and Cleveland.
There’s no such thing as an SI jinx. Their predictions/projections are historically awful. Putting them on the cover has just drawn attention to some of them.
You know, SI probably has taken too much crap for that cover over the years. Best team in the AL, OK, maybe not, but position player wise they had a pretty solid team. And they won 84 games in 1986.
They had no HOFers (looking back retrospectively), but Brett Butler, Joe Carter and Julio Franco all had very good careers. Cory Snyder, Tony Bernazard, Pat Tabler, Mel Hall and Pat Tabler were all solid major league players.
In 1986, Tabler had a 120 OPS+, Bernazard a 124, Franco 108, Jacoby 116, Hall 128, Butler 102, Snyder 115, and Carter 130. That’s every position but catcher. Pretty solid lineup. And it wasn’t a bunch of fluke years either. Tabler had been solid 2 of the 3 preceding years, Bernazard had a 111+ OPS in 1985, Franco had been increasing his production every year, Hall had been a solid hitter for a few years, Butler looked like (and was) a legitimate leadoff hitter, Snyder looked like a legitimate power threat (he was that, but unfortunately, he didn’t do much else but hit homers), and Carter had led the league in RBIs and seemed on the verge of being a superstar. Further, these guys were coming into their primes as players (they were 28, 29, 27, 26, 25, 29, 23 and 26 respectively). Also, they had a couple of younger players who could fill a roster spot and who were obviously talented (Otis Nixon and Jay Bell)
Now, what SI thought they had for pitching is beyond me. At the top of their rotation in 1986 was a 28 year old knuckleballer and a 47 year old knuckleballer. After that, well, the names probably wouldn’t mean anything to you because the guys were just bad. But they did have a 21 year old Greg Swindell waiting in the wings. Their bullpen was just as bad, although Doug Jones was lurking out there, but it would be another year before he got his shot.
It is feasible that if they had some more pitching that, yes, that was a good team. Had Swindell and Jones developed a year earlier, maybe they could have competed in the East that year.
I wonder if we can have Dan Shaughnessy change the name of his next edition of The Curse of the Bambino to The Curse of Racism, Cheapness* and Poor Understanding of Player Aging Patterns
The Cheapness part could be changed to something about Haywood Sullivan.
I really don’t normally believe in curses either. But, I’ve been through too much to tempt fate right now. I really hope this doesn’t bugger it up.
If it does, I don’t blame you Joe.
I blame Jose Mesa.
Joe, you will be a hero for getting Cleveland on the cover when they win the NBA title. You reversed the curse of 1987!
I’ve always wondered if SI just got caught up in the whole notion of it being Cleveland’s turn. There were 7 teams in the AL East in the 1980s and in the 6 years from 1981 through 1986, 6 of them won the division. In order: Yankees, Brewers, Orioles, Tigers, Blue Jays, Red Sox.
So Cleveland could have made it a perfect 7 different champions in 7 seasons. Needless to say, that’s never happened in the division play era, not even with today’s smaller divisions. (In fact, in the current format the only division which has been won be every team at any point is the smallest one: the AL West).
Anyway, I was rooting for Cleveland in 1987 for that reason alone and I I’ve always figured SI probably let that persuade them to pick the Indians. At least a little.
Brent: “Cory Snyder, Tony Bernazard, Pat Tabler, Mel Hall and Pat Tabler were all solid major league players”.
Hedley Lamarr: “You said Pat Tabler twice”.
Brent: “I LIKE Pat Tabler”.
Look at how skinny the arms on those “sluggers” are.
PS-
The best Cleveland SI cover ever is the one with Bernie Kosar – last of the great quaterbacks
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/9132/index.htm
That should have been Keith Smart on the cover as he hit one of the biggest shots in NCAA tourney history.
Mr. Grammar suggests that “I don’t that a curse has kept the Cubs” should be “I doubt that…” or “I don’t think that…”. Otherwise, I know Cleveland is cursed, you were damned lucky to get out when you did, and in 2037 when the Swamp Zombies rise out of the Cuyahoga to eat the brains of everybody wearing a Lebron James Jr. jersey, you’ll realize how lucky you were.
Only Clevelanders need worry about the Swamp Zombies. And of course, Lebron James, Junior, who for most of the 2037-2038 season will wear a Ken Griffey III jersey. Tragically, Ken Griffey III will spent a night sleeping in a Lebron James Jr. jersey, and the Swamp Zombies are not adept at differentiating beftween Cincinnati and Cleveland. But I digress.
So Joe, don’t let your kids accept any Lebron James Jr. jerseys. Ever. Those Swamp Zombies have a long range and the Cleveland taint is strong in your genes.
Think one of those should have been Brook Jacoby … he references Jacoby in the next paragraph
“Indian Uprising” … wouldn’t see that one today. Maybe they should have gone with “Cavalier Attitude” ….
… for the Joe Cover, I meant.
I’m sure the loss tonight had nothing to do with the cover. Wouldn’t lose one minute of sleep over it.
Dear complete jerk,
You are now my number one enemy. I find you work to be a corporate sponsor driven piece of drivel. You gave the American public exactly what it expected to hear out of Cleveland. You, I and the good people know better than that piece of trash you let into sports illustrated. How dare you mention all the bad things about Cleveland and Cleveland sports without mentioning our heart, tenacity and the overall character of the city. The picture you painted for everyone was slanderous and inaccurate. Since you are in Kansas City, you are already in sports hell. I hope you rot there.
Sincerely,
Cleveland
[...] the Kansas City Star’s columnists — notice how they have more than one, amazing — Joe Posnanski writes about how he doesn’t believe in the Sports Illustrated curse. Which, of course, he has to put out there since he wrote the cover story on his hometown of [...]
John Bagley – One of my favorite, underrated great college players.
I remember that when he was with New Jersey, he signed a contract extension, and one of his teammates – I forget who – said he “went from Bags to riches”.
Yeah, I’m from Indiana and half the state is still ticked about that cover. The 1987 NCAA final was one of the greatest ever, and SI shoves Steve Alford up into the corner. Had the cover been something else legitimate, then I think we’d get over it.
I actually know IU fans who stopped reading SI because of that cover.
I did clutch my breast last night as soon as I learned the dreaded SI cover jinx came true in game 1 of the Cavs – Magic series. Of course, given that the Magic have won 9 of the last 12 against King James and the Cavaliers, game one was not necessarily a surprise.
I did enjoy the story, although I was saddened to see no mention of beloved Bernie Kosar (already referenced in comments above). Surely JoePoz could have found some way to note how Bernie had to leave Cleveland in order to win a Super Bowl with the Cowboys. On the bench. As a backup. Oh, the ignominy!
The ESPN piece on famous QBs where they compare the raw foot speed of Kosar to Marino is quite funny, however.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STEVE ALFORD BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The Cleveland Indians should be always competitive enough to keep pace with the others. I really like them; they’ve always been my favourite teams in MLB.Just read about them here:
http://www.indianszone.com