Cleveland, Ohio’s image has taken a beating in recent months. Really, Cleveland’s been taking a beating almost forty years now, but the LeBron James sweepstakes has intensified Cleveland bashing to an all-time high. And on behalf of Northern Ohio, I’d like to say something to the rest of America, “Piss off.”
By: Hans Hetrick
Even before the Cavaliers dropped out of the playoffs and the Bronstakes launched into the sports headlines, Cleveland warmed up for the inevitable onslaught of jeers with a couple of popular YouTube videos, courtesy of local Cleveland comedian Mike Polk. His Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Videos 1 & 2 exploded on YouTube has tallied roughly 2.5 million hits. Then in late April, the Nielsen Media Research company, according to an algorithm which counted number of times the word “hate” appeared in the same phrase as a team’s name on internet, proclaimed the Cleveland Indians the most hated baseball team in America.
As a proud Ohio native living in Chicago, I’ve endured plenty of the big city pomposity. I listened as John Jurkovic called the Cleveland Indians “benign” (in reference to the Nielsen study) on Chicago’s ESPN 1000. During the Cavs and Bulls playoff series, I watched Joakim Noah ridicule Cleveland’s nightlife, making himself look like an ass, an ass bigger than then gap between his teeth.
To Jurko: the Tribe has won seven division titles in the past twenty years, more than the Sox and the Cubs put together. To Noah: what are you an entertainment blogger? Shut your spoiled pie hole and play basketball.
I want to resist retaliation, but talking trash is fun. It’s part of being a fan. And it’s just plain American. The city of Cleveland has certainly laid itself open for insult plenty of times. But as a Cleveland fan, the trash talk from the big city is often flat and misinformed. It makes for a difficult and productive trash talking exchange, because most Chicago sports fans have no clue what happens outside of Chicago.
The Chicago sports media rarely ventures outside of the city. It’s frustrating for an out-of-towner to sit through WGN’s coverage of Bonnie Hunt’s rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and then be denied a quick run down of the scores from the rest of the MLB.
There are a lot of Midwest transplants in Chicago. It seems that an untapped market is being ignored. And are Chicago sports fans not interested in their division rivals, in knowing what they’re up against? Even the Illini, being downstate, receive fleeting coverage in the local media, and they’re the state school.
This big city, jingoistic ignorance is usually just plain baffling. The parents of one of my ex-girlfriends, one born in Chicago and one born in New York, just couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that on the highway between Chicago and New York, Toledo was included on the mileage signs alongside Cleveland and New York. There’s over 650,000 living souls in the Toledo area. They live and die, love and hate. They love sports, and they play sports just as well as the people of Chicago and New York. We certainly play better football.
Now, two of America’s biggest cities, Chicago and New York, are vying for King James’ talents. And since Cleveland seems to be a front runner in the Bronstakes, the media outlets in Chicago and New York have made a game out of Cleveland bashing. The general sentiment of the jabs is – why would LeBron stay in decaying, podunk Cleveland, when he could come to the big city? Think of all the exposure and opportunities available in a metropolis.
Sadly, this is becoming true for many Americans. Opportunities in the less populated parts of the country are dwindling. Many my age have made the pilgrimage to Chicago or New York or another center of commerce, myself included. Big cities are growing. Big companies are swallowing up small companies. The country is localizing, becoming more urban, and some big cities are being left behind, concentrating our population even more.
As a nation, we need to realize that bigger is not always better. A large amount of people in one place with with a bunch of money tends to induce common thinking and promote entitlement. While innovation and success often arises in small companies and small media markets out of necessity and hard work. The savvy player development of the Minnesota Twins and Oakland A’s deserves much more admiration than the big-time free-agent deals of the New York Yankees.
But talent bred in small towns doesn’t always need to migrate to the greener pastures of the big city. Sometimes a kid from Akron is blessed with more physical ability than anyone in the history of the NBA. And sometimes, by a stroke of luck, he is drafted by his hometown team. And sometimes, incredibly, the owner of the team has pockets just as deep as the big city teams.
LeBron doesn’t have to go anywhere for more exposure or more opportunity or a bigger paycheck. He’s King James. He stands where many of his native Ohioans would love to stand. At home, with so much talent and promise in his profession that the world has to come to him. Make them keep coming to Ohio LeBron, for all of us.