Cleveland sports curse
[1] The city's professional sports teams, including the short-lived Barons franchise of the National Hockey League, then went an unprecedented 147 combined seasons without a championship.
[1] The drought ended when the Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals by overcoming a 3–1 series deficit, an event widely interpreted as having broken the curse.
[2][3][4][5][6][7] Much of the discussion of the curse is centered on the NFL's Cleveland Browns, who have not won a championship since 1964 and have suffered a series of questionable coaching decisions, disappointing losses and draft busts.
Before Art Modell became majority owner of the team, the Browns had dominated the NFL and the earlier All-America Football Conference (AAFC), winning seven championships in 17 years.
Not one to take threats, Brown–who had won three MVPs, had made the Pro Bowl all nine years of his career, and was the NFL's all-time leading rusher at that point–chose to retire rather than pay the fines.
Trailing by two points to the Oakland Raiders and in field goal range with less than one minute remaining in the AFC divisional playoff game, the Browns executed a passing play that was intercepted in the end zone.
As of the 2022 NFL season, the Browns have not returned to the AFC Championship Game since and remain one of four teams to never play in a Super Bowl, along with the Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, and Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Ravens won a Super Bowl in only their fifth year of existence, doing so with former Browns tight end Ozzie Newsome as their general manager.
Jones would go on to be considered one of the best wide receivers of the 2010s with Atlanta, while Richardson only appeared in 17 games before being traded to the Colts in 2013 for a 2014 first-round pick.
The Browns used the first-round pick they received from the Colts to select Johnny Manziel, whose career was overshadowed by numerous off-field issues and played his last game in 2015.
After trailing 17–3 in the second quarter, the Browns rallied behind quarterbacks Josh McCown and Austin Davis to tie the game at 27 with 1:47 left.
Despite this, the Cavaliers gained respectability towards the end of the decade and the early 1990s, making the playoffs with players such as Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance, Hot Rod Williams and Craig Ehlo on their roster.
Two years later, the Cavaliers, despite posting a conference-best 66–16 record, lost the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals to the Orlando Magic, 4–2.
[11] In the following season's playoffs, though his team always possessed home-court advantage, the reigning two-time MVP James and the 2009–10 Cavaliers (61–21) were defeated by the visiting Boston Celtics in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, 120–88.
[27] After signing James, the Cavaliers traded their two most recent number-one draft picks, Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett, for Minnesota Timberwolves star Kevin Love to form their own "Big 3," which was rounded out by Irving.
However, several Cavaliers players were injured during the season, including Anderson Varejão with a ruptured Achilles tendon, Love with a dislocated shoulder, and Irving with a fractured patella in Game 1 of the Finals.
[28] Though losing nearly all of James' supporting cast, the Cavaliers took a 2–1 series lead before falling to the Golden State Warriors, 4–2.
[29] The next season, despite a 30–11 start, the team fired coach David Blatt and replaced him with assistant Tyronn Lue.
Following would be a three-point shot by Kyrie Irving, to put the Cavaliers ahead for good at 92–89 with 53 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
Following that, Cavaliers' forward Kevin Love was switched and forced to play one-on-one defense against Stephen Curry.
Curry tried an array of dribbling moves but ultimately missed his 3-point attempt, with the typically slow-footed Love staying in front of and pestering the Warriors guard.
The Indians' failure to win a World Series since 1948 has led the Cleveland Scene to dub the team's shortcomings The Curse of Chief Wahoo.
[34] Chief Wahoo was a Native American caricature which served as the Indians' cap insignia prior to being discontinued in 2018.
The historic 1995 season saw the Indians win 100 games and make it to the World Series for the first time in 41 years, but lost in six games to the Atlanta Braves, led by the Braves' Big Three of Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and World Series MVP Tom Glavine.
The Indians returned to the World Series in 1997 and were leading 2–1 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7, only for José Mesa to blow the save to Craig Counsell's sacrifice fly, allowing the Marlins to tie the game in the ninth and win in the 11th on a walk-off single by Edgar Renteria that deflected off the glove of Indians pitcher Charles Nagy.
In 1999, the Indians went up 2–0 against the Boston Red Sox in the ALDS, only to give up 44 runs in the last three games of the series en route to a loss.
[44] The Crunch would eventually be revived in 2020, playing in the Major Arena Soccer League 2 (M2), and in their first season would win the 2021 M2 Championship.
[45] On June 11, 2016, the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League won the Calder Cup, defeating the Hershey Bears at Quicken Loans Arena to win the series 4–0.
[46] The team, also owned by Dan Gilbert, shares its arena with the Cavaliers, who won the NBA title eight days later.
Three hours prior, ESPN had aired a 30 for 30 episode called "Believeland," documenting Cleveland's major-league title drought.
