Face it, Indians fans ' after the Tribe lost Game 5 of the American League Championship Series to Boston, you had to have seen it coming. Playing Games 6 and 7 at Fenway Park against the only team to ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in Major League Baseball's postseason should have been enough to give you a sick feeling in your stomachs.
And now, Cleveland is dealing with a severe hangover ' not one brought along by excessive celebration, but one brought along by wanting to forget what just happened.
The sad thing is, this wasn't the first time Cleveland sports have laid an egg in 2007. The Cavaliers stunned Detroit in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals, only to watch as the San Antonio Spurs broke out the brooms, sweeping LeBron James and company and celebrated at center court of Quicken Loans Arena.
But in this time of sorrow, Cleveland fans, know that you are not alone. After all, Columbus watched its beloved Buckeyes get Gator-chomped by Florida not once, but twice in national championship games this year. As if that wasn't enough, its Destroyers of the Arena Football League had their Cinderella season come crashing down in a blowout loss to the San Jose SaberCats in Arena Bowl XXI.
The sorrow doesn't end there, though. Needing a win over division rival Pittsburgh to get into the National Football League playoffs, the Cincinnati Bengals watched as their normally reliable kicker, Shayne Graham, missed a 39-yard game-winning field goal attempt at the end of regulation. In overtime, the Bengals were dealt the final blow as Steelers rookie (and Ohio State product) Santonio Holmes torched their secondary for a 67-yard touchdown reception to end the Bengals' season.
As is the norm these days, the Reds gave their fans hope after a nearly .500 mark through April in the competitive National League Central Division. By the end of May, the Reds were firmly entrenched in last place in the division.
The pain from Ohio sports teams didn't just stop at the big cities. It hit here in Athens, where the Ohio football team is nothing like last season's squad, and definitely can't hang onto the football ' you can't spell Bobcat without T.O.
Elsewhere, you have a point-shaving scandal at Toledo and the fact that Miami couldn't even beat Temple in football (although I see that the Owls are solid, it's still funny that Miami lost to them.)
If it hasn't been made obvious yet, 2007 wasn't exactly the kindest of years to sports fans across Ohio. Although Youngstown's Kelly Pavlik won boxing's middleweight title last month and Ohio State is atop the Bowl Championship Series standings once again, you can't help but feel something bad is on the horizon ' again.
In his column about the heartbreak being felt by Indians fans in the wake of Sunday night's Game 7 loss, ESPN.com's Howard Bryant had this to say:
Without the pain
the champagne when it finally flows will have no taste.
Until that champagne does flow, Ohio sports fans will just have to settle for lamenting what went wrong and getting drunk off cheap beer.
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Jason Fazzone
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