The death of Art Modell, and a bitter aftertaste in Cleveland

Art Modell died early today, and that will dredge up a lot of memories – the bad far overshadowing the good – in my hometown of Cleveland. The Plain Dealer had it right that Modell was “forever vilified” after moving the Browns to Baltimore. I had long since left Cleveland when Modell moved the team […]

Great moments in childhood: My 1966 Rocky Colavito baseball card

On this, the 78th birthday of Rocky Colavito, permit me to reminisce on one of the great events of my childhood. Like most kids in Cleveland in the late 50s and 1960s, I idolized Rocky Colavito, my favorite Indians player. I was only 3 when Frank Lane traded him to the Tigers for Harvey Kuenn at […]

Coming out as a San Francisco Giants fan

With one of my sons and a friend, I went to see the Cleveland Indians play the Giants at AT&T Park in San Francisco yesterday. The nationally televised game was a test of loyalty for me: Would I root for the team of my youth or the team of my recent years. Honestly, I wasn’t […]

Here’s to the Irish, especially the baseball players, on St. Patrick’s Day

Happy St. Patrick’s day, everyone! I was pleased to find that there is an Irish-American Baseball Hall of Fame, thanks to a Google search and the Eddie Kranepool Society Mets blog. The 2011 inductions are on today at Foley’s Pub in New York City. The Irish and baseball have been joined like a firm grip on […]

Bye, Bye, Lebron

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=Lebron+James&iid=9312354″ src=”http://view4.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9312354/file-photo-cleveland/file-photo-cleveland.jpg?size=500&imageId=9312354″ width=”500″ height=”319″ /] Lebron James has bid adieu to Cleveland and the Cavaliers, choosing to take his quest for an NBA championship to Miami and the Heat. The tales in the leading newspapers of the two cities are as expected. There’s joy in Miami, where the Herald’s lead sentence tonight is […]

The Rose Bowl – A Midwestern perspective

As a child of the Big Ten Conference, I believed the Rose Bowl was a place of magic, enchantment and, inevitably, frustration and resignation. With piles of snow outside our homes in suburban Cleveland, we’d tune in to the game as the sun was setting in Eastern time. We’d watch in fascination as 100,000 people […]

A cap for chocolate lovers

While visiting family in Cleveland, I had the pleasure of getting dessert at a Malley’s ice cream parlor. Malley’s is an institution, famous in northeastern Ohio for its candies as well as ice cream. The company produces the “Pronk” bar named for oft-injured Indians slugger Travis Hafner. Indians regalia is a common site around greater […]

Don’t knock the Rock!

By happy chance, I stumbled tonight onto a story on Cleveland.com about one of the great occasions in Cleveland Indians’ history, the night 50 years ago when Rocky Colavito slugged four home runs against the Orioles in Baltimore. That was June 10, 1959. I wish I could say I remember the game, but I was […]

The Cleveland Browns and a brand new NFL season

The Thursday night game between the Redskins and Giants notwithstanding, today marks the real kickoff to the 2008 National Football League season. In celebration, I took my natty corduroy Cleveland Browns cap out into the warm California sun for a morning portrait. I call this a classic Browns cap because it dates not from the […]

A Labor Day salute to the American Rust Belt

As a tribute to working men and women this Labor Day weekend, I offer this tableau featuring a lunch pail and a U.S. Steel cap. The cap was a gift from my daughter, an engineer with the big Pittsburgh-based steelmaker. This post is also a salute to the Rust Belt, that swath of mostly Midwestern […]