So the year of 2008 is upon us and we are afforded our annual opportunity to take a look into the future and make assumptions about what the year will bring.
Will this be the year the Indians win the World Series and the Cavs win the NBA Championship, or have we again just set the stage for a grand failure? Only time will tell, but in a generation of many down times for the Cleveland sports fan 2008 must rank pretty high up in our most hopeful beginnings.
In fact, to see where 2008 ranks I have rated the years of our sports generation (12 years total) to see what we were feeling each year – whether that feeling was right or wrong – and see when we were most hopeful.
Today we will do the worst six years of this generation, followed by the six best years of this generation on Wednesday. The second column will also feature my usual ranting and ravings for the week, as I wrote them late last week and then left my flash drive at the office.
Remember, this is based on hope, not actuality. Therefore, New Year’s of 1999 was a time of excitement because the Browns were coming back; we had no way of knowing what would happen during one of the worst NFL seasons in history. That season, of course, affected the way we thought about the dawning of the year 2000.
12. 2003 – Before LeBron, after Thome and the downfall of Butch
It’s hard to remember now how dark the days of Cleveland have really been for this generation, but January 1, 2003 really summed up the worst of the times. Think about it for a second: The Indians, after finishing a lowly 74-88 in ’02 were waiving bye to their dynasty. Jim Thome went to Philadelphia, leaving only Omar from the great runs of the late-‘90s, and Charlie Manuel was fired after three up and down seasons.
Meanwhile, the Cavs, led by coach John Lucas and, well, try to name three players off of the ’02-03 team, were at the mid-season mark of what would end up being a 17-65 season. Though 2003 would be the year of LeBron, there was no way of knowing that while watching Ricky Davis lead the team in scoring and hoping that the flash DeJuan Wagner showed when healthy wasn’t just a fluke.
Finally, the Browns, the city’s lone hope, were four days away from the first playoff game in their new history. This bright spot was tainted by the fact that they had backed into the playoffs with a 9-7 record (narrowly edging out the Patriots, so there was some satisfaction there), and were about to play the Steelers, against whom they were 0-2 on the season. Again, we can only know what New Year’s hope was like on that day, but the false hope of a 9-7 season was great hubris for the Browns. Just four days later the end of the Davis era began…
11. 1998 – Last year without the Browns, the Shawn Kemp Era and World Series hangover
New Year’s 1998 was a time of frustration so extreme for Cleveland faithful that I can remember very vividly a conversation I had with a good friend about whether or not we should kidnap Shawn Kemp.
The fact of the matter is things were bleak: There was still one more full football season to watch before the Browns came back and the true longevity of a three-year dry spell was setting in. As a result, all hopes were pinned on the Indians. In response to that pressure the Indians blew Game 7 of the World Series against the Florida Marlins and what was supposed to be the culmination of a near-60 slump turned offensive festival went sour. Meanwhile, year one of the Shawn Kemp era was disappointing at best. Expecting the high-flying superstar that carried some solid Seattle teams through the Western Conference, we got a bloated has-been who didn’t get Mike Fratello’s defensive system. Though the Cavs were in the middle of the Eastern Conference playoff pack by New Year’s, they already appeared destined for the Fratello Special – the first round dive.
10. 2000 – Larry’s Indians, the Chris Palmer train begins to derail and the Cavs have 13 players, maybe.
So some lawyer named Larry Dolan had just purchased an Indians team that was in a time of flux, giving most Tribe fans an uneasy feeling heading into 2000. Mike Hargrove was dismissed after the team lost three in a row to the Boston Red Sox in the divisional series and the core of the great ’90s teams had nearly disappeared.Making things worse was New Years came in the middle of the 1999-2000 Cavs season, the final year of Shawn Kemp’s stay in Cleveland. With Kemp at his heaviest, Cleveland was stuck watching one fat man try to carry a group of players that, other than Z, shouldn’t have been ball boys.
Finally, the Browns had just watched the Chris Palmer train start to derail, as the underprepared coach led his underprepared franchise to a 2-14 season. The team finished dead last in the league in scoring in 1999, and the future wasn’t that bright: Tim Couch wasn’t exactly flourishing and Terry Kirby was the team’s leading rusher with 452 yards.
9. 2005 – Everything on LeBron, bye Omar and Butch
As the pure happiness over LeBron dissipated, it became clear that the Cavs needed to give the Great One some help. The 2004-05 season was not the year he would get it. Even though The ‘Q’ regularly buzzed around the league’s new phenom, Paul Silas was half way through a dead in the water season that saw his team stick in the bottom half of the playoff standings through Jan. 1, 2005. Later, of course, things would fall apart completely.The hope for a Cavs playoff run was just about the only ticket in town, however. Year two of Eric Wedge and the no name Indians was better in the summer of 2004, but hardly noteworthy. Worse still was that the end of the ’04 season hit home as it became known that Omar Vizquel would not be offered a contract in 2005. Besides the emergence of a young outfielder named Grady Sizemore and the continued development of Travis Hafner, 2005 looked like it might just be another year spent toward rebuilding.
Add to that depression the idea that the Browns went 4-12 in 2004 and ended the year by seeing Butch Davis waive bye-bye for personal reasons as Terry Robiskie led the team for its final four games. Even the excitement of getting another new coach couldn’t dispel the idea that the team had to start from scratch again. Oh, and first round draft pick Kellen Winslow II missed almost the entire season after Butchy put him in on a special teams play and he broke his leg.
8. 1997 – Go Tribe, no Browns, stuck with Fratello
With the wait for the Browns continuing and the Cavs in the final quarter of the Fratello playoff plan – the plan that’s sure to get you 40-plus wins and a first round playoff loss – New Year’s Eve of 1997 was all about when the pitchers and catchers would report. After the Tribe lost the World Series in 1995 everyone expected a repeat to the big stage in 1996, but a 99-62 season went for not. Still, the thought was 1997 was sure to be our year. A few things had changed on the roster, but no one knew how tough of a regular season it was going to be – we would finish a lowly 86-75 but still sneak away with the AL Central crown – thinking another walk through the division would give us a great playoff run.
7. 1999 – The end of baseball hope, the return of the Browns and an obligation to say something about the Cavs
What better way to end the Cleveland hope list than with one of the more hopeful turned terrible times of this generation.
For one New Year we were able to forget the troubles of the team’s other two sports. Sure, the Indians flopped in the ALCS to the Yankees. And, sure, year two of the Kemp era had new Cavs coach Randy Wittman looking as forgettable as he would become. But like the destruction of Alderaan in the first (or actually fourth) ‘Star Wars’ it didn’t seem to matter because there was a new hope. With the Browns back in town, and a new stadium on the lakefront, things were going to be different.
Add to that the fact that we could finally party like it was 1999, and it was sure to be the year of the Cleve.