Winter Wind Chill Hits All-Time Low In Numb Cleveland

People from Cleveland are a little different from the rest of us. They are natives of a city that is often mocked, yet they exude pride. They brave the savage winters and boast about it afterward. They suffer from a collective inferiority complex, yet they act like they’re better people because of it.

Perhaps the most striking feature of a Clevelander is that he or she identifies with and supports bad sports teams. Not just bumbling, mind you, but record-breaking inept. In sports jargon, “Cleveland” has often been a synonym for “last place.” Until recently, the Indians’ home opener always featured at least one fan bearing a placard that read, “Wait Till Next Year.”

It is with this backdrop of supreme loyalty in the face of overwhelming despair that the Art Modell tragedy has unfolded. And it is a tragedy, because Art Modell was really the last hope in professional sports. For 35 years or so, he sat in his box in Cleveland Stadium and hung his head like a man with a migraine as one piercing disappointment after another befell his beloved Cleveland Browns.

Modell was not just a symbol of the NFL’s old guard, he was also emblematic of the pain all Clevelanders shared. He was there through thick and thin, but mostly thin. If you were a Browns backer, and it was 7-below outside, and the wind off Lake Erie cut through your dawg mask, and the Browns were finding a new way to add to their infamy, you could gaze up toward Modell’s quarters and know that not only was he feeling what you were feeling, but that he cared, too.

Now, he doesn’t care, and suddenly it’s a lot colder in Cleveland.

You read in some accounts about how he had no choice, and I suppose in strict, hard, bottom-line business terms, there’s some truth to that. He can certainly reap more rewards in a spanking-new $200-million stadium in Baltimore that is adorned with 108 luxury suites and 7,500 club seats. Most of us dream of a new car or a spacious home; NFL owners long for a stadium deal like that.

But Modell is an old man now. He made his bones. He isn’t hurting. His club, while not of Super Bowl caliber, is 4-5 and in the race for the AFC Central title. He’s a football man, his team this year is at least on the same competitive level as any outside of Dallas, and with some tinkering and a new coach to replace the woefully inadequate Bill Belichick, it could get to the Super Bowl in a year or two.

Is it really that important for a man at Modell’s stage of life to maximize his profit margin? Is it worth taking 35 years of goodwill and flushing it all away in exchange for a quick score?

I understand why Al Davis and Georgia Frontiere turned their backs on the concepts of integrity and honor, since they never had any to begin with, but Art Modell? If he just wanted money, why didn’t he sell the team? Why did he have to break the hearts of generations upon generations of true-blue Browns fans?

We all wonder how we’ll be remembered when we’re gone. Modell could have been remembered as a hero and a father figure. After bringing sorrow and misery to Ohio, he will now go down in the annals of professional football as the worst kind of moneygrubbing opportunist.

He is a father who deserted his family for money.

My friend Dave from Tujunga grew up in Cleveland. He still has family there, still visits, still lives and dies with the Browns and Indians and Cavs.

“I feel worse now than I did when my grandmother died,” he told me in a frantic phone call. “And I loved my grandmother.”

He said one of the greatest experiences of his life was when his dad took him to see the Browns beat the Dallas Cowboys 31-20 in the 1968 NFL Eastern Conference championship game. A couple of years ago, Dave took his young son, Nathan, back to Cleveland to visit the family, and they attended a nondescript Browns game during a disappointing season.

It was 5 degrees outside. They sat in the upper deck. The wind howled off the lake, right on time. Both Dave and Nathan wore three layers of clothing, down to their socks. They took periodic trips to the restroom to stand by the heater for a few minutes and thaw out.

“Nathan had never experienced anything like that,” Dave said. “We still talk about it. It was a badge of honor.”

The sad part is, you figured Art Modell understood all that. You would think he knew that the reason his franchise is worth so much money today is because people like Dave and his father and his son sat in the cold for years and years supporting lousy teams in a broken-down warhorse of a stadium and cheered even when there wasn’t much to cheer about.

Now there is much less to cheer about in Cleveland.

Dave made note of the fact that Modell didn’t stay in Cleveland and face the music when he made his announcement.

“George Steinbrenner is one of the most hated guys ever to come out of Cleveland,” Dave said. “But if he did this, he would have showed up and said, ‘OK, take your best shot.’

“If I saw Modell walking down the street today,” Dave added, “I would hit him.”

In a sports world rife with players being offered $11 million a season but holding out for more; of musical franchises and personal seat licenses; of arrests and drug tests and cheating; of lawsuits and countersuits; of arrogant athletes, slimy agents and frustrated fans, Art Modell was one of the last vestiges of a bygone era in which sports brought more joy than sadness, more hope than emptiness.

Those days are gone, along with Modell and his Baltimore Browns.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Michael Ventre Los Angeles Daily News