OAKLAND, Calif.: I will cry for LeBron James, that “just a kid from Akron” accepted the daunting challenge of ending Cleveland’s 52-year championship drought and was able to deliver.
I will cry for Earnest Byner and Carl Hairston, for Brian Sipe and Bob Golic. For Omar Vizquel and Mike Hargrove and Charles Nagy and, gulp, even Jose Mesa. For Craig Ehlo and Jim Chones and Mark Price, even though none of them know me.
But most of all, I’ll cry for the fans in Northeast Ohio, whose blind faith through decades of bad drafts and organizational ineptitude made them cynical, but never too bitter to stop buying tickets.
After covering Cleveland’s professional teams since 1981, I fear my Clinique waterproof mascara will fail me in the catharsis that is sure to come.
For the sake of professionalism, I would prefer to reach the sanctity of my own home before it hits, but there is no guarantee of that.
Especially since it all seemed so perfect.
With a 93-89 victory Sunday night over the defending champion Golden State Warriors in Oracle Arena, the Cavaliers became the first team in NBA history to rally from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals and win the title.
They beat the Warriors, who set a league record with 73 victories in the regular season and were seeking to establish a dynasty that would rank them with the greatest teams of all time.
They won on a court where the Warriors lost for only the fifth time this season, including playoffs.
On Father’s Day.
It all added to the euphoria — at one point in the second quarter I wished I’d brought a brown paper bag in case of hyperventilation — and the eventual emotional outpouring. After all, I cried two hours over the ending of The Way We Were. When the gates of tears open, they may not close for hours, if not days.
The Cavs did what seemed unthinkable after Game 4 because Kyrie Irving came full circle in his maturation and led them in the second half. Because Kevin Love found a way to contribute with 14 rebounds as the Cavs held a 48-39 edge on the boards. Because J.R. Smith found his shooting eye in the third quarter. Because James recorded a triple-double with 27 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, not to mention an important blocked shot with 1:50 left.
Because as James said when he returned in the summer of 2014, “Nothing is given. Everything is earned.”
Perhaps now my painful memories will seem more like steps that made the journey sweeter, the storybook ending more special, no longer nightmarish snapshots from a career chronicling losing.
Watching from the sideline as John Elway’s third-and-18 pass to Mark Jackson sailed just over Hairston’s fingertips to keep “The Drive” alive in the 1986 AFC Championship Game won’t lose its significance, only a bit of its agony.
The same might be true of interviewing the classy Byner outside the locker room at Mile High Stadium after “The Fumble” spelled another loss to the Broncos in the 1987 AFC title game.
Watching the 1997 World Series from a sports bar in New Jersey after covering the Cincinnati Bengals’ loss to the New York Giants.
After Nagy was charged with the loss to the Florida Marlins, the fellow writers’ playful ridicule went something along the lines of, “Your boys choked again.” And even though I was born in Kentucky and had lived in Ohio since February 1981, in a way I felt they were my boys.
Considering the dominance of the Indians in the 1990s, I never dreamed it would be 19 years before another Cleveland team played for a championship.
Then I started to think I would never cover a parade. James coming home changed all that.
Two national championships at Ohio State didn’t satisfy my quest because it wasn’t Cleveland. After decades of driving back and forth on Interstate 71, so familiar with the route that I can see a silo or barn and know where I am, I selfishly wanted it all to be worth it.
But I also wanted to make my dad proud.
My father Les, who died of cancer 39 years ago at age 57, inspired my journalism career. He started taking me to minor-league baseball and high school football and basketball games in the seventh grade. We went to only one professional game, that in the Reds’ debut season at Riverfront Stadium.
He may have never dreamed that I would end up covering professional sports, certainly not as a columnist. High school and college athletics was the bond we shared. I knew nothing about the Browns until 1979, when a co-worker in Lexington, Ky., became smitten with the Kardiac Kids. The first Cleveland game I covered was the first after Red Right 88.
When I break down, probably thinking it’s because of Byner or Nagy or James, I will subconsciously be crying for dad. I’m sure I won’t be the only Ohioan who feels that way.
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at www.ohio.com/marla. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.