The Death of a Cleveland Brownie

The Cleveland Browns are the Democratic Party of the National Football League.

They are working-class good guys, they're on your side and they're losers.

As a Cleveland native and a life-long Browns fan, I have the right to say this. The Browns have disappointed me far more than Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

For the last two years, they have knocked on the door of the Super Bowl only to be told there was no room inside--the Denver Broncos had entered and hogged the couch. Sunday, the Browns faced the Broncos again.

This Browns-Broncos battle did not have the importance of an AFC Championship game. But it did give the Browns a chance to pay back the spoiler of their dreams.

The Browns lost, of course. The final score: 30-7. Better this way, I suppose, than to lose on a length-of-the-field, overtime comeback, a feat the Broncos performed in the 1986 AFC championship game; or to lose on a fumble inside the five-yd. line, a crime the Browns committed against Denver in last year's league championship.

Cleveland's chances to return to the AFC Championship game took a hard hit Sunday. The Browns are 6-5 and in third place in the AFC Central.

Cleveland's misfortunes began in the first game of the year when quarterback Bernie Kosar went down with a shoulder injury. Kosar endeared himself forever to Clevelanders after his graduation from the University of Miami five years ago when he announced he wanted to play for the Browns. Instead of entering the NFL's regular draft, Kosar opted for the supplemental draft, allowing Cleveland to pick him.

Since this act of uncommon generosity--a person who openly expresses love for Cleveland is as rare as a liberal who likes Dan Qualye--Clevelanders have embraced Kosar as the man destined to lead the Browns to the Super Bowl.

With him gone, Cleveland struggled. Now, even with Bernie back, the Browns are finding the road rough.

You might say other teams in other sports have suffered similar fates. Look, you might say, at the Boston Red Sox. They have come close so many times to a World Series championship. But they haven't won one since 1918. The Cleveland Browns have not suffered as much as the Red Sox, you might say. So stop complaining.

To take issue, I say this: Cleveland needs a championship team far more than Boston. And Cleveland deserves one far more than Boston.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I detect an element of masochism in Boston baseball fans. Baseball-minded Bostonians, I think, take a certain pleasure in watching their team lose. They feed on heartbreak. The Red Sox are an annual Greek tragedy. Rise, fall and catharsis.

Bill Buckner, the first baseman who let a ground ball slip through his legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, is Oedipus Rex, the murderer of a city's dreams. Wade Boggs, the perpetual American League batting champion, is Prometheus Bound, scorned because he never makes The Big Hit. He gives you fire, but Bostonians expect him to produce a furnace.

For Bostonians who do not enjoy losing, there's always the Celtics, an NBA dynasty, and the Bruins, regular contenders for the NHL crown.

The Cleveland Browns do not enjoy winning counterparts in the NBA and NHL. The Cavaliers are up-starts, not-ready-for-the-NBA-Finals players. The Indians have not won a World Series since 1948.

The Browns are Cleveland's best hope for glory. But they may have missed their shot. Two years in the AFC Championship game and nothing to show for it except thousands of broken hearts along Lake Erie.

If the Red Sox are Greek heroes, the Browns are a bunch of Willy Lomans, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. Nothing would be more uplifting to the city of Cleveland, a lunch-pail town with a drab reputation, than a Browns championship. But the Browns' work-a-day efforts have been thwarted the last two years. And now, after Sunday's loss, they seem destined to fall from the heights of disappointment into the morass of mediocrity.