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| Good times |
It's only been 18 months since a million Northeast Ohioans arrived on downtown Cleveland 's doorstep for the city's first major pro sports championship parade
in 52 years. That one beautiful day of civic pride effectively removed a
stone that had been weighing on the local fandom's heart for most of a
lifetime.
Another parade is scheduled for
tomorrow afternoon, one with far different aspirations. The "Perfect Season Parade," as it's
been winkingly designated by organizer Chris McNeil (@Reflog_18), is tabbed as a protest of
the Browns historic 0-16 season. (McNeil had a parade planned for the 2016
season, but the Browns managed to eek out a win on Christmas Eve against
the Chargers.)
Per the event's Facebook page,
hundreds or perhaps thousands of people will encircle FirstEnergy Stadium - in
expected single-digit temperatures - to acknowledge the second 0-16
campaign in NFL history. More pointedly, the parade is a hearty "get bent"
to a franchise not even capable of mediocrity, led by an alleged
fraudster whose first off-season decision was to keep Hue Jackson, the band
leader in the team's march to 0-fer oblivion.
Of course, not everyone is enamored
with the idea. Cleveland
sports Twitter is battering itself brown and orange over the parade's ultimate intentions,
and how exactly the event will impact the city's reputation. In a January 4 column,
sportswriter Ben Axelrod said the parade will resurrect Cleveland 's image as a "loser sports
town."
"Any positive effect you think
this might have on the Browns - and it won't - is mitigated by the downside of
the embarrassment Cleveland
will have to endure as it's perceived as a city that celebrates losing,"
Axelrod wrote.
This idea of embarrassment - of a
small group of revelers making the whole city look bad- seems to be a common
sentiment among the parade's dissenters. Truth told, I was against the 2016
parade. It was just the type of empty, ambition-free trolling that raised my boring-old-man
hackles. Or so I'd convinced myself.
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| Not so good times. (Photo courtesy of Matt Sullivan-Getty Images) |
My mind changed at the confluence
of the Browns' epic awfulness and the anger directed at McNeil for
satirizing the organization's incompetence. Before last year's planned parade,
ESPN Cleveland's Tony Rizzo ranted
on air about shutting down the procession and running over parade-goers
with his car.
Hyperbole or not, Rizzo's tirade is
emblematic of a contingent of Clevelanders who blindly support an awful
franchise beyond the furthest realms of common sense. I love this team, too, but I hate what they've
become, and I'm sick of hearing Joe from Twinsburg whining about the QB
situation for the nth time. As Chuck Klosterman wrote in a 2013
Grantland piece on the Browns, "No
other fan base is so deeply loyal and so self-consciously negative at the same
time." These may be charming traits to an outsider, but for someone who
lives here, it's goddamn tiresome.
It's this stubbornness, this
downbeat "love" for an unlovely franchise that makes me support
Perfect Season Parade 2.0. The Browns are an absurdity and are being responded
to in kind. They've earned both the locally sourced derision and any national
headlines the parade produces.
As for "embarrassment,"
will a parade intended as a kiss-off reflect poorly on Cleveland ?
Poorly to whom, exactly? Some ambiguous national media conglomerate? Those
hoity-toity elitist fans in coastal markets? Nobody seems to be able to define
who "they" are, so I say forget about 'em. This isn't high school. Clevelanders should have
enough self-confidence by now to not care what the cool kids think.
Whether parade, protest or
"celebration of failure," Saturday's procession is a way for people to
blow off steam, and have a few laughs at the expense of richly deserving
target. Until the Browns draft better players, keep a managerial team in place,
and actually win a game, a joke parade is the only recognition they're going to
get.