I'm happy for Cleveland. I was born on January 27, 1965, EXACTLY one month after the Browns won our town's last MAJOR sports championship on December 27, 1965. My city needs a championship. Look, I gave my soul to the '95-'97 Indians with Albert Belle on their roster, an athlete of questionable (some might say nonexistent) professional ethics. So I'm no stranger to holding my nose while I cheer. I'm also happy for the countless bars, restaurants and businesses spread out over the Cleveland-Akron-Canton nexus that will reap untold benefits from the resurgent, relevant Cavaliers. As for the Cavs themselves, I'm happy for them, too. When I was living in NYC, the Daugherty-Price-Ehlo Cavs represented one of my only tangible connections to my hometown. Through two NBA seasons (it would have been three except for the strike), I walked two miles every night to a Sports Bar in Queens to watch the BEST Cavs team in franchise history battle the likes of the New Jersey Nets and Boston Celtics in the post season only to have my heart summarily broken by Michael Jordan's Bulls. The Cavs are my team and always will be as long as they carry the standard for my hometown.
With that being said, let's turn our conversation to another hometown. Circa 400s BC. Athens, Greece. Championships back then weren't won on the hardwood. They were contested on the plane at Marathon or the pass at Thermopylae. We're talking a little later than that, though. Namely the fabled Age of Pericles.
Athens' "Lebron" at the time was a swaggering soldier/statesman by the name of Alcibiades whose appetite for money, prestige and sex would put him right at home with today's superstar athletes. Alcibiades owned Athens. His name graced everyone's lips and his likeness appeared on plaques and statuary throughout the city state's limits. Then, when political setbacks drove his high-flying machinations aground, he tossed his Hoplite uniform aside and decided to take his talents to Athens' cross-country rival, Sparta.
For the next few campaigning seasons, he waged fierce war against Athens at the head of their hated enemy, humiliating them at every turn. And then - in one of history's most bizarre turnabouts - he suddenly grew tired of his adopted land and came home to a rousing welcome in Athens. He even dictated a Mea Culpa letter to an Athenian populace all too eager to forgive and forget. Quickly proclaimed as Athens' savior and given supreme control over all military operations, Alcibiades spent the next few years reveling in triumph and adulation. Eventually, however, his star flickered and dimmed, and suddenly he found himself undone by the same insatiable hunger and hubris that had spelled his original downfall.
By the end of the 400s, Athens' "Lebron" found himself run out of town on the proverbial rail. After kicking around the Persian Empire for a few years and repeatedly plotting against Athens and Sparta both, he finished his days emasculated and embittered by the fickle vagaries of the self-same Public Will he'd once so skillfully manipulated. Finally, in 404 BC after incurring the wrath of his then sponsor, King Artaxerxes of Persia, Alcibiades ended up being surprised by a unit of assassins while "in his bath." As befitting a man who spent so much of his life enamored with his own physical attributes, maybe it's only fitting that Alcibiades died naked in a hail of arrows.
Now I'm not about to make any ridiculous predictions in this blog. But I will say that history does have a way of repeating itself. And, as far as human nature goes, there truly is no such thing an "original man." So just in case my little cautionary fable ends up presaging Cleveland's future, please remember you heard it here first. Actually not here. Aristotle and Plutarch beat me to it. You just never know what gems you'll unearth when you peruse the classics.
