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Jeff Rich

Indians-10-JerseyThis is one instalment in a team effort by The Cleveland Fan, highlighting the top local sports figures by jersey number. Please weigh in with your thoughts, in the Forum. As David Letterman would say, “For entertainment purposes only; please, no wagering.”

Ten.  That’s the number of League Championships that our three major franchises have brought home for the city of Cleveland.  Though we might consider the Force, the Barons, the Thunderbolts, Crunch, Gladiators, Monsters, and Lumberjacks in our “By the Numbers” series, I have to be real about which Championships actually matter more than a couple of square blocks away from the Wolstein Center.

Having said that, in 218 seasons of mainstream professional sports, and we have to count the All-American Football Conference, which the Browns dominated, there have been a grand total of ten championships won.  About half of those 218 seasons have been played in my 34 years on this planet, but not a single one of those ten were played in my lifetime.  So, it should come as little surprise to me that the talent at #10, at least from my lifetime, was so few and far between.  I was resigned to settling for someone a little too mediocre for a list like this when I found my obvious winner.

Not everyone with a .228 career batting average and a World Series ring should be recognized and, in turn, honored for their accomplishments in a Cleveland uniform, but we’re willing to make an exception for Jim Hegan.  He is our winner at #10, and it really isn’t all that close.  The disclaimer is that Hegan also wore 30, 40, 14, and later 4 for the Indians, but the glory of Jim Hegan exists in the form of #10, so we'll emphasize the great things for Cleveland and Hegan in they years he wore that number.

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Jonathan Knight

misery indexJust when you thought it couldn’t get any worse.

We just watched the guy who shanked us and took our wallet buy a lottery ticket with our cash and win four billion dollars. And when we called the cops, they told us to get over it and move on.

So congratulations, Baltimore!

Thanks to the 49ers...rather, thanks to the Ravens, the gleaming city along the Chesapeake dropped from No. 30 in the Sports Misery Index to dead last at No. 62 in the latest edition, taking away San Antonio’s claim as the least miserable sports city in North America.

Even more telling, with its ninth world title, Baltimore’s championship saturation now ranks among the top 10 of all eligible cities, quickly closing in on fellow East Coast behemoths Boston and New York.

If you’re looking for a silver lining (though you’re no doubt exhausted from doing so), on the grand scale it’s actually more appropriate that Baltimore won the Super Bowl than San Francisco, which has held two World Series victory parades in the past three years. So there’s that.

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Dan Wismar

This is one installment in a team effort by The Cleveland Fan, highlighting the top local sports figures by jersey number. Please weigh in with your thoughts on the "Boards". As David Letterman would say, "For entertainment purposes only; please, no wagering"


9BrownsJerseyIf this town has anything like “glory days” for those fans born after 1965 or so, it’s got to be that stretch in the mid-90’s when the Indians were a powerhouse, and The Jake was the place to be 81 times every summer...and a few more times in October. The last two articles in our series have featured Lofton (#7) and Belle (#8) from that team, and I fully expected to be following suit at #9 with Carlos Baerga. That is, until someone reminded me of the greatest hockey player in Cleveland history.

Say what? Yes, youngsters, Cleveland used to be a hockey town, and a good one....with a championship team, and a bonafide star in #9, Fred Glover. We’ll get to Baerga in a minute, as well as a couple of also-rans who wore #9, but first we need to talk about what used to happen down at E. 36th and Euclid at The Cleveland Arena. Because this series really should have a hockey player included as one of the top Cleveland sports figures, and let’s face it....this is our only shot.

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Adam Burke

This is one installment in a team effort by The Cleveland Fan, highlighting the top local sports figures by jersey number. Please weigh in with your thoughts on the "Boards". As David Letterman would say, "For entertainment purposes only; please, no wagering"

 

0belleIn Cleveland sports history, there may not be a more feared player than Albert Belle. Opposing players feared him, his teammates feared him, the media feared him, and family and friends feared him. Belle was an intense competitor whose personality most resembled a burning stick of dynamite. It was all a matter of how long the wick was on that given day.

Everybody has a different way of remembering Albert Belle. Some remember him for being one of the best hitters in Indians franchise history. Some remember him for being one of the most abrasive personalities ever to play in Cleveland. Some remember the corked bat. Some remember him for chasing down trick-or-treaters on Halloween in 1995. Some remember him for his chauvinistic tirade directed at Hannah Storm during the 1995 World Series. Some remember him for what he could have been, had a degenerative hip condition not taken its toll on his career. Some think he was a Hall of Famer. Some still call him “Joey”.

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Jeff Rich

Seven JerseyThis is one instalment in a team effort by The Cleveland Fan, highlighting the top local sports figures by jersey number. Please weigh in with your thoughts, in the Forum. As David Letterman would say, “For entertainment purposes only; please, no wagering.”

Oh, there's the doorbell
Let's see who's out there
Oh, it's a seven
Hello, Seven
Won't you come in, Seven?
Make yourself at home


Not every diddy by They Might Be Giants made sense, but when you think about it, #7 is a number that's likely been worn by someone of note in every hometown.  We’ve seen it on the backs of our adversaries, as well as our hometown favorites.  While Mickey Mantle didn’t particularly torch the Indians any more than any other American League team, I don’t have to remind anyone of the quarterbacks of Denver’s past or Pittsburgh’s present. 

It’s a number that doesn’t generally go to a rookie in spring training or a practice squad player.  It is really a shame that our freshest memories of this digit in Cleveland may include Matt LaPorta and Jeff Juden, but no Browns player of note, going all the way back to 1946.  If you’re wondering why you can’t recall seeing a Cavalier wear the number, it’s because it belongs to Bingo Smith, who is honored with a banner that dictates no other Cavalier ever wears good ole #7.

Really, a retired number should be good enough to be considered the best to wear said number, and it’s not that we’re taking Bingo’s accomplishments with a grain of salt or discounting an era that I’m too young to have experienced, but the field makes this anything but a slam dunk for the former Cavaliers sharpshooter.  However, the best lead-off hitter in franchise history, Kenny Lofton, is a runaway winner over a 3-point shooter who played before three points were awarded for those long field goals on the hardwood.

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