This 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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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, in the Forum. As David Letterman would say, “For entertainment purposes only; please, no wagering.”

In 1950, the Indians signed an 18-year old outfielder from the Bronx to a free agent contract. He had dropped out of school as a 16-year old to pursue his professional baseball career, a decision that Rocco Domenico Colavito Jr. would never regret. Colavito grew up a Yankee fan, but his honetown team showed very little interest in the hitting prodigy, so the Indians were able to sign him before his high school class even graduated. Colavito debuted with the Indians for a brief nine-AB audition in 1955 before coming up for good in 1956. In the same summer that Mickey Mantle won the Triple Crown, Colavito tied for 2^nd in AL Rookie of the Year voting after a season in which he hit .276/.372/.531 with 22 HR, 65 RBI and more walks (49) than strikeouts (46). With whom did Colavito tie in the vote that year? None other than Baltimore’s Tito Francona, of course. How Colavito and his .903 OPS (and 2.3 WAR) lost out to Chicago’s Luis Aparacio’s .653 OPS (and 1.3 WAR) is beyond me, but that’s neither here nor there. Rookie of the Year or not, a Cleveland legend was born.

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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"


It’s a running joke within my circle of Cleveland sports fan friends that we are the only city whose great sports highlight videos are in black and white. That’s an exaggeration of course, but a slight one. What is beyond argument is that the glory years of Cleveland sports are increasingly ancient history. With that in mind, it will shock no one that we found ourselves back in the World War II era to select this city’s greatest ever #5.

On November 20, 1941...which is to say, about two weeks before Pearl Harbor...the 24-year old shortstop of the Cleveland Indians dropped a letter in a mailbox back in his college town of Champaign, Illinois. It was addressed to Alva Bradley, the President of the Indians. Years later in his memoirs, the Hall-of-Famer admitted that he immediately had second thoughts, and if he could have reached down into the mailbox to retrieve it, he probably would have.

After all, it contained his rather foolish...borderline preposterous suggestion that Bradley name him, Lou Boudreau, a wet-behind-the-ears kid, two years out of college, the manager of the Cleveland Indians. "I look back and realize it was a very brash thing for me to do,” recalled the man who came to be nicknamed, among other things....

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Forbes Magazine says that Las Vegas is shooting for $95 million in betting on this year’s Super Bowl. Jay Rood, sportsbook manager at MGM Grand, sets his prediction at $92 million. That’s just money wagered in Las Vegas. That doesn’t include money wagered offshore, Super Bowl squares at parties, bets between friends, money wagered with locals/bookies, or pre-existing future wagers on the Ravens or 49ers to win the Super Bowl. In other words, a lot of money will be in play on Sunday.

Right now, the San Francisco 49ers are 3.5-point favorites over the Baltimore Ravens. The Forbes numbers suggest that around 60 percent of the money will be placed on the spread, another 10 percent on the total, and another 30 percent on props. Prop bets tend to have smaller limits, but are plays that professional bettors in Vegas love to attack. There is a lot of money in prop betting, especially because certain props can point toward victory for one team or the other at a better payout than betting the spread or moneyline.

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