Written by Michael Kramer

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Brian McPeek does the Weekend Wrap.  It’s funny, informative, and chock full of analysis about the Browns, Buckeyes, Tribe, Cavs, and whatever else is important to us here at The Cleveland Fan.  Without any real knowledge of the sort, I’m going to go ahead and declare it the most widely read column on this site. 

But what good is it?  All that stuff already happened.  The past is the past, man.  Let it go.

What we need is someone to tell us what is happening in the future.  You know, a little heads-up, mostly about the sports that bring us here, and maybe some other stuff too. 

That’s where I come in.

Much of what I say or provide won’t make sense.  I may go off on little tangents from time to time.  I offer no promise of any meaningful analysis or observations.  Most of what I find funny is probably not.  Most of what you’ll find funny, if anything, is more than likely unintentional.  I make no promises other than this: if I have not already been drinking all day, I will chug at least 2 Commodore Perry’s prior to writing anything.  I will do this for many reasons and here are 2:  First, I like Commodore Perry, and B) that way I can read it tomorrow as if for the first time.  If I’m lucky, I’ll completely forget that I wrote it and marvel at the wonderful, witty insights of this new TCF writer.

Yeah, I doubt it too.

“Why should I bother to read this?” is a question you are undoubtedly asking yourself already.  To this I can only answer, “Because it’s on the internet.” 

Be honest, that’s usually enough.

An Awkward Glance Ahead at the  Cavs

The Cavs kick off the 2010/2011 season tonight at home against a Celtics team coming off a season opening victory against the South Beach Heat.  As has been mentioned around these parts, it’s a sad day in Cleveland when we are reduced to the level of Celtics fans, but that’s what we were yesterday, and the results were similar in many ways to what we watched last year…LeBron losing to the men in green when it mattered.

Wasn’t it great watching the Heat look confused and disorganized?  LeBron scored his points but once again couldn’t match Rajon Rondo who distributed the rock to everyone except Delonte West, who I can only hope is serving his suspension with Gloria, or at least sending her junk email ala Brett Farve.  And, to watch the game wind down with the big 3 unable to find a shot, only to have Eddy House unleash some ridiculous turn around jumper was fantastic. 

But let’s get back to the Cavs.  Hopefully a tired Celtics team rolls into the Q tonight to face a revamped Cavs team ready to run them right off the floor.  It sure would be nice to beat up on the team that just handled the Heat.  Tipoff is at 7PM.

Cavs at Toronto on Friday 10/29

Here’s a match up between the two fan bases outside of Boston that were pulling hard for a Celtics victory Tuesday night.  As bad as LeBron tanked in the Playoffs for the Cavs, Chris Bosh tanked at the end of the regular season to ensure he didn’t have to bother with any playoffs to begin with.  Hey, you can’t really hold it against him.  He’s the Patron and Courvoisier bitch and had to make sure LeBron’s cabana was stocked and ready…uh…err…I mean, he hoped LeBron decided to take his talents to South Beach when he woke up that July morning.

Cavs vs. Sacramento on Saturday 10/30

The first back to back game of the season mercifully comes against a Sacramento team that won only 27 games last year.  It will be a homecoming of sorts for Darnell Jackson, the former Kansas and Cavs big man who was let go in order to make room for Antawn Jamison last year.  I ran into Jackson at a Tribe game in 2009.  He was sitting a few rows in front of me.  It was odd.  Here was this really tall guy sitting with 3 pasty white guys, all about 5’9”.  It was kind of like seeing a really tall Chinese guy with red hair.

I don’t think he recognized me.

An Awkward Glance Ahead at the Browns

Bye week.  Not a whole hell of a lot going on.  We have 2 weeks to bask in the glow of our glorious victory over Drew Brees and the Saints. The Browns seem to have the Saint’s number as they ran their all time record against them to 12-4.   It will have been 11 years ago this Sunday, on the 31^st, that the new Browns won their first game of the 1999 season against the Saints.  A victory that we thought would be the first of many.  Obviously, it didn’t turn out that way, but it sure was fun pasting them again last week, wasn’t it?

What a difference a year makes.  This year hope and optimism abound, despite the poor record.  Last year, in under a month, we’d already given up on the team, the season, the new coach, and the owner.  Just to point out how bad it was, I dug up one of my own quotes from a thread last Sept 30^th.  Someone had asked how it was that we Browns fans justify hoping to lose games.  Here was my answer:

“I think that most people here hoping for failure are convinced that the only path to success is through regime change...not just the coach but ownership as well. The fastest and possibly only way to this is through catastrophic failure. Without it they (we) are convinced that we will be nothing more than a mockery for the foreseeable future.”

Yes, thank you.  Thank you very much.

Now, here we are, a little over a year later and we’re talking about how Eric Mangini completely out-coached Sean Peyton.  And nobody has mentioned Jammies all season long.

Things are looking up for the Browns.  Enjoy your week off boys. Just stay out of jail.

An Awkward Glance Ahead at the Tribe

This week the Tribe will be doing what everyone else here is doing, watching the World Series on TV; that is unless you forgot that there was still baseball being played due to the wonderful playoff schedule.  Somehow, the powers that be decided that after 162 games of almost nightly baseball, it would be a good idea to spread out all the playoff games so that nobody has to miss a single inning.  This is despite the fact that the ratings always suck, and the only people who watch the games are the fans in the regions competing and die hard baseball fans who’d probably rather have the games daily anyway.  Then they wait about 2 weeks between the end of the Championship series and the World Series.  I guess it’s supposed to build excitement.

It’s the Giants vs. the Rangers this year, just like I predicted back in April.  Once again, the starting match-up is 2 former Indians, Cliff Lee and Timmy Lincecum.  Well, one former Indian and one woulda, shoulda, coulda been Indian.  Man, Lincecum, Lee, and Captain Cheeseburger sure would have made a pretty good rotation, here in Cleveland.  CC could have pitched us to the playoffs, and then we’d have the other 2 guys who don’t choke in the playoffs.

Of course, on the other hand, if we had those guys we wouldn’t have Carlos Carrasco, Lou Marson, and Matt LaPorta.  So, I guess it all evens out in the end. Wait, don’t forget the $500K or so it would have taken to sign Lincecum when we drafted him.  That’s enough to get David Dellucci’s left hamstring, two toes (with nail polish), and the skin over his right elbow.  You know, that flabby skin that you can squeeze and pinch as hard as you want but it never hurts.  That stuff is weird.  Anyway, that’s what we can get now instead of having Tim Lincecum.

Game 1 Tonight        Lincecum v Lee

Game 2 Thursday      Wilson v Cain

Game 3 Saturday      Lewis v Sanchez

Game 4 Sunday        Hunter v Bumgarner

TV to Watch this Week

This is where I’ll give you a tip about something to catch on the tube, be it a movie or show, new or old.  It doesn’t matter, it will be awesome.  Trust me.  I watch a lot of TV.

A lot.

The Walking Dead  -  Sunday 10/31 on AMC  10:00 PM

This is a show based on Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel of the same name.  As far as I can tell, a graphic novel is a fancy name for a comic book.  It’s about a guy who wakes up from a coma to find himself in a world overrun with Zombies and it’s on AMC, the network that gave us Mad Men.

The man behind the series is Frank Darabont, who brought us The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and most importantly, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors which was unquestionably the best of the ANOES franchise.  The only actor I recognize in the cast is Sarah Wayne (Wayne?) Callies, otherwise known as Sarah from Prison Break, the most annoying and worthless character in the entire series, and that’s saying something.  As far as I can tell, the only thing she did in that entire show was somehow avoid getting her head lopped off.  If only Kevin Spacey was on that show. 

All you really need to know about The Walking Dead is that it’s a show about Zombies.  I admit, I’m a complete sucker for a Zombie movie.  The prospect of a long running TV show makes me absolutely giddy.  There are 6 episodes in this initial run.  Hopefully it gets picked up for more, assuming it doesn’t suck.

Set your DVRs.

Actor I Will Be Casting In My Movie When I Write It:

I’ll give you someone new every week.  Trust me, my movie is going to be awesome.

Billy Jacoby

Playing the immortal role of Young Dar in the Beastmaster may have been enough to get him a bit part in my movie, but it’s his turn as Buddy Griffith in ‘Just One Of The Guys’ that will get him one of the lead roles.  Seriously, is there a character out of the 80’s that was awesome as Buddy, the horn-dog who’s only goal in life was to get laid?  Man, could I relate to that kid.  Just a fantastic role,  and Billy was perfect.

Also, if I play my cards right I’m expecting Billy to help get me a cameo from Joyce Hyser’s breasts.

Awesome Youtube Clip of the Week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APTdjG6Xo9A

Watch it now, thank me later.  Scored by the late great Luchi De Jesus, I call this the Love Theme from Black Belt Jones.