Not too long ago, my main man Walker made an argument that Chicago was a town devoid of sporting success. However I happen to disagree and think that Cleveland has a MUCH MUCH worse sports history. So here’s my rebuttal:
Once again rebuttals typed by Lucas will be in italics.
First I would like the thank Scott for making his entire post a tribute to the late Billy Mays, using only the Billy Mays Key to type.
1) Chicago had a Dynasty with the bulls. DYNASTY!! there have only been a handful of dynasties in all sports combined, and the Bulls have a good chance to be the most impressive dynasty of all. In fact I’m going to work on an article about that right now. Stay tuned Sports fans.
This is the one exception to the rule, where they lucked out. Think about it, without Phil Jackson, without MJ, or Scottie Pippen, would there have been the Bulls Dynasty. I’m sure that they would have been good, just not as good. Much like figure skating though, if you take away the top point the average score is still going to be lower than the average score of Cleavland. Without going into an advanced statistical analysis, the Bulls are skewing Chicago on the crap-o-meter. Take them away and they are worse than Chicago.
Walker you are a smart man, but this is the WORST rebuttal ever. You can’t ignore the fact the Bulls were great. Also you can’t play the “what if” card. What if Sam Bowie went to Chicago and Jordan went to Portland? What if the Bulls drafted Reggie Miller instead of Scottie Pippen? What if Tex Winters never invented the Triangle Offense? These Questions don’t matter because IT DID HAPPEN! Lets not over complicate things. It’s Chigaco 6, Celveland and depressing.
You are right, the Bulls are much much better than the Cavs, however, what have the Bulls done recently? That silence you hear is your answer. The thing is what this argument is coming down to is whose better, LeBron or Michael Jordan. The answer is clearly M.J. so Chicago had the much better all-star. However since we are not discussing who has the worst players, we are discussing the worst teams. Granted Jordan’s supporting cast was better than King James’, but time will tell, as James still have 10 good years.
2) The Browns have never been to a Superbowl, and can hang their hat on Jim Brown and only Jim Brown (By the way I love Jim Brown). The Bears have countless great names (Singletary, Ditka, Butkus, Sayers, Payton Et Al.), legendary moments (fog bowl, Ditka vs. Ryan: two coaches one team, “they are who we thought they were” Et Al.), and possibly the best team of all time (1985 bears)
No but the Browns do have four NFL championships, and the 1985 Bears are a very overrated team. I like to think that the 1985 team was a fluke. Yes their defence was good, but it was figured out. Mike Ditka never made it back to the championship. Prior to the 1984 season the Bears didn’t win a divisional championship for 42 years. This includes the premerger NFL, and like the Chicago baseball teams could not capitalize on weaker, and less competition.
This is in the same category as above. Even if you think the 1985 Bears are “overrated” (Which they aren’t at all), they still won a championship!! And if you want to count long time struggles before success, shouldn’t we be arguing over the Pittsburgh Steelers? Or maybe the Tampa Bay Bucs? No matter how you cut it, Chicago has a legendary team and 1 Superbowl, the brown’s best known moment is “the drive” and that is just depressing.
There is also another argument to be made regarding which franchise is historically worse, the Browns or the Bears. The Bears were around 26 years before the Browns were founded. In addition the Browns had financial troubles in the 90s which means in the early 90s prior to their fold in 1996, they wouldn’t have been able to have a competitive payroll. Insert Moneyball rebuttal here. In addition to this, when they came back in 1999, they were a new franchise, which means they are starting from scratch so it will be at least another five years before they could be competitive again. These five years, three years of inactivity and call it two years of low budget mean that for another decade on top of the 26 year head start the Bears had, the Bears have a total of 36 more years of Franchise experience.
Also you can’t give the “5 years to get good” idea. The Panthers made the playoffs in their second season in the NFL. Jacksonville became perennial playoff contenders ONE YEAR after being founded. The Idea that anyone can win in the NFL destroys any argument of time in the league.
Fun Fact The Clevland Browns have the fourth most players in the Hall of Fame. In terms of expansion teams here are the most recent. The reason that I say you need to give a new franchise five years is because thats the average NFL career. After this time, they have seen enough players and possibly personal cycle through that they no longer dealing with all the issues that new franchises go through.
- 2002 -Since the Houstan Texans still haven’t had a winning season.
- 1999 Cleveland Browns have been very slowly on the rise with strong drafting in recent years.
- 1995 Caronlina Panthers are a lifetime 115-119 (109-115 regular season, 6-4 in the playoffs) since joining the league. After making the playoffs their second season, they did not make it again until 2003 when they lost in the Superbowl.
- 1995 Jacksonville Jaguars are 123-112 (118-106 regular season and 5 -6 in the playoffs) since joining the league.
- 1976 Seattle Seahawks
- 1976 Tampa Bay Bucs
You get the point how teams are after they are brand new franchises.
3) The Cavs have no finals appearances. And I think they only have one maybe 2 division championships (I’m too lazy to google it). The Bulls on the other hand have 2 separate three-peats!!!
I discussed this above, Basketball is the one sport that Chicago is better than Cleveland at, but give that a few years. What have the Bulls done without Jordan? What Will Cleveland accomplish next year?
If you can’t play the “what if” card, you cannot play the “wait and see” card either. Again it’s a moot argument. Even if Lebron wins next year, and stays in Cleveland, he STILL is never going to be as good as Jordan. Jordan went 6 for 6 in the finals, and won Playoff MVP every time. Lebron is 0 for 1 thus far.
4) Maybe the Cubs are a little worse off then the Indians, but both are sad stories. Throw the White Sox into the fold and the two can’t be compared.
You’re right you can’t compare them, because once again other than 2005, the two teams have one championship in 191 years. And this includes an era when there were fewer teams, and players made much much less. This means that between the two of them they should have been able to fluke into a championship. Unfortunately neither of them did. Cleveland has twice as many championships as both of these teams.
This is a toss up but Celveland is still worse off. There are very few people alive who remember either the Cubs or Indians ever winning a championship. The vast majority of Baseball fans remember the Chi Sox winning in 2005. That breaks the tie.
It’s comparing a sd franchies, and one very sad franchies versus one sad franchise. You make a good point, but you have it all the way around. The Chi-Sox are the competition with the Cleveland Indians. One has a Championship recently, the other has a better history, but nothing recently, both are lose lose. To break a tie you look at a franchise that hasn’t won a championship in over a century.
But wait, there’s more! An original argument from Lucas.
Now I know we don’t talk about hockey, but we have to make this argument fair since we forgot one of the big four teams. Let’s compare the the two NHL franchises, The Chicago Blackhawks and the Cleveland Barrons. Who are the Cleveland Barrons? They were a tempoary NHL team after plans in another city fell through. The Blackhawks are the leagues worst franchise.
The Barrons did what they were supposed to, be a franchise for a couple of seasons, until they could find a permanet home.
The Chicago Blackhawks are worse than Toronto Maple Leafs and that is saying something. The Blackhawks have never won a championship. Technically they were the Black Hawkes when they last won the cup, after the 1960-1961 season. This means that in the next six years, when there were only five other teams the Hawks couldn’t win, let alone the 48 years since they won in 1961. Well the Blackhawks won before 1961 right? Yes, twice in 1934, and in 1938.
Overall Compairson the only thing that these cities are going to win.
Basketall. Give the Cavs Plus 6 + 2for 8(one for every championship the Bulls have won plus two for MJ being better than Lebron) over the Bulls, but I have a feeling this will be revisited a couple of years from now.
Baseball. While the Sox and Indians are even, the Indians, the Cubs break the tie with Plus 10 (one for each decade of drought).
Football. The Browns win this Plus 2 since they haven’t won a championship, but it is hard to pick on new franchises.
Hockey. For those keeping score we have a tie. Since nobody cares about hockey we’ll make this tie break one point. What’s the only team worse than a tempoary franchse? The Chicago Blackhawks.
Overall Chicago has been better in Basketball and Football, they have been terrible in hockey and one of their baseball teams, and pretty darn bad in the other. Sport for Sport its a tie, but Chicago has three terrible teams, while Clevland really has the Cavilers, and the Browns until 1996. Comparing the two is like a comparing a crap town (Cleveland) and a crap city (Chicago), the City will win each time. Even with the good, the Bears and the Bulls, Chicago still has more craptacular teams than Cleveland.
While it’s close Chicago edges out do to their amount of Crap.
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