Reflections On A Great Sports Year

November 4th, 2016, would have marked the day of our parade, a parade of champions, yet we still have a great deal to celebrate as winners. 

Thank you, Cleveland baseball for helping to win the long arduous and very uphill battle of opinion, by returning national respect to our scrappy little rust belt parcel of the north coast. Your hearts are as tried, tested, and proven as the steel that is our own, and no one will ever take that away from us again by way of derisive overtures and insensitive overt ridicule. 

You were at once written off, as were the rest of us for what has felt like endless decades, yet we have regained our rightful dignity and relevance upon these shores because of your hard work and heavy lifting.

Thank you LeBron James, for your return not only sparked a team, but it clearly catalyzed a veritable avalanche of triumph. You sir, simply poured golden honey again upon this town, no other way to put it.

Thank you Lake Erie Monsters for seizing the oldest championship trophy in the country. You skated like your lives depended on it, and into history you were forever crowned.

And to you Chicago, our rust belt sister to the west, now that all the screaming, hissing, and cursing at the TV has subsided, as I for one admittedly went temporarily insane, we salute you. We salute the only team that had a longer drought than ours, we salute all your friends and loved ones that you grew up with watching your team almost make it for so long, but are no longer here to cry with you the tears of joy through this historic accomplishment, we salute you because we know, we know all too well and ever intimately what you've been through, and those you wish you could share it with now... Know that they truly are here with you, just as all the great ball players of the dusty old days with crackling speakers, they are here with you, too. 

Know that we are here with you as well, you deserve this in no uncertain terms, but also know that we are coming for you again, even stronger. 

At heart, true to form, we still had the parade of our team's successes this year, in our forever faithful Cleveland spirit. That is what makes us who we are. 

So enjoy what is rightfully yours our rustbelt sister to the west. We'll be here, listening in from a distance between the cresting waves on our quiet autumn beaches. 

Well played. See you next year on the mound...

Davidione Pearl

Freelance writer, musician, photographer, and philanthropic traveler.

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Volume 8, Issue 12, Posted 6:53 PM, 12.04.2016