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Report User This new millenium, still ever-so-young, has been a time of rebirth and redemption for many of our favorite sad-sack sports teams. Since the turn of the century, the Patriots, Buccaneers, Angels, Red Sox, and White Sox have all won championships, as have Jim Boeheim and Roy Williams, not to mention the state of Arizona (the D-Backs). So as we finish this year of 2005, it's time to revisit one of my favorite subjects:
MOST TORTURED SPORTS CITIES
But first, let's get rid of this annoying group:
Top 5 Most Overrated Sports Cities (in alphabetical order): Boston, Chicago, DC, Phoenix, and the State of Florida.
The first two on the list could have been left off well before the Red Sox and White Sox won World Series titles. Boston already had two of the last three Super Bowl titles, with a third on the way, as well as 16 championships with the Celtics. That cannot be overlooked. As for my hometown, believe me, we're anything but tortured. We've been living off the '85 Bears ever since the final seconds ticked off the clock of Super Bowl XX, and since then we've had six titles from the Bulls, an appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals, and enough stud players--Michael, Scottie, Dawson, Ryno, Sammy, Frank, Grace, Dennis, Urlacher--to last us till the next White Sox championship.
As for the other three groups, DC has had its share of hoops trouble, but they have three titles from the Redskins since 1982 and a new baseball team. As for Phoenix, I was there in March, and these people are happy. Their football situation is brutal, and they have only one title in their state's history--the Diamondbacks in 2001--but they have two great basketball teams (the Suns and U of A (which is in Tuscon, but it spreads)), they have hockey (for some reason), they get to go to spring training whenever they want. Plus, it's always warm...which is probably one of the biggest reasons that I have to leave the whole state of Florida off this list. They just won a Super Bowl, they have nine pro teams, and they have two baseball teams that they don't care a lick about, even though one of them has won two World Series since 1997. Throw "the U" on top of that, as well as the '72 Dolphins, and I don't see anything to complain about in Florida.
Now then, onto Jack M.'s TOP TEN MOST TORTURED CITIES:
- Cleveland
- Canada
- Buffalo
- Minneapolis
- Portland
- Seattle
- New Orleans
- Charlotte
- Cincinnati
- Philadelphia
just missed the cut: Detroit
PHILADELPHIA-Philly edged out Detroit for the final spot on the list, because I just couldn't include a city that has three NBA titles, three Stanley Cups, and one World Series since 1984. No matter how bad the Lions get, Detroit has the Pistons, Red Wings, and the University of Michigan to take their minds off of Matt Millen and co...
...which brings us to Philadelphia. Philly's last pro title came with Dr. J and the 76ers in 1983, and it's been pretty bad since then. However, despite their ineptitude, I have no sympathy for Philadelphia because they have always been big jerks. Booing McNabb on draft day or Kobe at the All-Star game is not nearly as bad as applauding when Michael Irvin went down with what seemed at the time to be a very serious neck injury. Still, Philly has had it rough.
CINCINNATI-Their joy might be on its way with the rise of the Bengals, but as of now nothing Marvin Lewis and the gang has done this year can wipe away a horrible decade in which the Bungles won an average of 5.2 games per year. The Reds won a World Series in 1990, but things haven't been well since. All that said, these guys are like the anti-Philadelphia. They are full of spirit and joy, which is hard to do when your most recognizable sports figures over the past twenty years have been Marge Schott, Pete Rose, and Bob Huggins.
CHARLOTTE-This is a weird city to get a handle on. On the one hand, they've got Duke and UNC basketball. They've been given four big pro teams (Hornets, Panthers, Hurricanes, Bobcats) in the past twenty years, and they've already sent a team to the Super Bowl. On the other hand, they have no titles, and they've endured a terrible owner in Bob Shinn who moved the Hornets to New Orleans, as well as an unprecedented string of off-the-field tragedies of various sorts: Rae Curruth's murder trial, the auto-deaths of Bobby Phills and Steve Chiasson, the murder of Fred Lane, and the passing of Sam Mills.
NEW ORLEANS-This is another difficult city. Things weren't too good before Katrina, in which the Hornets were slumping and the Saints--the model of dud franchises--were mediocre. Now, after Katrina, the people of New Orleans have to deal with their teams playing in San Antonio and Oklahoma City, their football owner and star players acting like jerks, and the entire team being compensated by the NFL while much of the city's population deals with actual loss of their homes. Add that on to all of their real world hardships, as well as the fact that the Superdome is dead, and there's not much to be happy about in New Orleans these days.
SEATTLE-The last pro title in Seattle came back in 1979, when the Supersonics beat the Bullets to win their first and only NBA championship. Since then they've had a useless football team (which is on its way up), and a baseball team that has been arguably the biggest tease in sports. The Mariners had a stud young team in the mid 90's before losing Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr, and Alex Rodriguez in three consecutive years. They then won a record 116 games in 2001 before losing in the playoffs to the Yankees and bottoming out last season. The Supersonics haven't fared much better, with one trip to the Finals since winning it all in '79. Seattle has had only one great player--Steve Largent--to stay in town throughout his entire career. Ouch.
PORTLAND-This is the only city to make the list with only one pro team, but the city of Portland gets as much love and happiness out of the Trailblazers as Los Angeles gets out of their five teams. At least, they used to. The Trailblazers have been an embarrassment since 2001, when they screwed up a roster that came within 15 minutes of the NBA Finals by loading it with bad attitudes and criminals. This team used to be all about class acts and championship contenders. Now they've got neither.
MINNEAPOLIS-They've made out a bit better than Buffalo, if only because their four Super Bowl losses weren't consecutive, and they won two World Series in 1987 and 1991. Still, the Vikings have been a disaster, even in success. Going 15-1 in 1998 with arguably the best team in the NFL before losing in the NFC title game at home in overtime after missing a potential game-winning field goal...you couldn't write that any worse. And don't forget that Minneapolis had to watch their beloved North Stars move to Dallas. That move goes down with the Colts leaving Baltimore and the Browns leaving Cleveland as most painful team/city divorce.
BUFFALO-Buffalo has two pro teams, the Bills and the Sabres, and though they're not great often, when they are great they find ways to lose in awful ways. Dominik Hasek helped lead the Sabres to the Cup in 1999, only to lose on Brett Hull's "skate in the crease" goal. And of course, there's the Bills. Four straight trips to the Super Bowl...four straight losses. Some people go by the school of thought that "Hey, at least they got there," but not me. Even though they got to watch a great team with great players--and let's not forget how good those Bills teams were, with Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith, Darryl Talley, and Cornelius Bennett--losing four straight Super Bowls had to have just sucked awfully. I can't even imagine it. And it wasn't just that they lost four straight, but how they lost. Consider the progression: the gut-wrenching missed field goal in SB XXV, the 52-17 beat down they received two years later to Dallas, and then the "finally, this is it" tease they got in SB XXVIII when they went to the locker room leading the Cowboys 13-6, only to be shutout 23-0 in the second half. Brutal.
CANADA-OK, so they're not a city, but the hits they've taken in hockey have been terrible. In the late 90's, Canada saw the Quebec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets move to Denver and Phoenix, respectively, while NHL teams popped up in such un-hockey cities as Tampa, Miami, Nashville, Anaheim, and Atlanta. Canada hasn't won a Stanley Cup since the Canadiens won in 1993, and they haven't had a dynasty since the Oilers of the 80's, who fell apart after Canada's own Wayne Gretzky split for Los Angeles. The NHL has since turned into the worst league of the big four, and has just endured the cancelling of the 2004-2005 season.
CLEVELAND-If there is one city that I feel most sorry for, it's Cleveland. They always seem to be second to someone. This is one of the NFL's greatest and oldest franchises, and yet it's one of only seven teams without a Super Bowl appearance. To add insult to injury, the Browns were stolen away from Cleveland in 1996 and moved to Baltimore, where the Ravens won a Super Bowl four years later. Cleveland was the second best team in the AFC during the late 80's, losing to the Denver Broncos three times in the AFC championship game. The Indians were won of the winningest teams in baseball during the 90's, yet they lost two World Series, including one to the upstart Marlins by blowing a 2-1 lead in Game 7. And in 1988, Magic Johnson dubbed the Cavaliers the "Team of the 90's." Unfortunately for them, that title ended up going to the Bulls, who smacked the Cavs around in the playoffs in 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, and 1994. Cleveland teams have been eliminated in the playoffs by "The Shot," "The Drive," and "The Fumble," and though they now get to watch LeBron every night, I'd hate to see what happens if he splits for New York or L.A. in a few years...