Keith Strudler: There’s No Such Thing As Luck

Luck is the ultimate intangible in sports. It’s so intangible, most people don’t even believe in it. Well, Cleveland believes. They believe in bad luck, at least. The city hasn’t won a title in a so-called “major” sport since the Browns in 1964, when football wasn’t actually all that major. Before that, it was the Indians in the 1948 World Series. The Cavs, never – and more on that in a second.

In Cleveland, their sports failures are so frequent and familiar they have names. There’s The Fumble, The Drive, The Shot, Red Right 88. Their football stadium is nicknamed the “Factory of Sadness." They’ve been named the most cursed sports town in America by any publication worth anything. They have so many sad sports moments it’s more of an expectation than a shock, an experience to be passed on to your children, like it’s a form of religious guilt.

As of last night, Cleveland sports fans have another tale to tell. After taking an improbably 2-1 lead in the NBA Finals, Golden State reeled off three straight wins, capped by a 105-97 victory last night to win the title, on Cleveland’s home court, of course. This happened despite the triumphant return this year of hometown megastar LeBron James, who tried in vain to carry a depleted Cavs squad over a Warriors team with more talent, more wins, and yes, more luck. While Golden State goes deep into their bench for quality minutes, the Cavs bench is more like seats at the DMV. You’re not going anywhere fast. That became even more obvious as the team lost both Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving to injury, leaving them with essentially LeBron James and a bunch of other guys. That’s Cleveland for you. Even when you have three great players on your team, two of them come to work in street clothes.

Make no mistake, Golden State was the better team here, probably even if the Cavs were full strength – although it would have been a lot more interesting. But this loss, like every Cleveland loss before it, makes you wonder. Is there really any such thing as bad luck in sports? Can a city actually be cursed?

Boston believed it so, until the Red Sox essentially bought three World Series. But even so, the city had the Celtics and the Patriots, both of whom provided plenty of titles for the so called cursed town. Houston was cursed, I suppose, until the Rockets won two NBA titles in the 90’s. You could make a strong argument for Buffalo, especially with all those Super Bowl losses. Then again, sports is probably the least of that city’s problems.

Which really gets to the heart of the matter. In the end, sports abides by the relative law of averages. Over time, given everything’s the same, it’s all going even out. You’ll eventually win. But see, everything isn’t the same. Buffalo, for example, plays in an outdoor stadium with less charm than a 7-11. It’s Lameau without the leap. The Cavaliers have to literally convince athletes to accept their millions of dollars to play for them. And why would they, when you could go to Los Angeles, or New York, or Miami – which is where LeBron probably wishes he still was every now and then. But LeBron is from Cleveland, or Akron at least. The rest of the team probably hoped they played the whole championship series in the Bay Area just to get out of town.

The reason some teams, some cities think they’re “cursed,” if you will, is because they don’t acknowledge basic realities. They’re not cursed. They just are who they are, places and organizations with less resource and tough times. You want to know the cities that win a lot of championships. Look at where people go on vacation. New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago. You know, cool places with lots of people and tons of money. That’s not always true – San Diego hasn’t won much lately – but if you’re betting long term, that’s how I’d put my retirement funds. It’s not really luck, any more than IBM stock is luck. It’s just logic, a scare commodity in the emotional landscape of regional sports fandom. No, Cleveland isn’t cursed. They’re just historically bad, which makes their near success even that much more impressive, swimming upstream while Golden State rode a steady tailwind. For better or worse, until the city once termed the Mistake on the Lake sees better economic days, they’ll probably stay “cursed,” producing more sadness from its assorted stadiums and arenas, a remnant of the once factory town.  You can call it bad luck if you’d like. For Cleveland sports fans, it’s the only kind they’ve ever known.

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