Post #140 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger –

Yo, bro. Been a long time since I posted. Been busy, but mostly lazy. Anyway I was all ready to write about the World Cup and how soccer is starting to look pretty cool when LeBron James made his big announcement that he’s going back to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I know I’m pretty young but this seems like one of the most amazing sports stories ever. I’ve heard all about athletes making the big play and winning the big game, but I never remember a story about the greatest player in the world actually wanting TO PLAY IN CLEVELAND.

Yes, yes, please don’t all you Dr. C haters be calling me out for being down on Cleveland. I’ve never been there, but I know they have some cool stuff. Like the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Clinic and a good art museum and symphony — I had to look up most of that stuff — but what they’re not really known for is being a DESTINATION.

“Yo, dude. Hear you got a few weeks off. You going somewhere?”
“Sure am, Jack.”
“So like where? New York, L.A., Florida, Yellowstone, maybe even Europe?”
“Heck no, man. I’m heading to Cleveland. There’s no town like Showtown. Time to p-a-h-t-y!”

No, I’ve never heard that kind of conversation either.

Let’s face it: Cleveland needs some love. Just type “Mistake by the Lake” in a search bar and see what shows up. The most famous thing I can remember happening there recently was that cretin who had those three girls imprisoned in his house for like ten years. Now there’s some reality TV nobody wanted to see. The city last had a championship in 1964 with the Cleveland Browns. That’s 60 years, folks. The people there need a boost.

So here comes LeBron James from Akron, who’s coming home after living in one the country’s greatest hot spots for the last four years. He feels HOME IN CLEVELAND. This guy could pick wherever he wanted to be — and I mean anywhere — and he picks Cleveland. How cool is that? It’s like Hoosiers, Rudy, the Olympic Ice Hockey Team that Beat Russia, The Bad News Bears, and The Little Engine That Could all rolled into one. (Maybe we could add in Dr. Seuss’s Horton: “A person’s a person no matter how tall.”) And that’s just from LeBron showing up. No telling how big the story will get if they start winning a championship or two.

If Cleveland were a stock, you’d be smart to invest in it, I think. They’re climbing the charts with a big bullet.

So congratulations, Cleveland. LeBron, I was all for San Antonio in the Finals last month — Dr. C usually roots for the underdog — but I gotta say you’re kind of my hero for making such a bold and sincere move. In a world that seems all about money and fame, you chose HOME.

From one of your new changed-his-mind admirers,
The Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss