Happy Birthday Jim Brown!

The Mighty Jim Brown Turns 85 Today

Here are highlights of his final game*

This is pro football the way it was meant to be played: a brutal contest of will and brawn, in a pit of black mud at near freezing temperatures. On January 2, 1966, the Cleveland Browns looked to repeat as NFL Champions when they took the field in Green Bay to take on Vince Lombardi’s Packers for the title game for the 1965 season.
*Not including the exhibition Pro Bowl that happened two weeks later.
Brown was the MVP that season, having rushed for over 1,500 yards for the second time in his nine year career. We’ve never seen his equal since.
I propose that the NFL add a new award that would be the pro equivalent to the Heisman Trophy . Where the current Most Valuable Player award goes to the player who meant the most to their individual team, it almost always goes to a quarterback. This new award would be be in addition the MVP and would be given the best player in the league. And I further propose it be named the Jim Brown Trophy.

Cleveland Cavilers Need Extra Mojo to Win Championship

You’re welcome, Cleveland.

I realized that it was my doing, putting my chair in just the right spot, mixed with my mojo of onion rings and seltzer with tart cherry juice on ice that made the difference tonight and brought a professional sports championship to Cleveland for the first time since the 1964 Browns.

But seriously, special victories like this take incredible fortune and almost otherworldly timing – being in just the right place, at just the right time, with legs crossing and uncrossing in synch with the fabric of space-time nail chewing, while scolding the Cavalierscavalier ball handling and shooting that kept things far too close for comfort, all of which I managed to pull off flawlessly.

I haven’t watched a professional basketball game in maybe 25 years. But when I came home to catch up on Game of Thrones and realized it was halftime in Game 7 and you were down by 7 points, the numerology said it all: “You owe it to Cleveland. So do not touch that dial. Sit your rump down, eat those onion rings, and sip that not too tart cherry goodness and CONCENTRATE!”

And I came through, for you Cleveland.

When it was 89 – 89 for far too gosh darn long as shot after shot went awry followed by no offensive rebounds, I said, “That is ENOUGH!” and out came the reserve onion rings, as I straightened every seam, turned my head and coughed, and we prevailed. You and I, Cleveland.

We, at long last, prevailed.