Cleveland Sports Legends: The 20 Most Glorious and Gut-Wrenching Moments of All Times

These are the moments Northeast Ohioans still talk about, years and even decades later—and will probably continue to debate, bemoan, and otherwise cherish for generations to come. The twenty lively stories told in this book recount the most memorable, the most sensational events in Cleveland sports history.

Many of them are known by shorthand: Red Right 88. The Drive. The Fumble. Beer Night. Game Seven. The Shot. But beyond the immediate groan or smile the memory elicits are great sports tales infused with that curious blend of excitement, hope, and doom that feels just like home to any Cleveland sports fan.

Some of these moments are almost painful to recall—like that one heart-stopping play in January 1981 that kept the "Kardiac Kids" out of the Super Bowl. Or Michael Jordan’s jaw-dropping shot to knock the Cavs out of the playoffs in May of 1989.

But we Cleveland fans have long feasted on a steady diet of sports misery without ever losing a taste for the pursuit of onfield glory.

And we have sampled the glory, too. Like the Tribe’s exhilarating 1995 sprint into the playoffs. Or the upstart Cavaliers’ "Miracle of Richfield in 1976. And of course the Browns’ thrilling upset victory over the Baltimore Colts in the 1964 NFL championship game.

Glorious or gut-wrenching, each of these memories is a highlight of the shared experience of sports fans in Northeast Ohio. Together they represent a seemingly unquenchable spirit—the very spirit that keeps up late into the night, honking our horns in parking garages and exchanging high-fives with total strangers on East Ninth Street, or trudging on Sundays down to the edge of Lake Erie, wearing dog masks and carrying elaborate banners drawn on bedsheets.

These twenty stories offer a chance to relive Cleveland’s most exciting sports moments—and pass the spirit along to the next generation of fans.