LeBron James and the Biggest Villains in Cleveland Sports History

Hate in sports is a feeling that can be precipitated by a multifarious—and yet not always well-informed—rationale by those of us who attach such significance to the players and teams we choose to care about.

The feeling could be achieved as a result of a missed shot or a dropped ball at a point in the game where such a human error is deemed unacceptable and unforgivable. Or perhaps the formulation of this feeling is a direct result of some shortcoming or character deficiency, which is not even relative to the playing surface.

Or alternatively, hatred of an athlete may correlate to a singular indiscretion of decidedly abhorrent judgment and extroverted arrogance.

The following is a list of hated players—encompassing all of the above-mentioned categories of hate—within the Cleveland sports landscape.

LeBron James

It's quite possible that in the history of sports, no man made the transition onto the most hated list more swiftly and with less class than LeBron James.

Although the epicenter of the hate movement against him remains in Cleveland, somehow his free-agency traveling circus sideshow and televised announcement during the summer of 2010 managed to alienate many beyond those residents of the Rust Belt region. 

For a city that had yearned for an all-world superstar in any sport—in the prime of his or her career, as opposed to an aged and washed-up superstar supplant (see Shaquille O'Neal)—LeBron truly represented the prodigal son.

And what's more, all his public pandering prior to the summer of 2010 pointed to his desires to remain a Cleveland Cavalier, potentially until he brought home a long-sought championship or he retired.

"The Decision" was the equivalent of a palm-inward V-sign to the city he grew up in and a reflection of callousness to that city's inhabitants, who had witnessed the same laundry list of sports catastrophes that he had, making it that much more insensitive.

Perhaps the only event of equally embarrassing tenor was his Game 5 non-performance against the Boston Celtics in the 2010 playoffs, a revelatory sign of just where his heart wasn't, in Cleveland.

If you are a Cleveland fan, you had to know during that soul-sucking summer of 2010 that LeBron's final destination was not going to be Quicken Loans Arena, but even despite the deep scarring of a history filled with professional sports cataclysms, one would never have expected the end to come with such a finite lack of decency and regard.  

Despite the severe hate level quotient that saw its peak on the wings of that free-agent summer of 2010 and even into last season, it would appear there is some dissipation, at least based on the artificial fact that James' No. 6 jersey was the top seller of the 2010-11 campaign.

Somehow it would seem that any of those purchased in Cleveland are still being used as a replacement for fireplace kindling. 

Art Modell

For Cleveland fans, "The Decision" is the most recent lesson in brutal betrayal, but the man who paved the way for such deceit was none other than Art Modell, former owner of the Cleveland Browns.

In terms of visually vomit-worthy scenes, the sight of Modell hoisting a Lombardi Trophy in 2000, which he won as the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, the team he bolted from Cleveland for, is unparalleled in terms of meaning for the football fans of Cleveland.

Although Cleveland basketball and baseball teams have experienced bubbles of recent success, the city is a football town at heart, making the departure of the Browns at the hands of Modell in 1996 a blow of unfathomable dimension.

The Browns came back in 1999, but it is inarguable that they have never come close to achieving the level of success synonymous with the mid- to late-80s teams led by the likes of Bernie Kosar, Ernest Byner, Kevin Mack, Webster Slaughter, Bob Golic, Hanford Dixon and Frank Minnifield, to name a few.

Modell simply represents another page in the annals of deceitful behavior propagated by an individual against the loyal fans of the city.

Bill Belichick

Those Cleveland fans who were witness to the Belichick era can only numbly shake their heads when comparing it to his current successful travails with the New England Patriots.

In his four years with the Browns from 1992 to 1996, the team managed only one playoff appearance in 1994, and during his last year as head coach, they would finish 5-11, soon after the team was stolen from the city by Modell.

During his time on the sideline for the Browns, the adjectives "genius" and "guru" were not uttered in the same sentence as Belichick's name, but rather his tenure represented the final disintegration of an era when, despite not winning an AFC Championship or getting to a Super Bowl, the team was at least in a position to do so for several years prior to his arrival. 

Jose Mesa

Not only does Jose Mesa have the unfortunate distinction of having the English-translated name of Joe Table, but additionally, he was responsible for blowing the one-run lead that the Cleveland Indians retained over the Florida Marlins in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1997 World Series.

Cleveland's already sordid past with just-missed opportunities for titles was in no need of an additional entrant on the grief ledger. However, Mesa despite having several standout years before and after the '97 World Series, was unable to be an agent for the unthinkable—for the city of Cleveland to win a professional sports title.

There was a feeling by some players on the Indians team that Mesa did not look to be mentally engaged in the task at hand in that ninth inning, including former Cleveland shortstop Omar Vizquel, claiming that Mesa had a vacant look in his eye upon taking the mound.

Nevertheless, he was able to preserve "The Curse."   

Albert Belle

Albert Belle was as notorious in Cleveland for his abilities as a hitter as he was for his outwardly projected moments of anger and spite. In fact, Cleveland fans were only able to tolerate some of his off-field indiscretions as a result of his on-field abilities. 

Some of his more infamous incidents included attacks that were carried out against various subjects, from a female reporter to kids trick-or-treating near his house—not to mention that he was found to have a corked bat during his playing days in Cleveland.

He eventually spat in the face of the Cleveland fanbase when he exited in the late '90s to play for AL Central Division rivals, the Chicago White Sox. Although he achieved some measure of success with the White Sox, Cleveland fans were able to take some form of solace in the fact that he never got any closer to winning a championship or verbally abusing any local trick-or-treaters for the remainder of his career.