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Archive for the category “Cleveland Browns”

08 Jul 2012

Tribe’s Hagadone feeling a little punchy

Nick Hagadone? We won’t be seeing him for a while.

The Cleveland Indians placed the left-handed reliever on the Minor League disqualified list on Sunday after Hagadone reportedly suffered a self-inflicted injury to his pitching hand following Friday night’s game against Tampa Bay.

“We’re certainly disappointed with the reaction to it,” Tribe general manager Chris Antonetti said. “He was certainly very frustrated coming out of the game. We certainly would have wished he would have handled it a little differently.”

Well, as long as everyone is certain.

The Indians are working with Major League Baseball and the Players Association to determine what to do with Hagadone while he recovers from the injury, which could sideline him for some time, according to Antonetti. Oh, and Hagadone will not be paid while he is on the disqualified list.

Read more…

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, NFL, Premier League | Leave a comment
05 Jul 2012

Do the Browns have enough roster depth?

Cleveland Browns general manager Tom Heckert has done a solid job in rebuilding the Browns in the two-plus years (and three drafts) he has been with the team.

The Browns are seeing results along the defensive line (Jabaal Sheard and Phil Taylor) and secondary (Joe Haden and T.J. Ward), he continues to build the offensive line (Jason Pinkston, Shawn Lauvao and Mitchell Schwartz), and Brandon Weeden and Trent Richardson should improve the offense in a major way.

But what if one of the starters goes down with an injury? Do the Browns have the kind of depth an NFL team needs to compete?

To find out, head over to The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo courtesy of ClevelandBrowns.com)

Posted in Cleveland Browns | Leave a comment
03 Jul 2012

NFL upholds suspension of Fujita, three others

Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita was among four players notified Tuesday that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has upheld the player discipline that was imposed on the players for their involvement in New Orleans’ bounty program.

Fujita is suspended for three games, Will Smith four games, Anthony Hargrove eight games and Jonathan Vilma for the entire season. Goodell said he retains the right to reduce suspensions should new facts arise, and the each player still is free to meet with him to present his side of the story.
“Throughout this entire process, including your appeals, and despite repeated invitations and encouragement to do so, none of you has offered any evidence that would warrant reconsideration of your suspensions. Instead, you elected not to participate meaningfully in the appeal process…” Goodell wrote in a letter to the players, according to NFL.com.
Posted in Cleveland Browns, NFL, Scott Fujita | Leave a comment
26 Jun 2012
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America’s Love Affair with Uncle Drew

America has fallen in love with Uncle Drew.

During the NBA finals, more than 11.7 million people went online to find out that Uncle Drew, a character in a Pepsi Max ad campaign, is really the Cavs’ Kyrie Irving, according to The New York Times:

The video was filmed at Clark’s Pond Court in Bloomfield, N.J., which is close to where Irving’s father lives. Local players were gathered and told that Pepsi Max was filming a documentary on a character named Kevin who they claimed was a youth basketball coach. Other than Irving, Kevin and the player whose injury leads to Uncle Drew entering the game, no one on the court knew that it was actually Irving under the makeup.

The video was posted two days after Irving was officially announced as the rookie of the year. With no media behind it, the video garnered 10 million views. With 80 percent of the viewers watching four minutes into the five-minute video, and the key target demographic of males from 25 to 54 accounting for most of those views, Pepsi Max decided to create a series of trailers to the video to be shown during the N.B.A. finals, representing a significant advertising purchase. Even so, the decision was made to stay true to the viral roots of the video by not giving away anything in the 30-second spots.

The paper reports that the ads received a 98 percent like-rate on YouTube and made the front page of Reddit. During Game 5 of the finals, Irving was trending worldwide on Twitter, under both his name and Uncle Drew’s name.

Read more…

Posted in bad reporting, Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Colt McCoy, Kyrie Irving
22 Jun 2012

20 Big Cleveland Sports Stories – Part 4

Technology and social media has changed the way we watch and interact with fans during sports events. We can be at home on the couch, at the stadium or the arena, and still interact with a community of Indians, Browns and Cavs fans across the country and around the world through Twitter, Facebook and e-mail.

That got us thinking about some of the biggest Cleveland sports moments in our lifetime in the pre-blog and social media era, which we are defining as anything before 2004.

So we came up with the 20 biggest sports stories that would have made the Internet blow up in Cleveland had these various social media platforms existed at the time.

Today’s installment closes out the list as we reveal No. 5 through No. 1 at The Cleveland Fan.

You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 over here and Part 3 over there.

(Photo by The Associated Press)

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians | Leave a comment
21 Jun 2012

20 Big Cleveland Sports Stories – Part 3

Technology and social media has changed the way we watch and interact with fans during sports events. We can be at home on the couch, at the stadium or the arena, and still interact with a community of Indians, Browns and Cavs fans across the country and around the world through Twitter, Facebook and e-mail.

That got us thinking about some of the biggest Cleveland sports moments in our lifetime in the pre-blog and social media era, which we are defining as anything before 2004.

So we came up with the 20 biggest sports stories that would have made the Internet blow up in Cleveland had these various social media platforms existed at the time.

Today’s installment looks at No. 10 through No. 6 and can be found at The Cleveland Fan.

Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found over here.

(Photo by The Plain Dealer)

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians | Leave a comment
20 Jun 2012

20 Big Cleveland Sports Stories – Part 2

Technology and social media has changed the way we watch and interact with fans during sports events. We can be at home on the couch, at the stadium or the arena, and still interact with a community of Indians, Browns and Cavs fans across the country and around the world through Twitter, Facebook and e-mail.

That got us thinking about some of the biggest Cleveland sports moments in our lifetime in the pre-blog and social media era, which we are defining as anything before 2004.

So we came up with the 20 biggest sports stories that would have made the Internet blow up in Cleveland had these various social media platforms existed at the time.

Today’s installment looks at No. 15 through No. 11 and can be found at The Cleveland Fan.

In case you missed Part 1, you can find it here.

(Photo by Sports Illustrated)

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians | Leave a comment
20 Jun 2012

20 Big Cleveland Sports Stories – Part 1

A few weeks ago, while at the Indians game with some of our fellow writers at The Cleveland Fan, there was a point in the game where we looked around and seemingly everyone in our group was busy looking down and tapping away on some kind of device.

Being the only person in the group without a smart phone made us realize how much technology and social media has changed the way we watch and interact during sports events. We can be at home on the couch, at the stadium or the arena, and still interact with a community of Indians, Browns and Cavs fans across the country and around the world through Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. (And that doesn’t even take into account the numerous high-quality fans sites devoted to Cleveland sports).

That got us thinking about some of the biggest Cleveland sports moments in our lifetime in the pre-blog and social media era, which we are defining as anything before 2004. Because while Syknet may have become self-aware in 1999, sports blogs didn’t become prevalent in town until 2004, the same year Facebook was created, and Twitter did not launch until 2006.

So we came up with the 20 biggest sports stories that would have made the Internet blow up in Cleveland had these various social media platforms existed at the time.

To find out No. 20 through No. 16, head over to The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo by The Plain Dealer)

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians | Leave a comment
19 Jun 2012

Searching for answers in Browns Town

We come here today seeking answers to a seemingly simple question:

Why?

As in, why are some Browns fans so dysfunctional?

As in, why does it matter what Jim Brown thinks about the team?

As the Browns were wrapping up the last Organized Team Activity before training camp, team president Mike Holmgren gave a relatively benign press conference last week. Overall, Holmgren didn’t say much, but he did leave fans with two takeaways: one, he would try to be more accessible with the media as long they as didn’t cause shenanigans and, two, the Browns will actually wear their Brown jerseys next season.

Easy enough, thanks, and we’ll see everyone at the end of July. And then someone had to bring up the franchise’s strained relationship with Jim Brown.

“How the Browns view Jim Brown hasn’t changed and will never change,” Holmgren said. “I would love to see Jim Brown walk in right now or come to the Legends thing, be a part of this. … Because Jim’s role changed here, I could see where he got a little upset with me, perhaps. I would like Jim Brown to come and be a part of this and feel comfortable doing that and I would welcome him with open arms.”

Read more…

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Euro 2012, Kent State, Spain | Leave a comment
16 Jun 2012

The Big Show, England and other random stuff

Browns team president Mike Holmgren spoke to the media on the eve of the Browns final team event before the start of training camp and surprisingly had a few things to day.

First, he’s going to try and get out in front of the press a bit more this year. As much as he tried to let general manager Tom Heckert and coach Pat Shurmur handle things, he’s decided to throw the Cleveland media a bone once in a while.

“Now, exactly how that is going to manifest itself, I couldn’t really give you the blueprint for that yet,” Holmgren said during the press conference. “But, I’ve talked to both Pat (Shurmur) and Tom (Heckert) about this idea and they have to know and your coach has to know that the president is on your side.

“It’s going to be a little bit of a change, but we all have to understand this, this is really important, that Pay Shurmur is the coach of this football team, he will make football decisions. Tom Heckert and Pat and I talk about every football decision, but the head coach has to have that responsibility otherwise it doesn’t work very well, in my opinion. That’s how it’s going to be set up.”

Read more…

Posted in Cleveland Browns, England, Euro 2012 | Leave a comment

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