Browns running back Peyton Hillis has somehow made it to the finals of an ESPN contest to see who will be on the cover of the Madden NFL 12 video game.
ESPN.com’s SportsNation announced Monday that Hillis earned 61 percent of votes cast to “upset” Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Hillis now will face Philadelphia quarterback Michael Vick in the finals.
Hillis’ campaign has grown with get out and vote calls from many.
But not from us.
We know it’s just superstition, just a coincidence, there’s no basis in logic or fact, but … the Madden Curse is real. Don’t be swayed by so-called “logic.”
The Browns and Cleveland sports have enough problems without going out and looking for trouble. Why not just start selling Hillis voodoo dolls in Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cincinnati? Or have a gypsy come to the locker room and give him the evil eye?
With the way things work around here, if Hillis makes the cover he probably won’t even make it to training camp before being stricken by some fluke injury or strange, never-before-seen ailment.
This is Cleveland, after all.
And we’re going to sit this one out.
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Another reason to like Cleveland is the upcoming opening of the Sports Research Center, which is scheduled to open April 25 in the Cleveland Public Library.
According to The Plain Dealer, the center, the only one of its kind in Northeast Ohio, will showcase the best of Cleveland sports history with more than 25,000 books and magazines and research materials, including old photos, scrapbooks, movies and movie clips.
“We will have more baseball-related material than any other building in the country” except the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., Tena Wilson, a library administrator, told The PD. “We’ll be revealing a lot of hidden treasures.”
“Sports are a part of Cleveland DNA,” Felton Thomas, Cleveland Public Library director, said in the article. “Clevelanders either love or hate the changing weather seasons, but they always embrace the start of a new sports season. And this [center] gives fans a chance to travel back into Cleveland sports history to reminisce about a favorite player or game or discover something new about their beloved sports teams and heroes.”