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Cleveland Sports On Demand Wishlist

Last week, during the mid-summer dead period of sports – World Cup over, baseball on its All-Star break, no basketball, football not yet here – I started to dream of an on demand channel that featured Cleveland sports games through the decades.

No sporting events happening? Just order up a complete game from the past, sit back and enjoy. And if I had every Browns, Indians and Cavs game at my fingertips, which would be my go-to selections? Most of my top choices are older games, either ones that happened before I was born or I was too young to remember.

For the Browns, you’d have to start with the championship games, not just the NFL titles, but the AAFC ones as well. Other must-have games include:

• A Jim Brown game vs. Sam Huff and the New York Giants
• The 1972 Monday Night game vs. San Diego that the Browns won on a late Mike Phipps to Frank Pitts TD pass
• The Browns defeat of Dallas in 1979 on Monday Night Football
• The 1976 game vs. Pittsburgh when David Mays came off the bench to lead the Browns to the win
• Brian Sipe’s last game as a Brown, a 30-17 win over Pittsburgh at the Stadium
• The double OT win vs. the Jets in the 1986 playoffs
• The 1986 win in Three Rivers Stadium

For the Cavs:

• Any of the four playoff wins vs. Washington in the Miracle of Richfield season
• The blowout of Boston in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals that same season
• The Cavs Game 3 win vs. Boston in the 1985 playoffs
• The Game 4 OT win vs. Chicago in the 1989 playoffs
• The OT win in Boston Garden in the 1992 playoffs
• The Game 2 win against Chicago in the Eastern Conference Finals in 1992
• The team’s first ever victory, a 105-103 win over Portland

For the Indians:

• A Luis Tiant game from the 1968 season, when he won 21 games with a 1.60 ERA
• A Sam McDowell game from the 1970 season, when he won 20 games
• An early 1970s game when the Indians had Chris Chambliss and Graig Nettles
• A Gaylord Perry game from his Cy Young season of 1972
• The 1975 home opener when Frank Robinson homered
• Dennis Eckersley’s no-hitter in 1977
• The home opener in 1980, when Super Joe Charboneau became a legend
• Game 5 of the ALCS in 1995 when Paul Assenmacher struck out Ken Griffey
• Sandy Alomar’s homerun off of Mariano Rivera in the 1997 playoffs

That’s a good start for a list. I’m sure, given enough time, I could come up with several games I’ve overlooked.

I don’t know if something like this will ever become available as it’s unlikely that film exists of some of these games.

But I’m old enough to remember when we only had five channels to watch on the TV and televising a home game for the Indians and Cavs was not even a consideration, while the Browns could only sell out their home game vs. Pittsburgh. Plus you got one college football game on Saturday.

Now we have games in HD, virtually every game is televised, NFL Sunday Ticket, NBA League Pass and MLB Extra Innings, so anything is possible.

We may be on to something here.