Missing Cleveland Municipal Stadium

Missing Cleveland Municipal Stadium – Youtube, you, too, with the old stadium?

By STEVE KING

I guess I’m a traditionalist and nostalgic.

No, actually now that I think about it, I don’t GUESS I am those things. I know I am.

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And I’m not ashamed to admit it.

It probably has at least something to do with the fact I’m also old – er, I mean older.

I’m not ashamed to admit that, either.

It happens to all of us – that is, if you’re blessed enough to live a long time, and I am truly blessed in many regards, including that one.

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Being a traditionalist and nostalgic doesn’t mean that everything way back when was great and everything now is awful. Not at all. Hardly.

It just means that I’m not dismissive out of hand of either the past or the present. They both, obviously, have tremendous worth in our lives.

Whatever the case, while I was writing the other day, I got off-track when I had to call my TV provider to fix a problem. The timing was perfect. Needing a break from my work, I fished around on YouTube afterward and ended up watching part of the original telecast of the Browns’ 1989 AFC divisional playoff game against the Buffalo Bills, and also the entire NFL Films highlight video of the 1973 Browns-Pittsburgh Steelers game, both of which reminded me how much I am missing Cleveland Municipal Stadium .

Charlie Jones (play-by-play announcer) and Merlin Olsen (color analyst), both of whom are now deceased, did the telecast of the Bills game for NBC, while the legendary John Facenda narrated the Pittsburgh contest. I attended both games as a fan, sitting in Section 50 (smack-dab in the middle of the grandstand) of the Dawg Pound/bleachers.

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For the record, the Bills game was the one in which Ronnie Harmon dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone at the end, followed by Clay Matthews’ interception of a Jim Kelly pass at the 1 to preserve a 34-30 Browns victory.

The Pittsburgh contest, played in the rain and mud, was the one in which Mike Phipps and Greg Pruitt, eluding a combined total of 11 Steelers, connected on a 43-yard pass play late in the fourth quarter. It was one of the most incredible plays I’ve ever seen – still. That set up Pruitt’s score two plays later on a 19-yard run to provide a 21-16 win.

Especially in the NBC telecast, which enabled me to get a much more real and live feel for what I was watching, I was reminded – again – of just how much I’m missing Cleveland Municipal Stadium. I loved that old place. Actually, I didn’t need to be reminded. I’ve never forgotten it. The fact is embedded in my soul for as long as I live.

Yes, I know all the negative aspects of the stadium. They were this, that and the other and have been rehashed again and again for decades. We certainly don’t need to go there for the billionth time, so, thankfully, we won’t.

What far superseded all that was the ambiance of the place, the feeling every time you were in it that so many iconic athletes – in baseball as well as football, and from both the Cleveland teams and their opponents — had played there. It gave me chills just writing that sentence.

Missing Cleveland Municipal Stadium — CLEVELAND – MAY 17: A general view of Cleveland Municipal Stadium during a game on May 17, 1992 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jeff Hixon/Gettyimages)

Those feelings – those memories – that you have from your own experiences there, or received when they were passed down to you by your parents, grandparents or whomever, are part of the reason why you regularly read this website, Browns Daily Dose, for which we are extremely appreciative.

And as I mull this over further, it drives home even more the point to me – and also probably to most of you – just how important it is for these new guys running the Browns – Andrew Berry, Kevin Stefanski and Paul DePodesta – to get this thing right and make the team really good again. It’s been way too long since that’s been the case.

How long has it been, exactly?

So long that some of you reading this were never even in that old stadium.

That’s a long, long time.

Are you listening, you decision-makers at Browns Headquarters in Berea – that is, when y’all are able to return there?

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