by Steve Love | Sep 17, 2021 | Blog
When the 0-1 Cleveland Browns play host on Sunday to the surprisingly 1-0 Houston Texans, Odell Beckham Jr. will continue his self-assigned role as the team’s No.1 wide receiver in limbo. He’s a liminal WR1. He occupies an awkward space that is, frankly, difficult to...
by Steve Love | Sep 16, 2021 | Blog
Even in a small town—or, maybe, especially in a small town—downtown becomes a focal point of life. I grew up on the town limits of such a place and, even so, downtown was only a short, safe bike ride away. It had everything a boy needed: a couple of drug stores with...
by Steve Love | Sep 13, 2021 | Blog
During the past season plus one game, the Cleveland Browns have cleared many of the hurdles that for years had tripped them and prevented them from becoming respectable. They have made quantum leaps—but only over the lowest hurdles. The last hurdles are high. They...
by Steve Love | Sep 12, 2021 | Blog
Men of a certain age—middle to dotage—have been known to attempt to turn back their clocks with fast cars, faster women, and even pinball machines with fast flippers. Fast cars can kill a man. Faster women can make him wish he were dead. So except for one small...
by Steve Love | Sep 8, 2021 | Blog
When skill players want the football in their hands, inevitably some ninny will inquire: Are there enough footballs to go around? As if Wilson is going to run short. (The NFL version is made in Ada, Ohio, of course. Everything NFL seems to come back to Ohio. We are...
by Steve Love | Sep 6, 2021 | Blog
pound4pound.com Photo Doyle Baird (left) guides one of the fighters he helped through the years When Doyle Baird was young, Akron was a tough rubber town, a fight town. Tire builders still stretched the rubber that became the carcasses onto their machines with their...
