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Another Reason I'm Glad I'm Not A Sports Fan In Cleveland

The "Where Will LeBron Go?" sweepstakes officially began at midnight, although it really started more than two years ago.

In a way, that premature speculation makes the whole thing even more obnoxious than the annual Favre-a-thon. If I were a Cavaliers fan I'd be as annoyed about that as I would be nervous about him leaving.

Unfortunately, that's the reality of the small market/large market landscape of modern professional sports. Any time a team in a city like Cleveland finds themselves with a superstar, it's assumed on some level that he'll eventually wind up in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.

Personally, I'd love to see LeBron pull a Joe Mauer and stay right there in Cleveland. I know he wants to cash in and win championships. I don't begrudge him that. There are lots of teams in a better position to make those things happen than the Cavaliers... but can you even imagine being the guy who brings a title to that city? Talk about being set for life.

Of course, we're sort of staring down the barrel of a somewhat similar situation, albeit on a much smaller scale, with Carl Crawford.

And while we're not nearly as starved for championships as Cleveland, it would be a truly special moment to see Crawford host a World Series trophy over his head wearing a champagne-soaked Rays uniform some day.

Photographs by cstreet.us, thelastminute, turtlemom nancy , fesek, kthypryn, justinwright, sue_elias, pointnshoot, and scrapstothefuture used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.