LeBron James draws the ire of Cleveland sports fans for his New York Yankees shoe.
MITCHELL BLATT

LeBron James has been hated by Clevelanders for the past few years for his love of the New York Yankees. His newest shoe design only furthered Cleveland sports fans’ annoyance. Early on in his career, he would often wear a Yankees hat onto the court. He even wore a Yankees hat to Jacobs’ Field (now Progressive Field) to one game of the Indians playoff series against the Yankees.

As a Clevelander, that’s just fine with me. He grew up in Akron, and his favorite team is the Yankees. For college sports, he professes to support USC, Ohio State, Texas, and just about any other team that has had success in recent years. He’s a bandwagen boy, so what? Just because the Yankees happen to be the most hated team in the history of sports doesn’t mean you should care that LeBron supports them.

So he wears a Yankees hat to an Indians game?

What matters is that he wears a Cavs jersey to Cavs games. LeBron might piss you off raising his Yankees hat in the air, but the next day, he scores 30 for the Cavs.

Most of the Yankees fans at the game (that would be most of the fans, period, at any Indians-Yankees game that isn’t a playoff game) come all the way to Cleveland to watch an away game just so they can scream a drunken chants out then do nothing for Cleveland again until it comes time for them to invade the city again.

It’s not their fault. It’s the Indians fans who haven’t ever been to the ballpark ever since Larry Dolan took over the team and cut payroll so that the Indians ended their streak of winning the AL Central throughout the 90’s. They shouldn’t be whining about LeBron not supporting the team after they didn’t support the team for those years.

Like I said, he’s a freakin fan and he likes the Yankees, and he’s much better than any regular Yankees fan because he does contribute to Cleveland sports.

Course, most Clevelanders who do bash him for wearing his Yankees hat say that it’s a sign that he wants to play for New York. Well, once New York has new management take over, maybe. (Considering how much they pay their players now, LeBron would need about $50 million a year to be paid on the same scale.)

Liking a baseball team in one city is no reason for playing on that city’s basketball team.

However, LeBron-haters may point to quotes like this one by Nike spokeman Kejaun Wilkins:

“LeBron has a great appreciation for New York City itself, and this is just another tie.”

Honestly, it would make a lot of sense for him to go to New York. It probably will happen at some point in his career. He says he wants to be the first athlete billionaire, and he seems to have a good grip on how to market himself. New York’s big market would probably mean more marketing money.

If it happens, so be it. I’ll probably be pissed when it does. But for now he’s a Cav. And it makes no sense being preoccupied on the future. I’m more concerned with the here and now. I’m more interested in how he scored 50 points against Charlotte on January 11, and how he scored 40+ in four of his last five games.

If he bolts for New York, I’ll miss him. But right now, I’m enjoying him…

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