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It has been so long since Cleveland won a championship, the photos are black and white. Cleveland Browns Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown carries the ball in the 1964 NFL title game at Municipal Stadium. The Browns beat the Baltimore Colts, 27-0, on Dec. 27, 1964, and Cleveland fans have not experienced a championship in 138 combined Browns, Cavaliers and Indians seasons since then.

(Paul Tepley, Photo courtesy Cleveland Browns)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- My priest called me last week.

“I need counseling,'' Rev. Tim Plavac said.

This is never a good omen, when a man of God reaches out to a sportswriter.

“This is serious,'' he said.

I glanced out the window for signs of an apocalypse, and braced for an earthquake or flood. Nothing happened, not even a stray locust.

Whew.

“Tim, I need you to talk me out of doing something rash,'' he continued.

It was beginning to make sense. He sounded like a Browns fan.

Indeed, Father Tim is a lifelong Cleveland sports fan, and he explained he is at his wits end with the Browns. He is perplexed they gave up on Rob Chudzinski and appear lost in a seemingly meandering replacement search. If the Browns demonstrated so little patience with Chudzinski, where did that leave fans running out of patience with the Browns, he wondered.

Father Tim knows a thing or two about patience. (Just having me in his parish is troubling enough.) A Cleveland native, he has been, until now, a patient and persistent fan who was just just a boy when Cleveland last won it all – in anything.

His patience clearly is being tested.

Far be it for me to tell him the story of Job, who was tested more times than the Browns defense in the red zone, which this season Moses could have parted with a couple sheep and a hickory stick.

The truth is, patience is a virtue that has made Cleveland fans like none other for the last half century.

No city's fans have endured so much and celebrated so little. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Cleveland's most recent major pro sports championship, the NFL title won by the 1964 Browns, a team that never got a parade, much less a fake confetti shower. This year, Cleveland will do what Cleveland does best, celebrate another anniversary in the likely absence of a championship.

The Vince Lombardi Trophy, given to the Super Bowl winner.

Cleveland has mostly suffered through 138 combined Browns, Indians and Cavaliers seasons since the '64 championship, and has nothing to show for it but four second-place finishes and legacy of shoulda, coulda, wouldas known as The Fumble, The Shot and Jose Mesa. The Indians lost two World Series and the Cavs were swept in their lone NBA Finals. The Browns were '65 NFL runners-up and have yet to play in a Super Bowl.

What's the appropriate jewelry for Cleveland fans on such a 50th anniversary? Iron pyrite rings for fifty years of fools gold? What a marriage this has been. During this half-century of anxiety-laced close calls, we watched championship rings bestowed upon the likes of Art Modell, LeBron James and Manny Ramirez – after they left Cleveland.

This year marks 66 years since the Indians won a World Series. Only the Chicago Cubs (1908) have waited longer. The bannerless Cavaliers are in their 44th season with no rings in sight. The Browns, with four AAFC championships and four NFL titles between 1946 and 1964, were for a time football's greatest franchise. Now, since returning in 1999, they are perhaps the worst, rewarding a loyal fan base with two winning seasons, 20 quarterbacks and soon to be seven coaches.

It is a pathetic record in Cleveland: 138 seasons and zero championships.

As bad as that is, it says something greater about Cleveland fans. Since the madness began in 1965, fans have purchased 112,332,449 tickets to see the Browns, Cavs and Indians play regular-season games. That's loyalty. That's faith. That's patience even Job would admire.

That's also a lot of money. Cleveland fans have dug more than a billion of dollars from their pockets and poured them into the coffers of three professional sports championship black holes.

Yes, fans have been entertained. There have been priceless thrills, many of them. But championships really aren't even part of the discussion any more. Instead fans hear about “sustained success'' and “competitive windows,” and other nonsense.

That's why I'll always respect Marty Schottenheimer for hanging at the entrance of the Browns practice locker room a poster of the Super Bowl trophy in the 1980s, a constant reminder of the true goal in professional sports. Win it all.

So, 138 seasons later, Cleveland awaits its next champion, and fans come back for every next year there is. Even when there weren't next years in 1996-98 with no Browns, they came back in 1999 and packed the joint. Fans come back after recessions, strikes, ridiculous trades and horrendous drafts.

“Is there a limit?'' Father Tim asked.

Don't ask me. In this championship drought of biblical proportions, ask Job.