CLEVELAND, Ohio -- I once yelped, quite loudly, "Oh, my God!" in a press box. It wasn't after I had hot coffee spilled down my back, either. I am ashamed to say it was after LeBron James hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat Orlando in the playoffs.

I'm more ashamed that it was a hosanna to James than that I raised my voice in praise, although that is a serious lapse in sports journalism, too. It was pretty much swallowed up by the roar of the crowd at The Q, but it showed how thin is the membrane of objectivity in which reporters try to wrap our fan impulses.

It was always a flimsy construct, the idea that a reporter could live in a city for decades or grow up in a city and work there, yet still approach sporting contests with strict objectivity and flat-lined emotions. The difference is that we write from a perch that is a step removed from the sharp pain or joy of those cheering or booing in the crowd. Mostly, reporters root for the best story. It usually is the wisest policy.

Then along comes a book such as "The Whore of Akron," displaced Clevelander Scott Raab's searing, raw, fascinating retelling of one of the most repugnant stories in the city's sports history -- James' surrender on the court, defection from the city and revelation of "The Decision" on an insulting ESPN show.

Raab's torment over the betrayal is the worst I have seen. And I have talked to Drew Carey about Cleveland's passion, indeed, its near obsession, with sports.

The Cleveland comedian once did public-service announcements urging fans to put the city's sad sports history in perspective, telling them not to let how their team fared on the field or court affect how they saw themselves. It was a lesson Carey had to learn the hard way.

"I took losing hard. I took it hard all the way through 'The Drive' in 1987. That was the last time I got so upset I cried after a game," said Carey, who was 29 when John Elway drove Denver through the wind, cold and flying dog bones.

I stood on the worn, green-painted dirt of old Municipal Stadium in 1995, after the last home game before Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore. People ripped out their seats as souvenirs. The players, most of whom never wanted to leave, embraced the sobbing fans. Former Browns center Mike Baab stood near the Dawg Pound, taking photographs of the lamentations. So many hundreds of fans had taken the Browns' pictures throughout the years, but Baab sensed that it should have been the other way around. There was no greater portrait of "family" and "loyalty" in sports than in the grief of the fans that day.

The words with the quotation marks are deliberately chosen because they are tattooed on James' rib cage. Raab, a writer at large for Esquire magazine, brings those inconvenient tats up during his 300-page search for James' soul. Not surprisingly, he doesn't find one.

Raw, rough and raging, "The Whore of Akron" is as much about sports obsession and Raab's own wounded self-image as it is about James. It is a fierce, at times brilliant, passage through a landscape blighted by defeat and dominated these days by the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader," the NBA house organ and James' apology factory, ESPN.

After 40 years on deadline at three different newspapers in the Southwest, East and Midwest, I remain awed by the power of sports, for both good and bad. Raab represents both poles, the fierce commitments and the savage recriminations. He is a proud Clevelander, and so he is at his best describing the desolation with which he copes. It is hard to do bleak without seeming barren, but he pulls it off.

I don't root for career-ending injuries to players, James included. Raab does. My position is not a morally superior standpoint. I take it because I have seen how hard it is for young players to let go of their dreams when they are only teenagers.

Windowpanes might be put in press boxes to mute the thunder and weaken the storms the fans feel out there in the roaring community of the stands. Raab's rant, infused at times with great tenderness when he writes about his son, is a compelling read. His passion is vast and sprawling, an awesome thing to behold.

Still, the next time, I will simply tweet, "OMG."

On Twitter: @LivyPD