Cleveland's Finest. Vince McKee

at second base between pitcher Bob Feller and second-baseman Joe Gordon was called safe, even though the runner was clearly out. The runner was able to stay on base and came home to score shortly thereafter, giving the Braves an eighth-inning 1–0 lead that they would not surrender.

      “The Indians were down but not out,” stated DeLuca. The next two games were Indians victories due to excellent pitching performances by Bob Lemon and Gene Bearden. Game two was a victory against the phenomenal Boston Brave pitcher Warren Spahn. Cleveland went on to win game four, thanks to a great pitching effort by Steve Gromek and a game-winning home run by Larry Doby. After a rare shaky performance by Bob Feller, the Indians lost game five 11–5, taking the series back to Boston.

      October 11, 1948, was the last time Cleveland celebrated a World Championship win in baseball. It came on the heels of another great performance by pitcher Bob Lemon, where the Indians beat the Braves 4–3. Cleveland had held off a Boston two-run rally in the eighth inning to hold on for the win and the World Championship title.

      The next day, Cleveland’s public schools were closed so that the children could join in the downtown celebration. A 20-car escort led the parade route, with Bill Veeck and Lou Boudreau sitting in the lead car while the crowds of people alongside the parade screamed in pure joy. In the mass of people, DeLuca found himself standing alongside none other than the visiting team’s bat boy, Alan Broyles. For the first time all season, Broyles was actually showing emotion as DeLuca saw a single tear trickle down his cheek. It turned out that he was a fan after all.

      In 1946, professional football returned to Cleveland when Mickey McBride, real estate agent and owner of the Yellow Cab Taxi Company, founded the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland had a prior professional football team in town called the Cleveland Rams; however, after winning a championship in 1945, the team’s owner, Dan Reeves, relocated the Rams to another town.

      Mickey McBride’s first order of business was to move the Cleveland Browns from League Park to the new Cleveland Municipal Stadium downtown. If not for this improvement, there might not have been a football team in Cleveland for many years. Many fans have the false impression that the team was named after the “Brown Bomber,” Joe Louis, when in fact the Cleveland Browns were actually named after legendary coach Paul Brown, whom McBride hired to coach his new team. This naming came after a failed attempt in the local Cleveland newspaper to let the fans decide on a name for the team. Though the fans had voted for the Panthers as the name, Paul Brown shot that down, stating that the Panthers were associated with past failed team in another town.

      Brown was brought in to coach the Cleveland Browns after years of serving in the US Navy and following very successful coaching stints at Massilon High School and Ohio State University. He signed a contract worth a reported $17,500 yearly, which at the time was the highest paid coaching contract in football. McBride even reportedly offered Brown a stipend for the rest of his time in the military.

      Brown wasted no time signing as many players as he felt were needed to help the team win immediately. With some of the biggest and best players brought aboard, including Northwestern quarterback Otto Graham, eventual Hall of Famer running back Marion Motley, star wide receiver Dante Lavelli, and placekicker Lou “The Toe” Groza, the new team in town proved to be a force to reckon with. The Browns began practicing at the campus of Bowling Green State University, located a few hours west of Cleveland. The team colors, brown and orange, came from the Bowling Green Falcons.

      “The Browns were being led by a great disciplinarian,” detailed now-80-year-old Browns fan Joe DeLuca. “Brown was such a strict coach that he even enforced a dress code, but that was why his players respected him. He even fired the team’s captain, Jim Daniel, after he had gotten drunk a week before the 1946 championship game. Daniel had gotten so drunk that he took a swing at a cop. In order to set an example for the rest of his team, Paul Brown didn’t hesitate to cut his captain.”

      The Browns joined the All-American Football Conference in 1946. Brown was so well prepared that he convinced McBride to keep a list of reserves who didn’t make the team employed on his taxicab payroll just in case of an injury. The part-time taxi drivers were fondly known as the Taxi Squad. Brown searched the entire country to bring in the best talent he could find.

      The Browns took the field at Municipal Stadium for their first game against the Miami Seahawks in front of 63,000 fans on September 6, 1946. DeLuca can still close his eyes and recall the moment: “The lights were shut off in the whole stadium, the only light coming from the exits signs, when a spotlight from the right-field stands turned on. The light shone into the dugout, where the Miami Seahawks players were about to run out and take the field. As the announcer spoke and the first player from the Seahawks ran across the field, he kicked up a little dust as he ran across the dirt infield. I remember getting chills seeing this, thinking something great was happening. I still get goose bumps as I think about it all these years later.”

      DeLuca can still name every single player from the 1946 roster, the position they played, and their number without even having to look at a team picture. Years later, he would meet Lou Groza at a laundromat and tell him that it was the greatest team in Browns history. When Groza asked him why he felt that team was the best ever, DeLuca replied, “If that team was lousy, no one would have come and they would have left town.” It was vital that the 1946 Cleveland Browns be great.

      Coach Brown’s winning team brought packed houses for each game. Cleveland fans quickly forgot about the Rams when the Browns crushed the Seahawks and kept the ball rolling all season. McBride was a smart businessman who took full advantage of the team’s success, selling tickets at the premium price of 25 cents apiece. Included in each paid program was a raffle ticket that entered fans in a drawing to win a brand-new car. McBride even promised a big celebrity would appear at every home game as well.

      In 1946, the Cleveland Browns won their first league championship against the New York Yankees, 14–9. This completed a magical first season that spilled over into a 1947 season. In their second year, the Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts 42–0 for a second consecutive championship. Heading into 1948, nothing would change: The Browns won their third championship with a 49–7 trouncing over the Buffalo Bills. The Cleveland Browns did not lose a single game the entire 1948 season, making them a dominant force in the league.

      The year 1948 in sports had been so amazing for Cleveland that the city was now known simply as “The City of Champions.” As DeLuca shared, “We were so spoiled with all the winning, it was as if it would never end.” In 1949, the Browns won the championship title yet again under the direction of Brown with a 21–7 win over the San Francisco 49ers. In 1950, the Cleveland Browns moved into the NFL and remained dominant, winning the championship on Christmas Eve over the Los Angeles Rams 30–28. Paul Brown was proving he could win in any league at any level. DeLuca attended that game with hundreds of other rabid fans, freezing but winning! The irony was sweet, because they had just beaten the former Cleveland Rams.

      The Browns would go on to reach the championship finals for the next three years, but they did not win those championships. Changes for Coach Brown started before the 1953 season when McBride sold the team to a group of local businessmen led by David Jones for $600,000. Brown was upset that McBride did not consult him about the deal, even though the new owners assured him they would stay out of the picture and let Brown run the team. This was a vital issue for Brown, who needed full control over personnel decisions in order for his system to work successfully.

      Brown remained unfazed with the ownership change and led the Browns to back-to-back NFL championship wins over the Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams in 1954 and 1955. The 1955 championship would be the last one for which Brown retained Otto Graham, who announced his retirement following that final game.

      In 1956, the Browns suffered their first losing season under Coach Brown as they struggled to go 5–7. It was their first season without Graham as quarterback, and the team had problems adjusting. In the following year’s draft, the team selected Jim Brown out of Syracuse University. Loaded with talent, Jim Brown was one of the greatest runners to ever play the game. The problem, however, was his lack of discipline, which he later used to misalign