Before Jim and John Harbaugh became Ohio’s sports enemies, they were Ohio boys who loved the Cleveland Indians

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Two of Ohio’s biggest sports activities enemies beam on the digital camera whereas standing on one of many state’s hallowed athletic grounds.

Jim and John Harbaugh can’t be older than 12 years previous within the photograph, and there couldn’t have been greater than 3,000 individuals at Cleveland Municipal Stadium when it was taken.

However one Nineteen Seventies summer time day, throughout their newest household trip to Cleveland, the Harbaugh boys snuck onto the sphere throughout the seventh inning of a baseball recreation and posed for an image with then-Indians first baseman Tommy McCraw.

This weekend, John will lead the Baltimore Ravens into FirstEnergy Stadium hoping to shear the final shred of the Browns’ playoff hopes.

4 weeks again, Jim’s Wolverines induced an uproar in Columbus by planting a Michigan flag within the turf at Ohio Stadium.

However again within the ‘70s, the Harbaughs have been Ohio boys. Their father, Jack, nonetheless doesn’t understand how they made it to discipline stage or satisfied McCraw to pose for an image. However he retains the Polaroid cut-out, which he considers one of many household’s most treasured artifacts, to show they did. And to show that, as Jack advised cleveland.com this week:

“We go a great distance again with Ohio.”

Really helpful Browns tales

Jack’s journey started in Crestline, about 90 miles south of Cleveland and 60 north of Columbus. He selected no horse within the Ohio State vs. Michigan rivalry – the Catholic-school child most popular Notre Dame – however he beloved the Browns and Indians.

At 83, Jack can nonetheless rattle off the names: Lou Boudreau, Kenny Keltner, Jim Hegan, Dale Mitchell of the Indians. Otto Graham, Frank “Gunner” Gatski, Dante Lavelli, Mac Speedie, “and naturally, Paul Brown,” Jack stated.

His household was glued to the TV set each Sunday to look at “the best present in soccer.” And he nonetheless feels delight fascinated about 1948, the 12 months “we” gained the World Collection.

“I say ‘we’ as a result of I contemplate myself an awesome Cleveland Indian fan,” Jack stated.

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Jack met his nice Cleveland love about 10 years later, when he and Jackie Cipiti have been each college students at Bowling Inexperienced. Jackie graduated from Shaw Excessive Faculty and first encountered Jack whereas cheerleading at BG. Jack performed soccer and baseball, and although he spent three years gathering the braveness to ask Jackie out in 1959, they have been married two years afterward Nov. 25, 1961 – the identical day Ohio State beat Michigan 50-20 in Ann Arbor.

The following day, Jack and Jackie watched the Browns lose 37-21 to the Giants at house. They contemplate that recreation their honeymoon.

John arrived one 12 months later, and Jim got here 14 months after John.

In the meantime, Jack minimize his teaching enamel via the Ohio teaching ranks. He began because the lone coach at Canton McKinley Junior Excessive – no assistants. And the household would transfer to Perrysburg; Eaton; Xenia; Morehead, Kentucky; and Bowling Inexperienced earlier than leaving the state for good in 1970.

They by no means stopped visiting Jackie’s household in Cleveland, although, and Jack beloved taking the children to baseball video games. Amid a 39-year playoff drought, the Cleveland baseball crowds have been often sparse. So Jack would problem his youngsters to shag as many fly balls as they may.

“Should you’re something near an athlete,” he remembers saying, “you’ll come out of this stadium at present with three baseballs. All it’s important to do on foul balls is have the ability to run. Should you don’t get three or 4 balls, you’re not close to the athlete that I believe you’re.”

Nearly 50 years later, Jack holds these recollections dearest. He remembers no field scores from these baseball video games or the highschool video games he and the children attended on recruiting journeys. However he cherishes the automobile rides backward and forward – radio off – throughout which he picked his kids’s brains.

He needs he knew them as adults earlier than he began teaching. Jim and John relate to gamers higher than Jack ever did, in his personal estimation. He considers his period’s teaching type too “authoritarian” and loves the best way his sons embody assistants and gamers of their choices.

Maybe that’s why they’ve been caught of their house state’s craw in recent times. John is 23-4 in opposition to Cleveland throughout his profession, together with 4-1 in opposition to Browns coach Kevin Stefanski. Jim began off 0-5 in opposition to Ohio State however now has gained two straight over the Buckeyes, and consecutive Massive Ten Championships.

Jack cheers their success from Ann Arbor and stays a proud Ohioan. The state is the place he constructed his life, and he’ll at all times maintain it “close to and expensive” to his coronary heart.

Throughout weeks like this, nevertheless, Otto Graham and Paul Brown must forgive him. Household first.

“It’s tough,” Jack stated. “You by no means need the Browns to climb over you within the convention standings, and also you definitely don’t wish to lose to them on Saturday. If It doesn’t contain these two issues, I’m a Cleveland Brown fan.”

Should you or a beloved one has questions and wishes to speak to knowledgeable about playing, name the Ohio Drawback Playing Helpline at 1-800-589-9966 or the Nationwide Council on Program Playing Helpline (NCPG) at 1-800-522-4700.