E-Mail This Article to a Friend Starving for a title: Pro sports’ top-10 most fed-up cities BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Not to rub it in, but New England fans are awash in optimism about their sports teams. You may have heard about the football team, which is planning to be part of the 38th annual Super Bowl contest on February 1. You may even be familiar with the prospects of the area baseball team, which for a time overshadowed the exploits of the Flying Elvises, and has hardball fans frothing at the mouth — a month before spring training opens — over the prospect of seeing the Red Sox retrace their gridiron brethren’s steps nine months later on the parade route toward Boston’s Government Center Plaza. And even the Bruins and Celtics are not exactly embarrassments to their followers, and continue to tease, if not entertain.

But things aren’t so rosy in other metropolises across the land. There are long-suffering fans — i.e. Red Sox Nation — and then there are sports fanatics who suffer along with their teams in every single sport they participate in. Sometimes the teams are just plain bad every year; sometimes they’re just good enough to pique your interest, only to snuff out any flickers of hope at the worst possible instant.

So while cocky New England fans beat their chests and proclaim to the heavens how good they’ve got it, let’s take a tour of our great land and find out where the teeth are gnashing and there is no joy.

10. Oakland: Back in the ’90s, it would have been ludicrous to even think about including Oakland on this list. After all, the A’s were coming off three straight pennants and even a world title (in 1989), and the Raiders were still hated and feared after returning from LA. It’s a different story now, though, as the Warriors basketball team, while improving in recent years, is still a non-factor and hasn’t won a title since 1975. In football, the last three seasons have been excruciating, as the Raiders lost the Snow Game playoff under controversial circumstances two seasons ago, managed to get over it and reach the Super Bowl last year — only to get pummeled, 48-21 to Tampa Bay — and this year plummeting to the depths of the league, in the process securing the dubious prize of the second overall pick in the NFL draft. Oakland baseball fans have been tormented for the past four seasons, watching their beloved A’s reach the playoffs each season, only to lose in mystifying fashion each year. You want painful? How about building a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five series, only to lose every one of them in the decisive fifth game? That’s Oakland’s baseball history since the year 2000, and the October meltdown has become an annual ritual in the other city by the Bay. And despite the franchise’s illustrious history (compiled by the likes of Dennis "the Eck" Eckersley, Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson, and Jose Canseco), the team has still won only a single world title (1989) in 30 years.

9. Pittsburgh: The last baseball title was in 1979. The last Super Bowl victory was in 1980. The last Stanley Cup was in 1992, so one can’t feel too sorry for Steel City sports devotees, but realistically it’s been a long time since the region’s die-hards have sipped champagne. Sure, the Steelers got to the Super Bowl in 1996 (only to lose to the Cowboys’ dynasty), but for a city that is so football-driven, the team has rarely lived up to expectations, especially in recent years. The baseball team has become a joke despite getting a brand-new stadium just a few years back, and the Pirates’ glorious history has been tarnished by tight-fisted ownership and a lengthy streak of mediocre finishes.

8. Washington, DC: Another hotbed for pro football, the DC area has been clamoring for a winner ever since the region’s last Super Bowl triumph in 1992. To that end, the team has hired back the coach from that last championship squad, Joe Gibbs, but he’s been out of the game for nearly a dozen years and in all likelihood will find that the game has passed him by while he’s been pursuing NASCAR glory. Under Dan Snyder’s ownership, the team hasn’t remotely contended for the NFC East title, and the Steve Spurrier experiment was a dismal failure (despite the fact that the ’Skins were the last team to beat the Patriots, back in September). Another experiment that worked out poorly was the Michael Jordan audition, as the Wizards hoped to boost attendance and return to the upper echelon of the NBA by hiring the six-time NBA champ. Instead, it became obvious that MJ was past peak, and couldn’t deliver without the same supporting cast he enjoyed in Chicago. The Wizards/Bullets franchise hasn’t won a league title since 1978, yet that’s still more recently than the area’s NHL entry attained its last championship, which was never. Since its inception in 1974, the Capitals have appeared in just one Cup Final, and that was in ’98 when they were dispatched in four quick games by Detroit.

7. Kansas City: The baseball team has won one World Championship (in 1985) in its existence, and the football team has parlayed three 13-3 AFC West titles into three straight second-round playoff exits. Who would have ever guessed that the winner of Super Bowl IV would never again reach the big game? It’s mind-boggling to think that a team with the Chiefs’ history — coupled with a devoted fandom filling up what is arguably the NFL’s most hostile environment: Arrowhead Stadium — could underachieve so regularly. The Royals seem to be on the upswing under second-year manager Tony Peña, but payroll restraints will probably prevent the team from ever reaching the pinnacle of its success it attained in the George Brett days.

6. Indianapolis: They’re still brooding over their AFC championship-game loss at New England, but now Indiana sports fans can get back to their first love: basketball. The Hoosier State is still looking for its first professional championship ever, though, and without the luxury of a NHL or MLB team, opportunities for toasting titles are few and far between, hence the bitter disappointment felt by the region’s football fans. Still, with Larry Bird running the Pacers franchise and the Colts brass undoubtedly focusing on defensive help in the upcoming draft, it shouldn’t be long now before the home of the Indianapolis 500 gets to chug a victory glass of milk to honor one of its pro teams.

5. San Diego: If you are a sports fan here, you are accustomed to underachievers and a dearth of winners. The city of San Diego has not won a professional championship since its Chargers won the 1963 AFL title — and that’s four years before the idea of a Super Bowl sprouted. Since then, the NFL team has had but one title-game appearance (in 1995, a 49-26 trouncing at the hands of the last 49ers team to win it all), even though the team has the largest fan club in the nation. In baseball, the Padres have had the misfortune of timing their only two World Series berths with the appearance of veritable juggernauts as their opposition: the 1984 Tigers and the 1998 Yankees. The city briefly had a pro hoops team, but they were likely grateful to send the perennially underachieving Clippers up north to LA, where the team under owner Donald Sterling is the league’s biggest laughingstock.

4. Cincinnati: No hockey team, no basketball team. That leaves you with a football team that has not been over .500 in a dozen years (although things are looking up), and a baseball team that has done little but underachieve since their stunning sweep over the A’s in the 1990 World Series. You ever have their chili, though?

3. Atlanta: On a baseball level, no team is as Jekyll-and-Hyde in their regular season-versus-postseason levels of play as the Braves are. We know all about Atlanta’s World Series title in 1995, but what about the 12 straight division titles that should logically have paved the way for more than just the one championship? Well, it’s true that Braves fans have had their hearts broken more than once, but one could argue that they deserve what they get for not supporting their team at the turnstiles. Over in the NFL, the Falcons have never won a Super Bowl, and only reached one in their entire team history. The Atlanta Flames hockey team never won anything, nor has the (admittedly improving) Thrashers team that began play in 1999. Finally, the Hawks basketball team has quickly sidled up to the Clippers when measuring NBA futility, as the team has never won a title and has never even reached the League Finals.

2. Philadelphia: Right now, Philly fans probably feel that they should be at the top of this list, given the latest close-but-no-ceegar performance by its football team. And in terms of pure torture endured divided into undying fanaticism, Philadelphia followers are in a class by themselves. In hockey, the Flyers are always good and in contention, but the fact remains that the franchise has not skated with a Cup in hand since the Broad Street Bullies fisticuffed their way to the 1975 chalice (the team’s second straight). Five times since Philadelphia has been runners-up in the Finals, coupled with numerous other playoff qualifications that all resulted in early-round exits. Like the Flyers, the Sixers are routinely among the NBA’s top teams, but sadly the franchise has won just one title in its famed history, and that was 20 years ago when the team added Moses Malone to an already star-studded line-up of Julius Erving, Andrew Toney, et al. Other than that lone title, however, you have to go back to 1967 to find the previous Sixers’ hoop crown. Please sir, may I have another? You got it: the Phillies. One World Series championship, in 1980. Remarkably, that is the only Phillies team in baseball history to win it all, although the team always seems to be in the mix, highlighted by its Fall-Classic defeat courtesy of Mitch Williams in 1993. Finally, the Eagles. Ouch. Three straight NFC title games, the last two at home. All three resulted in losses in feeble and timid fashion. Some would say that the fans in Philadelphia are so nasty that they get what they deserve (Sox manager Terry Francona probably wouldn’t dispute that), but still: it’s gotta hurt when all of your teams contend but cannot close the deal, oftentimes taking you to the precipice of glory, only to elbow you upside the head into the depths of Hades instead.

1. Cleveland: Any of the above teams can stake a claim to the USA’s top Mudville, but in terms of a city’s overall lack of realistic hope (in spite of a devoted fan base), it’s tough to beat Cleveland. Actually, for most teams it’s easy to beat Cleveland, as the Cavaliers (zero NBA titles nor Finals appearances), Browns (zero Super Bowl titles nor appearances), and Indians (hard-luck World Series losses in 1995 and 1997, but otherwise, no championships since 1948, and not even a berth in the Fall Classic in 50 years) have shown. The Browns have a proud history, including eight NFL titles, but it’s tough to top the pain inflicted on their fans during the team’s three conference-championship losses in the ’80s — unmatched for pure late-game snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory drama — or the team’s move to Baltimore in the mid ’90s. Someday this region will be blessed with a winner to soothe the wounds inflicted over the past few decades, but right now Lebron James is the only hope — and it’s tough to pin your aspirations on a 19-year-old.

Until the Patriots won the Super Bowl two years ago, Boston certainly could have found a place on this list, given the droughts endured by the Celtics (18 years), Bruins (34 years), Red Sox (86 years), and Patriots (seemingly never-ending until Vinatieri split ’em in 2002).

And for area fans, it’s a relief to be where they are now: in that favored land where the sun shines bright, the band plays, and hearts are light; that somewhere where men laugh and children shout, and folks get the chance to revel in the kind of joy that Mudville never did.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com