Of toilets and wicked pissahs

It smells like stale urine, and it isn't the team for once

The picture above illustrates what happens when 1,500 toilets simultaneously have their water-level valves, or "flushometers," fail in an NFL stadium.

The home team needs to have their entire locker room gutted and remodeled less than a month before the first preseason game.

Apparently, when the sewers backed up into Cleveland Browns Stadium during a recent Kenny Chesney concert, the culprit wasn't a broken water main as originally reported. Officials discovered that the flushometers of virtually every toilet in the stadium had become clogged with rust and mineral deposits from the ancient Cleveland sewer system.

When a heavy load was placed on the sewer infrastructure of the stadium, it finally gave way, causing the toilets to back up into the bowels (no pun intended) of the stadium.

Of course, this means that the Browns locker room, on the stadium's sublevel, was turned into a giant culture of bacteria and who knows what other microbial goodness. Even with a complete remodeling of the facilities, maybe the Browns should just pull a John Havlicek and put their uniforms on in the hotel prior to coming over to the stadium.

It's either that, or risk having the Browns become the first team in league history to forfeit a game because the entire roster came down with a staph infection.

Fenway Park West

You think fan support doesn't matter to players?

Just wait until the Red Sox come to town. After winning the World Series in 2004, Ben Affleck and Jimmy Fallon helped Boston become the cool team all the other teams wanted to be like. Celebrity fans, self-fawning books like Bill Simmons' "Now I Can Die in Peace," and TV specials celebrating the eternal loyalty of Red Sox fans helped Boston gather a nationwide army of fair-weather fans the likes of which haven't been seen since the Yankees last won the World Series seven years ago.

The majority of the fans who have been showing up for this week's series against the Red Sox are undoubtedly an actual plague that has descended on Cleveland from the east. But I'm guessing a certain number of the Jacobs Field fans that have been yelling "Youuuuuuu!" when Kevin Youkilis comes to bat will be back at The Jake wearing Yankee gear beginning August 10.

It doesn't matter who wins or loses. All that matters is how many Indians fans threatened to fight them outside Gate B after the game.

Regardless, the players are noticing that the majority of noise coming from the stands is in support of the Red Sox. It's pointless to call out Tribe fans with a "suck it up, get out to the yard and support your team" rant. Cleveland fans have voted with their attendance already. They will only support this team to a very limited point until something drastic happens, like a run deep into October.

So if you don't like having "Papi, hit it wicked haaaaahd!" drowning out the "Let's go Pronk!" chants, my advice is to do what you've already been doing and stay away from Jacobs Field until the Red Sox leave town. Red Sox fans are a beast you can only fight with grandstand attrition, by snapping up the tickets before they can get them. Indians fans lost that battle a long time ago.