LeBron James links: A shirt fits; and a rant draws raves

LeBron James still drawing heat (if you'll pardon the expression.)

A few years ago, one of your erstwhile Starting Blocks correspondents (i.e. me) was doing a column in another section of The Plain Dealer called On the Job Training. In it, I worked alongside Northeast Ohioans in a variety of jobs -- some dirty, some scary, some fun and some just plain weird -- and told their stories by telling my own.

One particular job was at Odyssey Printwear in Aurora, and what we were doing was silkscreening Witness, LeBron James and other Cavs T-shirts when the Cavaliers were on a run to the NBA Finals. It was a good job, lots of fun, being messy and all, and me being a guy who enjoys being messy.

So today, I get an email from one of my bosses at Odyssey, Mark Hoehn. The company is still churning out LeBron T-shirts. Although they're juuuuuuuuust a bit different than the hero-worshiping garments of 2007. These feature LeBron's torso in full Witness spread-eagle mode. . . sporting the head of a donkey.

Hee-haw.

The shirts are $12 each ($14 for XXL), and available only at the company store at 7286 Aurora Road. For details, call 330-562-1523.

Oh, and Mark said the company can ship shirts via UPS. Anybody got the address for the Miami Heat?

Quick change
Think about how quickly things can change. A yellow light that turns red before you expected. A "joke" that cuts short a friendship. Hitting "send" on that e-mail you never really meant the boss to get. A six-iron to the SUV window when everybody knows the shot really calls for a driver.

That's about how fast life changed for LeBron James last week. In one instant, he went from beloved hometown hero about to lead his local team to Nirvana to a man vilified by almost every fan in the sporting world. Except those in Miami, of course. And all it took was a silly hourlong television special.

Kevin Hench, a frequent blogger for Foxsports.com, put things in perspective in a rant that was poetic almost in its invective:

In the eyes of most fans (with the obvious exception of Miami's legendarily fair-weather ones), The Decision was The Disaster. Three chums (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh) had gotten together and decided to destroy the competitive balance of an entire sport.

. . . About a month ago a buddy of mine and I were doing what married guys do: eating our preferred combinations of meats, cheeses and breads and complaining about our wives.

My buddy told me he had come home to find an issue of People magazine on the table and promptly castigated his wife. "What's this doing here? Stupid people read this magazine."

But that was last month. When sports fans could still pretend to maintain some superiority over the daft subscribers to People and Us Weekly.

Once LeBron turned the NBA into "The Bachelor" (with less production value) we couldn't really defend our vice any more. My wife popped her head into the living room during "The Decision" and she could have said, though she didn't, "Stupid people are watching this."

Yup. Nine million of us apparently. . . . Turns out we've been subscribing to an idiotic celeb magazine all along.

'Nuff said.