No mistaking it: He loves Cleveland

No fooling. Cleveland is great. It’s got a real downtown. It’s got clean, wide streets that are (unfortunately) never crowded with traffic nor people. Cleveland’s got cab drivers who speak English and know their way around town. Many of them remember when Jim Brown toted the pigskin for the Browns and when Rocky Colavito hit majestic homers for the Tribe.

Cleveland has no pretense. Folks work hard and value their money.

Thirsty? Walk into Flannery’s Pub on East 4th and Prospect. Do not ask to see the wine list. And forget the Heineken. You can get a 24-ounce can of Pabst Blue Ribbon for a fin. If you give the barkeep a $10 bill, the guy won’t look down on you and ask, “Do you need change with that?’’

Before it was wiped out by foreclosures and unemployment, Cleveland was one of the five largest cities in America, stocked with immigrants from Eastern Europe. It gave America Jesse Owens and the Cleveland Orchestra. It’s where Eliot Ness served as city safety director. It’s got the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie. According to Canadian bard Gordon Lightfoot, Cleveland is where the Edmund Fitzgerald — loaded with 26,000 tons of iron ore — was bound when it sank in Lake Superior in 1975.

When I first came to Cleveland in the summer of 1977 the mayor was 31-year-old Dennis Kucinich and there was a downtown nightclub (“The Theatrical’’) that featured a singer named Jim “Mudcat’’ Grant. It was the same Jim “Mudcat’’ Grant who beat the Dodgers for the Twins in the 1965 World Series.

Old Cleveland featured cavernous Municipal Stadium on the shores of Lake Erie. Home of the 111-43 Indians (1954) and NFL champion Browns (1964). Municipal Stadium was the site of Cleveland’s 10-cent beer night (1974), when fans rioted after consuming too many eight-ounce Stroh’s. The Indians had to forfeit the game. In 1986, when the Red Sox and Indians were interrupted and postponed on account of fog (erasing a certain Cleveland victory), the inimitable Oil Can Boyd said, “That’s what happens when you build a ballpark by the ocean.’’

Cleveland’s new venues are downtown and spectacular. Sparkling Browns Stadium stands next to a parking lot at the Municipal Stadium site. The football field is just a few hundred yards downshore from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Less than a mile away, Quicken Loans Arena and Progressive Field stand, side-by-side. When Progressive Field was Jacobs Field (ever distinct, with its toothbrush light towers), the Tribe sold out 455 consecutive home games.