the fall for the last 22 years.
As a guy my age, I don’t need to be reminded that we once had a team here called the Baltimore Colts that abandoned this city because the fans of the team, the businesses of the community and ticket buyers “quit” on Bob Irsay and his lousy franchise.
No matter the reason – and it was very justified in regard to Robert Irsay’s antics, intentions and blood alcohol level – Baltimore once quit on the NFL and its local team and institution.
Baltimore is a once-failed NFL town.
And it, too, all happened very quickly. On Christmas Eve 1977, my Pop and I were at the “Ghost To The Post” playoff game against the Oakland Raiders having a love affair with The Sack Pack, Hey Diddle Diddle and the Baltimore Colts. Six Christmases later, the Raiders were playing in Los Angeles and the hapless Colts were headed to Indiana.
But, once again, let me reiterate how our parents and forefathers treated the Baltimore Colts and Irsay and why the team left for shit-between-the-toes Indiana.
They. Stopped. Going. To. The. Games.
As my dear friend John Eisenberg would write: “You can look it up!”
The Indianapolis Colts are most certainly the ghosts of Baltimore’s football past and were borne of the indifference our community had at that time for supporting the team – no matter the wins, losses or how many times a whorish and hammered Irsay landed a helicopter in Jacksonville or a plane in Arizona peddling the promise of an NFL team for the community that was the highest bidder. And as much as my Pop wielded stories of carrying Ordell Braase off the field after the 1959 championship game and I spent my childhood hearing the legends of all of the heroes of 33rd Street and World’s Largest Outdoor Insane Asylum, the Colts I remember most vividly are the lousy ones with an empty Memorial Stadium, a fraudulent strike season with replacement players, gambling addled Art Schlicter, John Elway giving Baltimore a middle finger and a drunk owner with a vacant heart and an empty soul.
Bob Irsay was the original Grinch and Scrooge of my childhood 365 days a year – and that pain lingered from my junior year of high school until I was almost 30 years old, once he finally took the team away from Baltimore in the middle of the night in 1984 and moved his embarrassment to Indianapolis.
Yes, I remember what it was like to not have an NFL team in Baltimore every Sunday and it sucked. Royally!
I worked in the sports media business every single day that Baltimore didn’t have a football team from the time I was 15 until I was 28. It’s a dark part of my sports spirit that I don’t dare revisit.
Ask my friends like Howard Balzer and Bernie Miklasz in St. Louis how their falls of present or future are going in regard to football on Sundays. Or hit my cousin out in San Diego where the Chargers are never coming back.
Or you can ask any of us who are old enough to remember Baltimore without the Ravens and without the Colts.
After 22 years, we take the Ravens and the NFL in our city for granted.
We shouldn’t.
Every time I’ve ever written about or discussed the concept of “the Baltimore Ravens,” it comes with the well-worn miles of my many years of following, covering, reporting on and opining about all of the intricacies of the politicians, civic leaders, corporate money and local support it takes to have one of the 32 most valuable sports properties in the most significant league in our country and culture.
I attend the owners meetings. I talk to business leaders. I know the value of the Baltimore Ravens for our city and our community.
I’ve said it many times but the Baltimore Ravens were a miraculous thing for our city.
The NFL didn’t want to come back to Baltimore. We were a pawn played to give teams to the likes of Jacksonville and Charlotte. Then Commissioner Paul Tagliabue told our people to build a museum instead.
But the tenacity of William Donald Schaefer and the guile and tact of John Moag and the citizens of the state of Maryland and city of Baltimore somehow outlasted it all and found a candidate in Art Modell who was desperate enough to bring his football team to a place where a stadium would be built and a community would rally around having the NFL back – at a higher cost and greater profit margin.
It changed Baltimore’s path. It changed my course in life. I wrote books about it.
Jon Ogden. Ray Lewis. A Super Bowl championship in Year 5. Another in Year 17. Parades. Children and pets named after players and legends. Statues built.
If you are a football fan – or a fan of the concept of “Baltimore” as a community or take pride in what that
