“Hey Baltimore, get over it!â€
Bet you’ve heard that one when the subject of the Colts midnight move to Indianapolis back in March of 1984 is brought up, right?
GET OVER IT!
Gee thanks there Dan Marino and all of the national media folks who don’t get it. They don’t or can’t feel Baltimore’s pain yet they languished over Art Modell’s act of desperation when he moved the Browns to Baltimore. They panned one of the NFL’s pioneering spirits yet casually dismiss the fact that a drunken fool like Robert Irsay who publicly denied his own heritage, ripped away a huge part of Baltimore’s.
There’s isn’t much or anything that can be done about it today and most Baltimoreans I believe recognize this. But we all would just like the atrocity to be AT LEAST as nationally scorned as Modell’s move was. Those colors and horseshoes and that name belong in Baltimore.
Yet it will never happen.
Some of you may never get over it. Perhaps an “I’m sorry†from the league would help. Perhaps it’s way too late for that for those who remain bitter. That’s the way it is…and that’s the way it will always be for some.
Personally I have gotten over “it†for the most part. Sure, there’s a little twinge of resentment there and even though I knew it was in the Ravens’ best interest to have the Colts win on Saturday to give our city a chance to host the AFC Championship, my body language still suggested that I was pulling for the Chiefs.
No one likes being dumped.
We were dumped. We were all dumped.
But for me, the new team in town has eased the pain. The Ravens success has helped to erase the loss of all those Sundays without the Colts. I can’t get those back, nor can you. We all have our memories, some more meaningful and vivid than others.
The loss of the Colts was like the loss of a friend. And when a friend goes, you mourn him but embrace the memories. They help to keep him alive in your heart and soul and that’s exactly what your friend would have wanted.
The old Colts who are still around town — Tom Matte, Bruce Laird, Artie Donovan, Lenny Moore and others, they’ve detached themselves from the modern day version of the Colts. Because the Colts that they knew, the Colts you knew and loved are gone. They are dead.
When Indianapolis comes to town on Saturday, do your best to put those colors, that horseshoe and that name to rest in a resting place called M&T Bank Stadium right here in Baltimore, Maryland — right here where they belong.
