Yeah, I bought it at a yard sale along with this baseball for my dog with some Cy Young guy name on it.

Get over it, Cleveland, Baltimore did.

Scrotastic Method: As bad as you might feel about Modell, we feel worse about Irsay. At least you got to keep your team name, colors, history, records, etc., and I'm no great history student but I'm under the impression he was less sneaky in moving his franchise than Irsay was, hell our corny governor cried about it. And we still have to see something called "Colts" playing a thousand miles away.

/the statue of Johnny U at M&T should let you know how the real Colts feel about the franchise in Indy.
//Go Ravens.

drunk_bouncnbaloruber: Get over it, Cleveland, Baltimore did.

1 second apart. :)

/Baltimoron.
//Loving Indy's attempt at 0-16 this season.

The Singing Bush: "Boo-hoo, the owner stole our team from us in the middle of the night...oh wait, another owner is hijacking their team under strikingly similar circumstances and moving them here? Where can I buy a jersey?"

If you're a Ravens fan born after 1983, you were 13 or younger when a team moved to your town, and I have no problem with that. If not, you're either a huge hypocrite, or you're a fair-weather fan who jumped on the bandwagon in 2000. You old Colts fans should be ashamed.

This actually bothered me quite a bit at first, too (along with the fact that Baltimore basically kicked out the reigning CFL champion Stallions when the Browns moved here). When Cleveland got the (new) Browns back in '99 that made it much easier to reconcile with myself. I think that for a lot of the Ravens fans who also remember the Colts leaving, the feeling is that the NFL fixed the situation in the long run. And adopting "Ravens" as the team name made up for losing "Colts" and then some.

ToddMU03: So why did the city block Irsay's attempts to build a new stadium and/or add luxury boxes to Memorial Stadium?

Irsay campaigned for a new stadium or for renovations including the revenue generating luxury boxes, but he never tried to do it on his own. The city had a few offers in place for renovating Memorial but they were all contingent on him agreeing to a new lease, which he refused to do.

The Singing Bush: If you're a Ravens fan born after 1983, you were 13 or younger when a team moved to your town, and I have no problem with that. If not, you're either a huge hypocrite, or you're a fair-weather fan who jumped on the bandwagon in 2000. You old Colts fans should be ashamed.

I know you are trolling, so congrats on getting a bite from me. But here we go...

Call us hypocrites if it makes you feel better, but the fans of Baltimore jumped through every hoop the NFL threw at them for 12 years. We were used as a negotiating chip by the Raiders, the Rams, the Cardinals, and the Bengals just to name a few. We sold out a meaningless preseason game between the Saints and the Dolphins in 90 minutes just to show that we would support an expansion team. The whole time the NFL was trying to force us into rooting for the Redskins even though we kept refusing to buy into it. Then the league picks Carolina (turned out to be a good call) and Jacksonville (whoops!) over Baltimore and Tagliabue tells Baltimore to build a museum because they are not getting an NFL team on his watch. The league did nothing when Irsay's son had the team vote against Baltimore getting an expansion team even though that was one of the contingencies of Baltimore ceasing all litigation over the Colts moving.

And while we are at it, where is all of the hate for the fans of the St. Louis Rams (another city that was denied in the early 1990's expansion process that then went and grabbed a team looking to move)? Are they hypocrites? Are they bandwagon jumpers? Where is the hatred for the fans of the Arizona Cardinals and the Tennessee Titans? Were those teams any less beloved by their fans as the Cleveland Browns were? Is their history that inconsequential in comparison to the Browns that their moving is deemed okay? Are the fans of the current Cleveland Browns being told to get over their original team moving? The city of Cleveland was promised a team by no later than 1999 by the league either by expansion or by another team relocating to Cleveland. They agreed to it. Cleveland agreed to taking another city's team as part of the deal to allow Modell to move his team to Baltimore. How then are they still better than Baltimore fans just because the NFL chose to expand the league (also allowing Houston to get a team again)? That was not the choice of the city or the fans, it was decided by the league (presumably after it could not find a team willing to move there).

I am tired of this argument and I am tired at the vitriol being thrown in our direction over this. I do not blame the fans of Cleveland for hating Art Modell. I will hate the Irsay family until I die, and I will teach my sons to hate them too. I expect no less from Cleveland fans. That is their right. But all of the venom thrown at Baltimore fans is absurd. Baltimore fans do not hate Indianapolis fans, we hate the Indianapolis Colts. We hate Jim Irsay for going back on his father's word and then trying to extort $50 million from Modell for the Colts name and colors.

So hate Modell all you want. Hate the Ravens because they aren't your team. But leave the damn fans alone. They suffered more than enough (USFL/CFL anyone?)

beta_plus: bgddy24601: Where is the hatred for the fans of the Arizona Cardinals ...?

Well, to be fair, and despite what wikipedia says, I was under the impression that St. Louis was not that sorry to see the Cardinals leave. They prefer their Cardinals playing baseball.

Well, that would go with supposedly the Rams being one of the franchises possibly moving to L.A.

Scrotastic Method: Hey harv72b, we've agreed on some Ravens/Balmer talk on here before, thought you'd dig this...it's what I'll be wearing to the SF-BAL game on Thanksgiving now that I finally found a Korean bootlegger that does a really good job. It's the most homeriffic, disgustingly "Hon" thing I have ever seen, and I love it. Crappy iPhone pics but in real life it looks 99% as good as the real jerseys...the numbers are correct, the shade of purple is correct, and the flag patch on the arm is perfect.

Because remember, it says "Baltimore" before it says "Colts" or "Ravens."

[i42.tinypic.com image 337x386]

[i39.tinypic.com image 347x464]

It's...beautiful man!

I'm a little too young to remember Unitas playing, all I have to remember is the tail end of the Bert Jones era.

/Speaking of people who left Baltimore, did you see the ad Todd Heap ran in last Friday's Sun? I was thoroughly disappointed he didn't get to play Sunday.

Scrotastic Method: Everyone I know -- a couple dozen season ticket holders -- views the Colts with a "dead to me" detachment.

I will always hate the Colts franchise. I will root against them (unless they are playing a game where their victory puts the Ravens in a better position). A lot of my friends and family (a lot more than a couple dozen) feel the same way.

But we do not root for anyone to be injured. I can speak for pretty much every Ravens fan I know when I say we wish Manning was healthy because beating the Colts when they are down is not nearly as satisfying.

So in that respect, I agree w/Mr. Spiewak. However, I have seen him on here before. I know he is a former Baltimore resident who hates both the city and the people who live there as well as everything they like (I know he has his reasons, I do not care to find out what they are). I am amused that he can be so smug in pointing out how much resentment that Baltimore fans hold for Irsay and the Colts while simultaneously continuing to rail about how horrible anything tangentially related to Baltimore is (which seems to me to be a manifestation of holding a lot of resentment).

In the grand scheme of things Baltimore's politicians screwed up royally and were the final nail in the coffin for Irsay moving the team. At that point in the process I cannot blame him for taking the action. What I can blame him for is shopping the team within 5 years of buying it while also turning down every effort by the city and the state to renovate Memorial Stadium and provide the team with better facilities - here is your required citation (new window) - and all but forcing the city to take desperate measures, especially in light of what had just recently happened w/Oakland and the Raiders suing the NFL over their relocation to Los Angeles.

I was 11 when they left and had been to every home game since I had been born (I was given season tickets as a Christening gift and I went with my father, grandfather, and uncle). And yes Mr. Spiewak, I did read your link. And like I stated before I understand Irsay's rationale. But the fans of the team were not responsible for what happened (in regards to "Question P", remember that the entire city and not just the fans of the team voted on that, and it was wrapped in pseudo-patriotism and political bullshiat much like the majority of politics is now). And the fans of the Ravens are not responsible for the Browns moving here or for the Rams and Oilers moving or anything else. So again, hate the team and hate the owner, but leave the fans alone.

ToddMU03: Rosenbloom, who owned the Colts before Irsay, offered to build a stadium with his own money and was stonewalled by the city. The Colts were never the No. 1 team in Baltimore. He even thought about moving the team to Tampa.

Going w/the article that Mr. Spiewak linked to, I wouldn't say "stonewalled" so much as "legalese mumbo jumbo and bullshiat between the Colts and the Orioles. And I quote:

In Rosenbloom's eyes, Memorial Stadium just wasn't big enough for both his team and the Orioles. So he began playing with the idea of building his own stadium. In 1965, he announced plans to build a new stadium with his own funds, possibly in conjunction with Oriole owner Jerold Hoffberger. In return, all he asked was that the city tear down Memorial Stadium so that it wouldn't attract a possible rival with a new AFL franchise.

At the time, Mayor McKeldin was supportive of the idea, telling reporters that August, "I'm for anything that is big, new and progressive." But the support needed to pass construction of the stadium through legislation never really surfaced, and there were problems over what area of the city the new stadium would be built in.

Adding to the problem was Rosenbloom's tenuous relationship with Hoffberger, which grew more remote as the years passed. At times, it seemed that whenever Rosenbloom and the Colts asked for some type of improvement to the stadium -- scheduling games at a particular time, adding bleachers or changing the seating plan, using different vendors or changing parking rates -- the Orioles would ask for something else. Things got so bad between the two that at times they refused to speak to each other, relaying messages to each other and passing notes even while the two were in the same meeting room.

Mole Man: What no love for this team?



/hot link
//Grey Cup 1995.
///Mike Pringle FTW.

A few years ago I named one of my fantasy football teams "Tracy Ham and Eggs". It was like a litmus test for people who called themselves Baltimore football fans to see if they would get the reference.

The Singing Bush: you cannot seriously compare the fan bases from St. Louis and Houston to Cleveland.

Yes I can, because to those fan bases it is the exact same thing.

You say you aren't trolling. Okay. But the whole "people from Baltimore being bandwagon fans if they root for the Ravens" is just tired.

/no more internet "arguing"
//we both win pudding