Why I'm glad the Colts lost the Super Bowl
I will hate the Indianapolis Colts till the day I die, or they get a new owner, whichever comes first. I don’t hate the Colt players. They weren’t even born when their owner, Robert Irsay, a greedy coward, incurred my undying hatred. I’m glad Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl. A player that great deserves a championship. Here’s why I hate the INDIANAPOLIS Colts:
The Baltimore Colts were a great franchise, my hometown team, until Irsay bought them, and let the team deteriorate, on purpose. He needed to show empty seats in the stadium to get the NFL to allow him to move to a different city. He moved to a new stadium, built by taxpayers, in Indianapolis. My cousin Michael Shochet, a local TV reporter, caught them in the act on live TV, and showed moving vans loading outside the team offices, driving off into the night.
Irsay also let John Unitas go, which was appropriate at the time. But the greatest Colt, and greatest quarterback, of all time, did not find out until a reporter called him for a comment.
Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell also abandoned great fans in Cleveland when the state refused to build him a new stadium. The league owed Baltimore the first available franchise, so they got the Browns, and changed their name to the Baltimore Ravens -- after Edgar Allen Poe’s poem. Poe was born a few blocks from the new stadium.
Cleveland got an expansion team full of has-beens and rookies, but they are still called “the Browns.” If Modell wanted a new stadium that badly, he could have built one, but a new stadium is much more attractive if you don’t have to pay for it. The Patriots’ owners, Schaeffer, then Kraft, each paid for their own new stadiums.
At the first Ravens’ home game, John Unitas stood near the Ravens’ bench. The TV cameras showed him smiling and waving, and the stadium scoreboard showed giant pictures of him on the sideline. Everybody knew that those pictures meant the great Unitas had transferred his loyalty from the old Colts to the new Ravens.
I simply followed my hero's example.
Colts
I live not too far from Baltimore (though I'm originally from Maine) and your sentiment is, of course, very widespread down here. But as for hating the Colts until they get a new owner, Bob Irsay died in 1997. (Unless you're visiting the sins of the father upon the son - Jim Irsay, the current owner.)
Thanks for updating me
I was not aware that the greedy, cowardly Robert Irsay had died. New England media tell us very little about non-New England teams, except the final scores of the games and the league standings. You never see a feature about an out-of-town player or team.
I do not believe in visiting the sins of the fathers on the sons. I'll re-evalute my feelings based on this information. There is certainly a lot to like about today's Colt players. I don't think it would be disloyal to my childhood heroes to stop hating the Indianapolis Colts.
Thank you for sharing with me.
Shared Hatred
Ken...for different reasons, I was pleased as heck at the Colt's demise. I think Peyton is an amazing quarterback, but I just can't stand the Colt's. Irrational, yes, but true non-the-less! I never could understand letting the perfect season slip away...and in light of their loss it seems even less sensible.
Just my two cents...I hate the Colt's!
Isn't in a big waste of energy to carry a hatred for so long?
No. I'm only aware of it when I'm watching the Colts play. I'm like a Brroklyn Dodger fan who still hates Walter O'Malley for screwing their city in 1957. Any game you watch is better when you care who wins, so wanting the Colts to lose enhances my enjoyment of the game.
Why can't you just be satisfied with the Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens?
I can and I am. They are both good teams. The Baltimore Colts were as important to the city as the Green Bay Packers are to theirs, or the Brooklyn Dodgers to theirs. We were an overlooked community wiith low self-esteem, like them. But the whole country knew and admired the Colts. Most of them settled there permanently and became good citizens.
Were the Baltimore Colts any better.
No. Modern players are bigger, faster, stronger, better conditioned and better coached. Members of the Colt teams I grew up with had to work offseason jobs, and set themselves up in business, or they'd have nothing after football. That meant they could not spend the entire off-season lifting weights like today's wealthy players do.
Why do you still think John Unitas was the greatest quarterback ever?
He could call plays better than anybody. Play-calling is not even part of a quarterbacik's job descri-iption today. Today's quarterbacks are protected by a whole bunch of rules designed to prevent quarterback injuires. Unitas never had such rules, and said before he died that "quarterbacks should play football too." All but one of his passing records have been broken -- by quarterbacks who play 16 games a season plus several post-season games. Unitas set those records in 12-game seasons with only one championship game occasionally. The record that might never be broken is throwing a toucvhdown pass in 49 consecutive games (4 seasons). That's often compared to Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.