I watched the Colts vs Ravens game last night. Why is it that every time they play, we have to have the same old hash brought out about how Bob Irsay (the owner of the Colts) stole the team away in the dark of night from the city of Baltimore?

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, read
here and here.

Seems to me that, no matter why Irsay was thinking about moving his team, he was the owner of a multi-million dollar business that the city of Baltimore was about to seize by eminent domain. I’d get out of Dodge in a hurry too!

So as I was watching the game last night, I noted that the scoreboard in Baltimore said that “INDY” was playing the “RAVENS”. Why? Why didn’t it read “COLTS VS RAVENS”? Or “INDY VS BALTIMORE”? You would think that after a quarter of a century, the city of Baltimore could let it go. Bitterness is not becoming. It just makes you ugly.

In 1984 those fans had a right to be upset. Irsay had his reasons to do what he did, but as a sports fan, I can also understand that it must have hurt. I can understand carrying a grudge for five or ten years (or as long as the Baltimore fans saw players who were “Baltimore Colts” playing in Indianapolis), but twenty four years??? Come on. Enough is enough.

that was then, this is now.

Certainly now, if for no other reason, Baltimore has no right to grouse about having their team “stolen” since eleven years later they “stole” the Cleveland Browns. That’s like an adulterer upset that he caught someone sleeping with his wife.

What will it take for the fans in Baltimore to let go and embrace their own team? Because by continuing to be bitter, they are in effect saying, “We want our team back!”. Baltimore fans, Look at it this way: Irsay divorced you and remarried someone else. You hurt for a while, but then you got remarried, and you are now both happily married.

So let it go and let’s just play football!