Post updated from one published at Mind Pinball back in March, 2009.

Just a reminder of what Baltimore football fans have had to go through since that fateful day when the Colts left for Indianapolis: (just in time before another Ravens season begins)

As a football fan, as a Baltimore football fan, an ignominious anniversary quietly passed a few months ago. It was 25 years ago on March 28 that the Baltimore Colts snuck off in the dead of night on the way to becoming the Indianapolis Colts. When I realized that it was the anniversary, I can’t say that I felt any real anger, or sadness. For me, the Colts have been gone long enough and the Ravens here long enough for any of those emotions to really resurface.

However, for quite a few years after the fact, I was highly upset. Granted, much of what I remember of the Baltimore Colts of my youth was losing seasons, few folks in the stands, and mismanagement. The Colts’ last three years of playoff appearances occurred when I was in the fourth through sixth grades.  They were my team, primarily because they were local and also of their rich history, which older heads let me know about. The years after the playoff seasons served to turn me away from the Colts, as they became a shell of their former selves, and I didn’t follow them as closely. Yet even when they left, there was bitterness, anger and sadness. Particularly after seeing the owner promise that the Colts were going nowhere, particularly after Mayor William Donald Schaefer worked tirelessly to keep them in Baltimore. And then, in the middle of the snowy night, they were gone.

After a couple years, my football allegiances switched down the road to the Washington Redskins. Shameful, perhaps, but in my teenage and college years I wanted a team to root for, and after being raised to root for the “local” teams, the Redskins were the closest thing to local. During that time, they went to three Super Bowls, winning two, and were always in the hunt in the always tough NFC East. You can read more about how I became a fan of teams in this post. This period lasted roughly until the great NFL expansion derby of the 90s arrived. I remember being very excited, feeling there was no way that Baltimore would be shut out from getting a team. We had history, and fan support on our side. Day after day I searched for any kind of news, any snippet of information that would tip the scales in Baltimore’s favor. There was the preseason game that Baltimore packed the stadium for, one sure sign that the area would support a football team. Schaefer, then as Governor, pushed hard to bring football back to the state. When the NFL decided that Carolina and Jacksonville would be awarded teams, my heart sunk. My allegiance to the NFL was shaken. At that point, I couldn’t even be bothered to root for the Redskins. I became cynical that Baltimore would ever get a team, to join the club that it was a charter member of. How could the NFL deny a city that helped make the NFL the institution it is today? Did it have no sense or memory of its history?

When Art Modell moved his Cleveland Browns to Baltimore and the team was reborn as the Ravens, it took a little while for me to fall in line behind the franchise. I was happy that Baltimore finally had a team, but I wasn’t feeling all that great about how it got there. When it came to light that Cleveland would be able to keep it’s logos, uniforms and team records, I wondered why the same consideration was never given to Baltimore. And I can remember Bob Costas, at the Opening Day game for the Ravens, going on a tirade about how Art Modell should be vilified for moving the Browns to Baltimore. I seem to remember after that, I was a Raven fan for life. I couldn’t understand how Modell was to be reviled while the Indianapolis Colts took what was rightfully Baltimore’s without so much as giving anything up. It seemed, then and even now, that everyone believed that Cleveland should get sympathy, while Baltimore got bupkus. I thought that inherently unfair, which made me a Raven fan all the more.

Yet I can understand the pain that fans of the Baltimore Colts felt, and many may still feel.  A fine example of this can be found here. Those who were fans during the glory years of the late 50s and the 60s have every right to feel angry and betrayed. And those of us who lived through it are charged with letting the younger generation of fans understand what Baltimore endured before the Ravens arrived, as stated on this blog. Nevertheless, David Steele of the Baltimore Sun says that now it is time to let that anger subside, as now all three cities are better off than they were twenty-five years ago. All are better off because they are full-fledged members of the best club in sports-the NFL. I will say, as I stated earlier, I felt no anger or sadness at the passing of the 25-year anniversary of the move. Perhaps that’s because, as Steele notes, Baltimore has a team we can root for.

Yes, the Colts are still gone. But I don’t feel any pain about it anymore.