Where have you gone, Johnny U

Now that the regular season is over, the Colts seem poised to run through the NFL playoffs and win their first crown since . . .

How do I finish that? Is it their first crown ever? Or is it their first since 1971 when Jim O'Brien kicked that overtime field goal for my beloved Baltimore Colts, thirteen years, three months and twelve days before owner Robert Irsay broke Baltimore’s heart and stole the Colt’s away in the middle of the night.

If you’ve seen the movie Diner, you know Baltimore’s love of the Colts ran deep, approaching almost a religious devotion at a time when football took a second seat to baseball as the national pastime. Not in Baltimore. Even when the Orioles were the best team in the land, despite divine intervention in1969 on behalf of the Mets, baseball just filled time in Baltimore until Johnny U and the Colts took Memorial Stadium back in the fall.

When the Colts moved to Indianapolis, the fans were rightfully bitter. My father wouldn’t watch any football for decades. Even when Superbowl Sunday became a National Holiday, he would choose that week to vacation in the Caribbean outside the NFL’s orbit. The Baltimore Colts Marching continued to practice and show up at Baltimore events, playing the familiar “Let’s go, you Baltimore Colts, and put that ball across the line,” the tune Steve Gutenberg’s character in Diner insisted be played when he and his bride walked down the aisle. And Johnny Unitas, a Baltimore deity, announced he would not allow Indianapolis to retire his jersey (they did anyway) or claim his records (the 27 game streak with a touchdown pass still stands and will never be broken).

What did Irsay say to the fans who had given the team their devotion all those years: “It’s not your ball team. It’s my family’s. It’s mine.” What did the NFL do to prevent such injustice? Nothing. In fact, there was little it could do. When Al Davis pulled the same stunt, announcing he was moving the Raiders south to L.A., the NFL tried to stop him. He and the L.A. Coliseum filed an antitrust claim against the league and won because, the Court ruled, the league was not a single entity but a collection of separate entities that could not unlawfully combine. See L.A. Memorial Coliseum v. NFL, 726 F.2d 1381 (9th Cir. 1984). Amazingly, the league tried this same defense in the Clarett case, but that’s the one defense that failed.

So what is an old Colt fan to do? Is it time to bury the hatchet and embrace this fine team with its great coach and classy quarterback? After all, they are the Colts. They wear the same uniforms with the horseshow on the helmet.

Nah.

GO SEAHAWKS.

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