I also know the saying, “It takes a strong person to say sorry and an even stronger person to forgive.”
There are just certain things that are pretty darn unforgivable.
Art Modell taking the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore 15 years ago is a prime example.
It is bad form to speak ill of the dead but on hearing that Modell died Thursday, my first thought was that he was and always will be, a horrible rat.
In the big scheme of things, moving the original Browns to Baltimore wasn’t that terrible. Although the decision haunted Modell until the day he died, it wasn’t a mortal sin.
Sympathies go to Modell’s family and friends. In all honesty, I know he did a lot of good things for the NFL and Cleveland before taking his ball and leaving.
Still, Modell was the monster that crept into my head and soured a thousand cherished childhood feelings.
I grew up a true, brown and orange Browns fan.
Even when they lost big, I cheered loud.
I still vividly remember how hard my family took The Drive in 1987.
A traumatized older cousin ran off and hid after that fiend John Elway led his team to an overtime victory against our Brownies.
We searched high and low for him, finally finding him crying in my grandma’s closet.
Grandma was perhaps the biggest fan of all. She knew all the Browns and the Cavs too for that matter.
We’d rush from church on Sundays to catch the opening kick off on Channel 3.
We weren’t co-owners and couldn’t afford to attend the games but the Browns were our team.
I wore the gray Frank Minnifield and Hanford Dixon Dawg Pound t-shirt my brother bought me proudly.
The team was more than just a team.
In 1997, I went to the last Browns game at Municipal Stadium with my brother and his wife. As it turns out, it was my first football game at the stadium that was an iconic structure all through my youth.
It probably doesn’t need to be said, but the hate for Art Modell ran deep and red that day. There were threats and wishes that Modell was poked by a very large and hot pitchfork.
We left the stadium that Sunday as enraged fans started ripping out the seats. We listened to the detruction on the radio on the ride home.
Although Cleveland eventually got a new Browns team, my connection to the team and the NFL was severed when Modell, took his team away — abandoning the city like LeBron minus the cameras.
I try to watch football, but simply can not get into it — even if I wear the colors.
I lost respect for professional football - really all professional sports - the day the Browns left Cleveland.
Modell said it was a business decision. Cleveland shouldn’t take it personally. Cleveland should have given him a new stadium. Cleveland was being naive.
His explanations may or may not have been based in fact. They weren’t enough either way.
He made sports a business just like any other. The Browns weren’t my team. It was the owner’s team. There was no loyalty. He didn’t love us win or lose.
Modell didn’t care that I hung a signed Bernie Kosar poster in my room as a kid.
It didn’t matter that I loved that Dawg Pound t-shirt or that my cousin was so emotionally involved in the franchise that he cried in my grandma’s closet the day Elway and the Broncos crushed his Superbowl dreams.
Teams could come and go just as big box stores come and go.
Call me a hater if you must, but I still grumble like an uneven clothes dryer every time I hear about a Baltimore Ravens victory or the name Art Modell.
It is a reminder that we all were duped and betrayed by sports.
Last week, Amelia asked readers what actions they would charge an inconvenience fee. Here are two responses sent via email.
Sandra Wheeler — "I would like to charge a $1 fee for every barrel more than 1/2 mile away from a construction site. If I then arrive at the construction sight and find no one doing construction, there would be a $5,000 fine. This would double on weekends when lanes are blocked for no reason."
Arlene Evans — "Two cars driving side-by-side in two lanes so slowly so you are stuck behind them."
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