The Band That Wouldn't Die: The Passion of Football Fans in Baltimore
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10/07/2009 8:00 AM ET By Michael David Smith
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- Michael David Smith
- Michael David Smith is FanHouse's Lead Blogger
Like every football fan, I've seen that old news footage of Mayflower moving trucks sneaking the Colts out of Baltimore in the middle of a cold March night in 1984 dozens of times. But until I saw The Band That Wouldn't Die, I hadn't given much thought to the guys driving those trucks.
The Band That Wouldn't Die, Barry Levinson's new documentary about the Baltimore football fans who kept their pep band alive even when they didn't have a team to play for, opens with an interview of one of those moving truck drivers. He still seems haunted by the role he played in ripping the hearts out of football fans of his city.
But what The Band That Wouldn't Die shows us is that once those fans got over the initial shock of having their hearts ripped out, they decided that they wouldn't let a little thing like the team moving away take their band away from them. The men and women of the Baltimore Colts Band were too resilient to quit dreaming of football in Baltimore, even if the Colts were gone.
So the band members hid their uniforms from the movers, kept getting together for practice, and simply refused to stop playing, no matter how long it took for the NFL to come back to Baltimore. One band member even mortgaged his house to raise funds to keep the band going.
Of course, you know how it ends: The Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996, changed their name to the Ravens, and welcomed the band (now known as the Marching Ravens) back with open arms. After 12 seasons without football, the NFL was back in Baltimore, and the band was back on Sundays.
Art Modell, the owner who moved the team from Cleveland to Baltimore, appears in the movie as something of a savior to the band. That's the part of the film that's toughest to swallow, because Modell did the same thing to the fans in Cleveland that Colts owner Bob Irsay did to the fans in Baltimore.
But if the treatment of Modell is the film's weakest point, the treatment of Irsay is its strongest. It's stunning to see how callous Irsay was about taking the team away from the fans who had supported it for decades, and Irsay's son, current Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, speaks with surprising candor about how his father's alcoholism and the deaths of two of his children turned him into a hard man who was incapable of feeling any empathy toward Colts fans.
Ultimately, the story of The Band That Wouldn't Die is the story of how football, in many respects, means more to the fans than it does to the owners. Levinson's 1982 movie Diner included a famous scene where a man tells his girlfriend she has to pass a test on football before he'll marry her. It's easy to picture the members of the band in Baltimore doing the same.
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Baltimore football fans are nothing but hypocrites.
They embraced the same kind of sub-human POS that took their team away from them in the first place.
F*** Baltimore and their lame-O pep band. They helped rape Cleveland football.
If they had any class at all they would have told Modell to plant his evil empire somewhere else.
On the surface I can understand why you think Baltimore fans are two-faced. But Cleveland managed to retain the name, colors, records, and history of the Browns. Even though we have the Ravens, it still cuts deep when we see the horseshoes representing another city and the fact that Johnny Unitas appears in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the Indianapolis Colts gallery.
It's hard to blame these fans for wanting the Browns to come to town. At least they changed the name to the Ravens and Cleveland only had to wait a few years to get the new Browns.
Great story, except for this statement, which is a load of crap.
"That's the part of the film that's toughest to swallow, because Modell did the same thing to the fans in Cleveland that Colts owner Bob Irsay did to the fans in Baltimore."
Cleveland officials consistently screwed Modell by refusing to build a new stadium to replace the antiquated, falling-down excuse for a stadium on the lakefront. It is ironic that once Modell left, the officials fell all over themselves to build a new stadium for the "new" Browns. If they had done that for Modell, the original team might be there to this day.
Even though Memorial Stadium in Baltimore wasn't a palace, it was nowhere near the disaster area that Cleveland Stadium was. Irsay had no excuse except greed. That's why he snuck out of town in the middle of the night.
The most overlooked part of the story is that the Browns were Modell's ONLY source of income. He wasn't some billionaire looking out for his investment, it was his life. So as free agency hit and he needed revenue that the old stadium wasn't capable of providing, he needed some help. He watched as Cleveland built a new arena, baseball stadium and the Rock and roll HOF, then turned to him and said too bad. What was he supposed to do?
Don't tell me that Modell and Irsay are on the same level. Irsay moved in the middle of the night. Modell gave notice. Irsay kept the Colts franchise. Modell left it for Cleveland. And let us not forget that Cleveland was promised a new Browns before the old Browns left, while Baltimore had to wait 12 years and watch Charlotte and Jacksonville get new franchises and the Cardnials move to Phoenix after courting Baltimore.
Let's keep some perspective. Irsay may have been a dick, but the city and state governments threatened to seize the team under eminent domain (was this mentioned in the documentary? I haven't seen it yet). What rational businessman wouldn't move their team? I love Maryland and Baltimore, but we are governed by idiots and criminals.