Gotta go to Mo's.... funeral?
Sep. 8th, 2012 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogMixed emotions all over the sports world the past few days, as word came of the death of longtime Cleveland Browns owner, and inaugural Baltimore Ravens mover, Art Modell. I have quite a few random memories and observations about it-all.
I never followed either team, but as a lifelong fan of a baseball franchise descended from two different up-and-gone National League teams, I understood- both the pain felt in Baltimore when the Colts moved away, and then what Cleveland experienced when Modell shipped its long-suffering franchise to take the Colts' place in Charm City back in 1996. Although the Browns were back within a few years, with name and colors and records (such as they were) intact, the rechristened Ravens went on to win the franchise's first-ever Super Bowl in 2000 and the hatred for Modell still resonates in northern Ohio.
Even in death, it would appear. The NFL has decreed that all teams observe a moment of silence for the man in their opening games tomorrow and Monday, and as bad luck would have it, the Browns are at home tomorrow. There is great speculation that the moment will be anything but silent, with boos and catcalls dishonoring the man who stole their Dawg Pound from them.
For this year, at least, Buffalo still has its NFL team, and our owner isn't in the best of shape, either. I fully expect that if he (or even his estate) were to sell the team to someone who moved it to greener pastures, his name would immediately turn to mud in this area for the rest of time, and any moment of silence to honor his passing would be similarly disturbed.
I wouldn't boo- but I wouldn't get up and remove my hat, either.
----
Fans of both New York baseball teams have an odd connection to the man in their outfields- as do I, in an even more tenuous way:
There's the name, three times below the Hess and Budweiser billboards, at al-Yanquziera Stadium,
and even more prominently displayed in the Mets' outfield.
Art Modell was a grandson of one named Morris, who founded the sporting goods chain. It was always, vaguely, around when I was growing up, but it wasn't the promotional powerhouse that it later became- that was the place for Herman's World of Sporting Goods, at least in our part of the country. However, the Bill (and eventually Mitch) Modell line of the family expanded into a broader range of goods in the 1950s, opening suburban New York City stores including one in the town I grew up in that was my first place of employment:
This location, at least, also had its own branded supermarket, separate from the department store but reachable through a security-guarded passage between the two. It lives on in celluloid fame as part of the Great Escape scene featuring Robert Redford in the 1971 adaptation of Donald Westlake's The Hot Rock. Most of the "departments" in the store, including a relatively awesome record department, were leased out to third party vendors, but I worked for the store itself in a couple of different roles- from maintenance to running registers in their "Surprise Corner" (i.e., whatever, sometimes literally, "fell off the truck" the previous week, including the world's largest supply of a brand of soda called British-American), to answering and transferring calls on an old-style switchboard with cloth-covered wires to link the calls. Much of my high school class passed through the place, many working there, and while I was thrilled to make my own Great Escape from that island only eight months after starting there, I was sad to learn that by the end of the 80s, the Modell family had gone back to the sporting-good-only model, turning a small corner of that real estate into a Mo's location and the rest into what apparently still remains as a Home Depot.
So, yeah, the Modells left us, too.
----
The original Browns became the Ravens, and one of their players spoke out on the subject of same-sex marriage last week. He's for it. A Teabagger Maryland state legislator contacted the team's new owner to protest the team not preventing such dangerous free speech. That, in turn, led to this response from a punter on another NFL team: perhaps the meanest, nastiest, powerful and brave takedown of a sitting politician that I have ever had the pleasure to read.
And now, so can you:)
This is one issue for which a moment of silence is totally NOT appropriate.
I never followed either team, but as a lifelong fan of a baseball franchise descended from two different up-and-gone National League teams, I understood- both the pain felt in Baltimore when the Colts moved away, and then what Cleveland experienced when Modell shipped its long-suffering franchise to take the Colts' place in Charm City back in 1996. Although the Browns were back within a few years, with name and colors and records (such as they were) intact, the rechristened Ravens went on to win the franchise's first-ever Super Bowl in 2000 and the hatred for Modell still resonates in northern Ohio.
Even in death, it would appear. The NFL has decreed that all teams observe a moment of silence for the man in their opening games tomorrow and Monday, and as bad luck would have it, the Browns are at home tomorrow. There is great speculation that the moment will be anything but silent, with boos and catcalls dishonoring the man who stole their Dawg Pound from them.
For this year, at least, Buffalo still has its NFL team, and our owner isn't in the best of shape, either. I fully expect that if he (or even his estate) were to sell the team to someone who moved it to greener pastures, his name would immediately turn to mud in this area for the rest of time, and any moment of silence to honor his passing would be similarly disturbed.
I wouldn't boo- but I wouldn't get up and remove my hat, either.
----
Fans of both New York baseball teams have an odd connection to the man in their outfields- as do I, in an even more tenuous way:
There's the name, three times below the Hess and Budweiser billboards, at al-Yanquziera Stadium,
and even more prominently displayed in the Mets' outfield.
Art Modell was a grandson of one named Morris, who founded the sporting goods chain. It was always, vaguely, around when I was growing up, but it wasn't the promotional powerhouse that it later became- that was the place for Herman's World of Sporting Goods, at least in our part of the country. However, the Bill (and eventually Mitch) Modell line of the family expanded into a broader range of goods in the 1950s, opening suburban New York City stores including one in the town I grew up in that was my first place of employment:
This location, at least, also had its own branded supermarket, separate from the department store but reachable through a security-guarded passage between the two. It lives on in celluloid fame as part of the Great Escape scene featuring Robert Redford in the 1971 adaptation of Donald Westlake's The Hot Rock. Most of the "departments" in the store, including a relatively awesome record department, were leased out to third party vendors, but I worked for the store itself in a couple of different roles- from maintenance to running registers in their "Surprise Corner" (i.e., whatever, sometimes literally, "fell off the truck" the previous week, including the world's largest supply of a brand of soda called British-American), to answering and transferring calls on an old-style switchboard with cloth-covered wires to link the calls. Much of my high school class passed through the place, many working there, and while I was thrilled to make my own Great Escape from that island only eight months after starting there, I was sad to learn that by the end of the 80s, the Modell family had gone back to the sporting-good-only model, turning a small corner of that real estate into a Mo's location and the rest into what apparently still remains as a Home Depot.
So, yeah, the Modells left us, too.
----
The original Browns became the Ravens, and one of their players spoke out on the subject of same-sex marriage last week. He's for it. A Teabagger Maryland state legislator contacted the team's new owner to protest the team not preventing such dangerous free speech. That, in turn, led to this response from a punter on another NFL team: perhaps the meanest, nastiest, powerful and brave takedown of a sitting politician that I have ever had the pleasure to read.
And now, so can you:)
This is one issue for which a moment of silence is totally NOT appropriate.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 08:40 pm (UTC)If it had been the Bengals, I wouldn't have cared so much: Cincy's support for the Bungles has always been spotty, but Cleveland loved the Browns.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 08:58 pm (UTC)That being said, I read that take down from the Viking's punter earlier today and I kind of want to hug him. Or have the Pats hire him away. Good for him, good for us, and, well, hell yeah.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-09 02:31 am (UTC)