Wednesday night news broke that Art Modell was gravely ill...I had posted on Facebook when the news broke, "Art Modell is "gravely ill" is the lead local news story...How many Clevelanders first response was a slight grin?"
By morning he was dead...Through the night, and all day Thursday, there were plenty of people admitting to being happy Modell had died...Even those who don't wish death on people, were still glad he had died...Clevelanders take what happened to their Browns very personally...And that's fine...I know I was pissed when Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore...But as time has gone on, and I looked at the whole picture, I don't have that same hate for Art Modell, that most Clevelanders do...Yep, you're about to witness a guy from Cleveland, defend Art Modell's legacy...
Back in the day, The Cleveland Indians sucked...But their owner knew how Cleveland loves it's sports teams...They also knew that city leaders were tired of the "Mistake by the Lake" jokes...So for a couple years, Dick Jacobs kept threatening to move the Indians...The City decided to give Jacobs what he wanted...His own stadium...Completely funded by the public...All Jacobs paid for was the sign that put his name on the place...
The City officials also thought this would be even better if they could get the Cavs to move back to downtown Cleveland, instead of playing in the sticks of Richfield...So they build Gordon Gund's Cavaliers a new arena right next to Jacobs field...Again, Gund, that blind bastard, only paid to put his name on the place...The city was all a buzz about what was dubbed, "The Gateway District"...This shit was going to bring us back!
Modell, who's Browns always sold out the 70,000 plus Municipal Stadium, waited patiently...He had just lost his tenant, the Indians...The Stadium was old, and surely the City would take care of their number one draw...But they didn't...Eventually Modell had to go to the mayor...He never went to the media like Jacobs, and made repeated threats to move...The city officials made it clear that there was no way they could afford to give him a sweet deal, and new home, like they did for the Indians and Cavaliers...Modell, was losing money...No one in Cleveland fought for him or the Browns...He was in debt,and got an offer from football starved Baltimore...We always hear about sports being a business...Well, Modell made the smart business move, and took HIS team to Baltimore...
In 1995 Modell told The Wall Street Journal, "The reason I'm taking so much heat now is every politician is covering his backside for failing to do anything at all. They took me for granted."
Yes they did...It wasn't until news broke that Modell was moving the team to Baltimore, that people finally took action...All the sudden the fans spoke up...Suddenly elected officials were trying to do something...Too little, too late...All this time fans have been pissed at Modell...They've had nothing but hate for him, when really they should have taken that out the mayor, councilmen, and the media, who cried to save the Indians, but didn't say anything about taking care of the Browns until they were already packing up...
And while Art is hated in Cleveland, he deserves the praise he is getting from around the country...He is one of the few key people, who made the NFL what it is today...He Pushed for the NFL/AFL merger, and he and Pete Rozelle were the visionaries that saw that TV was where Football had to go...Modell almost single-handedly strong armed his fellow owners into the first TV contract...Letting them know, that if they really wanted to make the money that they dreamed of, that TV was going to get them there...And then later, it was Modell, who strong armed the Networks into ponying up the BIG money, to put the NFL on their airwaves...You can also thank Art for Monday Night Football....
There are mountains of NFL history that couldn't have been written had it not been for Art Modell...The man belongs in the Hall of Fame...And Cleveland, he also deserves some respect for the countless acts of charity he contributed to during his life in here...
After much talk about the NFL having Modell Honored with a moment of silence before this Sunday's games, The Modell family has asked The Cleveland Browns to not pay him any Honor...The Browns were planning to keep it short, knowing the fan reaction would be bad...This takes any worry off the Browns...But it bothers me that pretty much everyone in the world knows that, a moment of silence to pay respect to one of the men that built the NFL into the monster it is, would be greeted in Browns Stadium with a chorus of boooo's...
This may be odd for a sports blogger to write...But it's just a football team people...There is really so much more to life, then to carry that kind of hate around for all these years.
Fuck Pittsburgh!
Later, The Beeze.
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