Fan's plea: Don't take our Bucs
I am writing this letter to the residents of Baltimore and Peter Angelos in an appeal to your sense of fair play. I grew up in Baltimore throughout the 1960s until I left in 1988. I remember my father taking me to see the Colts at Memorial Stadium during the good years and some of the not-so-good years. The Colts were as much a part of Baltimore as crabs, Natty Boh and the Orioles. I also remember the hurt and pain when Bob Irsay moved the Colts to Indianapolis. Irsay stated, if my memory is correct, that there was no fan support, the stadium was in disrepair, etc.
You and I, the fans of the Baltimore Colts, knew differently, but were powerless to do anything about it. So, the Colts left and Memorial Stadium sat cold and empty.
Now, after all these years, Baltimore has a chance to get back into the NFL through the efforts of Angelos, the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland. And I find myself living in the Tampa Bay area. If Angelos is successful in his efforts, I will once again feel the pain of losing an NFL team.
The Tampa Bay Bucs don't have the championship seasons and the Super Bowl rings, but they are still our Bucs. Despite what you may be hearing up there, the fans want them to stay.
It would be hard for any group of trustees or individuals to turn down an offer of $200 million for something that they do not truly own but only administer. I am sure Angelos felt the same emotional attachment to the Colts when they left. I am sure he would not want to be referred to as the Irsay of Tampa Bay.
So, in the interest of fair play, Angelos should give the Tampa Bay region a fair chance to come up with an ownership group, say six months. He has been trying to purchase a team for the better part of a year, and the people of Tampa Bay only found out the team was for sale halfway through the current season. If Tampa Bay cannot come up with an ownership group in that time, then maybe we don't deserve the team.
Baltimore already has a professional football team (in the Canadian Football League), and I can understand not supporting the Redskins, but when the money gets tight, and it will, the NFL and CFL will change a few rules and merge to form the North
American Football League. Why do you think the CFL is in the United States anyway? When that happens, Baltimore has a team that is already rich in tradition, and they'll play the Tampa Bay Bucs for the championship and everyone will be happy. And best of all, Angelos gets to keep his asbestos money and use it for something worthwhile, like donations to schools and programs to help the poor.
Matthew P. Gasper
St. Petersburg, Fla.
Indy-Tampa-Baltimore trade
If Peter Angelos was able to bring the current Tampa Bay franchise to Baltimore (and if elephants were to fly), I think the next logical move would be to strike a deal with Indianapolis. They become the Indianapolis Buccaneers and we can again have the Baltimore Colts. The rosters don't even have to change, just the uniforms and the rights to the logos, etc. The Colts don't have much tradition in Indy anyway.
Since Paul Tagliabue almost definitely will make this point moot, though, I'm sticking with the CFL No-Names.
Rob Thaler
Pikesville
Let's turn Bucs into a winner
In reply to John Eisenberg's column of Dec. 19, "200 Million Reasons Not To Want The Bucs," his 200 million reasons do not hold water because of one overriding reason -- we want an NFL team here!
In 1954, did we say "no" to a poor St. Louis Browns team? Did we say "no" to a poor Dallas Texans team in the early 1950s before they returned here as the Colts?
In time, both the Orioles and Colts became winners due to astute management, key trades and drafting. The Bucs are an improving team. Let's get them here first and let the future take care of itself.
Irvin J. Lustman
Baltimore
Cooke, team not welcome here
A message to Jack Kent Cooke and the Washington Redskins: Stay where you are in Washington. Baltimore does not want you here. Cooke and Paul Tagliabue are the reason we don't have an NFL team here. But at least there's hope. If Cooke builds a stadium here, all hope is gone forever.
Don't let Cooke and Tagliabue get the last laugh on us. And thank God for Peter Angelos for hanging in there and fighting for
an NFL team.
Adele Paxdzienski
Dundalk
Blame the players
After months of reading Ken Rosenthal's and John Eisenberg's skewed opinions on the baseball strike, I felt compelled to set a few things straight.
To hear The Sun's sports columnists tell it, this whole mess is the fault of the evil team owners and their unbridled lust for power, money and control. Rosenthal and Eisenberg would have us believe that linking player salaries to team revenue is tantamount to slavery. If only Bud Selig and his lackeys would let Peter Angelos have a crack at settling this thing, boy, it would be over in a week.
What utter nonsense. I have watched in dismay during the past five years as the game I once loved has been ruined by free agency and out-of-control player salaries.
Until recently, one of the simple joys of baseball was watching a team develop. Even in years when a team stunk, its fans could take heart watching the young players on the team. Fans knew that in two or three years those young players would still be with the team, and that, if other talented players came along, the team would get better.
Under the current system, those young players sign with the highest bidder after a few years. Small-market teams, like Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and San Diego, are unable to keep their young players. There is no continuity to the game.
Angelos is certainly an impressive personality, but his solution to baseball's revenue problems is no answer. He would have every city build a Camden Yards-type stadium. Then, the logic goes, all teams will have more money to spend on player salaries.
Perfect. The average, working-class baseball fan would involuntarily subsidize player salaries by shelling out a few more hard-earned dollars in taxes to pay for a publicly financed stadium with lots of high-priced sky boxes. Then, Angelos and the other owners could jack up ticket prices so that only high-income yuppies and business types could afford to go to the games. Under this scenario, which is basically the present situation with baseball in Baltimore, everybody wins except the average, working-class fan.
A cap on player salaries may not solve all of baseball's problems. But it would restore some economic rationality to the game, keep small-market teams competitive, and perhaps keep ticket prices within reach of the average fan.
Players making millions of dollars get no sympathy from me. They should quit whining and play ball.
Robert A. Scott
Catonsville