For the Baltimore football fan, it was a day of such wildly conflicting emotions, you didn't know whether to order a hot dog and a beer or call your analyst.

On a sunny, unseasonably warm afternoon, the Colts returned to town for the first time since their infamous nighttime departure for Indianapolis in the Mayflower moving vans 14 bitter years ago.

In their long-awaited matchup, the Ravens beat the Colts 38-31 in a thrilling game before a roaring crowd of 68,898 at Camden Yards. But even when Ralph Staten's interception of a Peyton Manning pass sealed the win for the Ravens with 1: 13 remaining, for many Ravens fans it was a surreal experience rooting against a team wearing horseshoes painted on its helmets, a team that had been so much a part of the fabric of this city for 30 years.

Baltimore 38, Colts 31.

How weird does that sound?

"Oh, I was torn today," said 40-year-old Mike Gutowski, a Baltimore insurance agent who grew up watching the Baltimore Colts. "Seeing the Colts uniforms was strange. I booed them a little when the game first started, but then I stopped. I just can't boo the horseshoes."

Gutowski, sitting in Section 113 on the lower level, said the game, and the Ravens hard-fought victory, was "sort of like the third movie of the 'Star Wars' trilogy. We're making the circle complete. This represents a form of closure for Baltimore football fans."

Up in Section 547, in a wind-swept corner that seemed as high as the clouds, Dave Harrington, a retired Baltimore County police officer, agreed. "I think now it's time to embrace the black and purple and let the Colts die," he said between sips of beer. "We'll always have our memories. But let the Colts just fade away."

Still, there was a palpable sense of anger swirling around the stadium all afternoon.

Near the end of the game, after Matt Stover's 47-yard field goal gave the Ravens a 7-point lead, dozens of fans turned to the press box and gestured obscenely at Colts owner Jim Irsay.

Irsay, the son of Bob Irsay, the doughy, reviled owner who moved the Colts to Indianapolis on that snowy night in 1984, was visibly shaken by the demonstration and left the press box minutes later.

And in addition to the requisite "Irsay S----" chants, there were plenty of fans such as Tom Brettschneider, 33, of Abingdon waving anti-Colts signs and wearing T-shirts with all manner of slurs directed toward the memory of Bob Irsay, who died in 1997.

"There will never be closure on this," Brettschneider, a manager at Sports in Cockeysville, said solemnly. "There was never closure for the Brooklyn Dodgers fans. And there will never be closure for Baltimore Colts fans."

Dennis Peltz, 46, an engineer from Perry Hall who sat in the lower deck on the 40-yard line, seemed equally unwilling to bury the past.

"I have a deep hatred for anything connected with Indianapolis," he said. "If the NCAA basketball tournament is held in Indianapolis, I can't watch it.

"I hope they never have a winner. I hope their children never have a winner."

As the Ravens stopped a Colts drive and a roar reverberated around the stadium, Peltz jumped to his feet and whooped wildly.

In a moment, though, a wistful look crossed his face.

"Look at those uniforms, though," he said, pointing at the Colts. "Those are still the best uniforms in football."

A day of reflection

For many, it was a day to reflect on that cold, long-ago evening when the moving vans arrived at the Colts complex in Owings Mills to pack up a proud franchise as if it were so much Tupperware.

To Gutowski, the images of that night seem as vivid now.

He recalled seeing a report on Channel 13 that March evening that said the Colts were leaving and "going into a panic and thinking: 'What are we gonna do?' "

"I had this old, beat-up Chevette at the time," he said. "And when I heard that the moving vans were at the Colts complex, I was tempted to go out there and block them with my car."

Fortunately, Gutowski did not hit the road that night after friends pointed out two obvious drawbacks to his plan, namely, that it was insane and that it would probably land him in jail.

When Peltz heard on the radio that the moving vans were rumbling out Interstate 70 toward Indianapolis, he felt a hollowness that remained for many days.

"It was like I heard my parents had died," he said. "It was incredible. I was in a deep depression for weeks."

Several fans recalled seeing news footage of a stunned Mayor William Donald Schaefer stepping out his door the next morning to find an army of reporters and photographers waiting on his lawn, ready to record his reaction.

"I'm trying to retain what little dignity I have left in this matter," said a red-eyed Schaefer then, struggling to keep his composure. "If the Colts had to sneak out of town, at night, it degrades a great city."

With a weary sigh, he continued: "I hate to see a man cry."

"I was devastated by the whole thing," recalled Brettschneider, modeling a snappy "Irsay S----" T-shirt. "I had just gotten my season tickets. I was 18 years old, in the prime of my life, getting ready to start a tradition. And they ripped the team out from under me."

In the wake of the Colts' departure that spring, light planes towing all sorts of anti-Irsay banners ("Saiontz and Kirk think Irsay is a jerk") dotted the skies over Baltimore, and radio stations roasted the Colts owner with vicious song parodies.

The Orioles season opener that year served as a huge anti-Irsay rally that seemed almost like a catharsis for the city and its sports fans.

A few days later, the city of Indianapolis threw a rousing ceremony at the Hoosier Dome to welcome Bob Irsay and the Colts. All of it was captured on videotape and played on the nightly news in Baltimore. A crowd of 15,000 gave Irsay a standing ovation, and then Indianapolis Mayor William Hudnut embraced the Colts owner as if the two had been separated at birth.

And when a beaming, jowly Irsay took the microphone, pledging his undying devotion to Naptown, Baltimore sports fans were sickened.

Many of them swore off watching pro football, and a deep gloom seemed to fall like a veil over this city's football fans.

"It really seemed to set in on Sundays in the fall, when we'd normally be going out to a football game," said Mike Bonsiero, 42, a Towson food sales manager sitting in the upper deck yesterday with Dave Harrington. "Watching football left you with an empty feeling. I never cheered for any other team after that, until we got the Ravens."

A cheerier mood

But yesterday, it was a far different mood that enveloped Ravens stadium as the last seconds ticked off the scoreboard clock and the win over the Colts seemed assured.

The fans cheered wildly when quarterback Jim Harbaugh raced to the sidelines, over to where John Unitas, the Hall of Fame quarterback during their glory years, was doing a television interview.

Harbaugh handed Unitas the game ball, then hugged him, and Unitas' bashful grin appeared on the huge video screens that adorn the upper section of each end zone.

Seconds later, when defensive lineman Tony Siragusa also lumbered over and gave him a hug, it seemed as if Unitas, the modest, unassuming hero of the old Colt championship teams, would keel over from embarrassment.

But the fans loved it. And as the Colts left the field to jeers and a great roar went up for Unitas, you could almost forget that this was only the Ravens' fifth win of the season, and that their record is an uninspiring 5-7.

"If this team was winning," Peltz said earlier, "it would knock this town on its ear."

But at that moment, all that mattered was that the Ravens had beaten the Colts.

Pub Date: 11/30/98