I was reading this article about the A's situation in Oakland, it mentions the Browns fan fight in '95-96, and I really liked it but I hate this narrative that people, even some Ratbirds fans, push:
"In November 1995, news broke that Art Modell, the Browns’ owner, had entered into a secret deal to move the Browns to Baltimore, where he’d been offered a publicly funded stadium and the chance to play there rent-free. Browns fans, who ranked among the most vociferous in sports—the Browns Backers, a fan group, still claims to count 70,000 members globally—took offense to the move. They hung signs reading STOP ART MODELL on billboards and freeway overpasses all over the city. They wrote letters to the NFL. They caravanned from Cleveland to Pittsburgh for a protest outside a Browns-Steelers Monday Night Football game. They enlisted comedian Drew Carey to help them put on a “Fan Jam” at Jesse Owens Park, which was followed by a march up West 3rd Street toward Cleveland Stadium. They were relentless—dogged, some would say—and it worked. They didn’t, in the end, stop Modell, but at least in part due to their efforts, Modell agreed to leave the Browns’ history and likeness in Cleveland, where they could be adopted by a future expansion team, which was almost as good.
NO! Art Modell didn't just leave the Browns history and name in Cleveland out of the goodness of his heart. He was forced to by the NFL because of the fight Browns fans put up. I mean they broke fax machines at NFL headquarters because of how many they sent. Wish there was more pushback on this somehow.
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> Art Modell didn’t just leave the Browns history and name in Cleveland out of the goodness of his heart.
And the part you quoted doesn’t say he did. I’m not really sure what the problem is here.
Revisionist history that Baltimore fans have consistently pushed for decades now at any opportunity they can get to say that Modell graciously left us the name and history so they can justify when they say he deserves to be in the Hall and shit like that because they are trying to paint him as some magnanimous guy. It’s bullshit but it’s been spread by word of mouth so much a lot of people believe this heaping pile of bullshit. Fuck Modell, Always and Forever
They left in the middle of the night. That is not normal or ethical.
Did someone say fuck Art Modell?