I thought I'd feel more strongly

I used to ask for Art Modell's head in a burlap sack for Christmas every year. I swore I'd take it to Guatemala and let street children play soccer with it if I ever received it. This was how passionately I hated a man I had never met, a man who wronged me, and many thousands of others, by taking away something we loved. That he owned it didn't matter, and watching him with the Lombardi trophy - at the pinnacle of his profession - five years later was the sports equivalent of the proverbial knife in the back. It just wasn't possible to hate him any more than at that moment. A dozen years later, Art Modell died in his sleep. He was old. He was rich. He no longer owned the franchise he had moved, which is to say he no longer held the dagger he'd once slid between out collective ribs and twisted. My enemy, vanquished by old age. I saw the news when I woke up this morning, and my first thought was: "I need to walk the dog." That's how much impact this had on me. I lived for sports, and in the sports world at one time the Browns were my true love. I'd been in the Dawg Pound, made the + hour round trip to see a three hour game. My room was painted like a Browns helmet throughout my adolescence. How could I not turn a cartwheel, crack a beer, or at least a smile? It's a lot of things, I guess. Sports still have a place in my life, but they aren't my life. The Browns have never really recovered from the move, never really been my team since December 15, 1995. I won't forget that day, and that might be the main reason I let go of my rage and animosity after all these years. That day was the last Browns game in old Municipal Stadium. I was headed up there with my best friend's dad and uncles - Bengals fans all - who knew me and my love for the Browns. They knew it would be a special game for me, as there was no guarantee the Browns would ever take the field again at that point. We left Florence, KY in the dark and cold, and I felt sick. We had to stop several times before we made it out of the Cincinnati area. I was fevered, nauseous, and had a pain in my gut that made it uncomfortable for me to sit, stand, or lay down - which didn't leave me with a lot of options. They turned around, and I was taken to a hospital, and a few hours later wheeled into surgery for a n appendix that was ready to rupture. I remember telling the doctor to wake me up for the game. He said he doubted I would be done by then, and I grabbed his arm and sat up. "Then we're not doing this," I told him, with 19 years of athletic muscle, pain, rage, and love coming out. They did the surgery, and they brought me out of recovery in time to see most of it. From a hospital bed I watched Browns players shaking hands with fans after beating the Bengals that day - the only game they won after Modell announced the move that October. I didn't make it to say goodbye. Maybe that's why I am indifferent today. Maybe I came to terms with not having a goodbye already, or maybe I will never have to say goodbye to the Browns of Bernie Kosar and Webster Slaughter, to Michael Dean Perry and Big Daddy Hairston. Maybe "Let's go, Sipe-o!" and the woofing of the Dawg Pound are gone, but the fact that I haven't forgotten means my team, the one I used to fight and argue and anguish over, maybe that team is still my team and no one - not a greedy owner, not faulty biology - can take that from me. Maybe in the end, I'm indifferent because Modell doesn't matter to me, and his life, his actions, even his death don't change my joy at seeing a Kosar sidearm spiral, my despair over The Drive, or my admiration for every goal line stand I watched that defense make. I wish today's team inspired these things in me. I wish any of them did. But that time is gone, and so is the child that lived for those games. I have to walk the dog.