Half a century ago, in a vanished newspaper called the Baltimore News-Post, a young sports columnist named John Steadman sat down at his typewriter and wrote a preposterous column. It was a play-by-play prediction of the upcoming championship football game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, which I bring up today because maybe it connects with a championship playoff game set for tomorrow involving the Baltimore Ravens.
In sports, you look for your omens wherever you can find them. Me, I’m a sentimental slob. But I’d like to believe that whatever gods on high rule the football universe, they have a sense of history, and maybe even a sense of justice.
On a Saturday afternoon 50 years ago, Steadman typed out a couple of numbers for all the world to see. They were 23 and 17. He predicted that, on the very next afternoon, at Yankee Stadium, the Colts would defeat the Giants, by a score of 23 to 17.
The next afternoon, in a score that is still the most famous in Baltimore sports history after all these years, the Colts beat the Giants, 23 to 17.
That was the day they also introduced a phrase into the American lexicon: sudden death.
With these two elements in mind — sudden death, and 23 to 17 — we offer our spiritual lesson for the day as the Ravens prepare for Saturday’s game in Nashville, against the Tennessee Titans, in the second round of the NFL playoffs.
But first, let’s go back to Steadman.
In those marvelous early years of the Baltimore Colts, there were two voices calling the masses to each Sunday’s outdoor services on 33rd Street: Steadman’s and Chuck Thompson’s. It was Chuck doing the broadcast play-by-play as it happened and John explaining it in his newspaper columns the rest of the week.
Steadman’s ties to the Colts lasted a lifetime. He never missed a game in their entire history: not regular season, not postseason, not even preseason. His ties were so strong that when he died, eight years ago — Jan. 1, 2001 — his pallbearers included such old Colts as John Unitas and Art Donovan and Lenny Moore.
When mourners left the church that snowy morning, they heard the piped-in sounds of the Baltimore Colts marching song, played at funeral tempo.
Those mourners were also given one more reminder of Colts’ history. As one eulogist pointed out to the packed gathering, Steadman lived long enough to see the much hated, much lamented Indianapolis Colts, formerly of Baltimore, take on the Miami Dolphins in the first round of the NFL playoffs that winter. It was two days before John died.
And those Colts lost.
In sudden death.
By a score of 23 to 17.
The day after Indianapolis’ loss, the Baltimore Ravens commenced their own playoffs with a first-round victory. The following week, in the second round of the playoffs, they won again.
Who did they beat?
The Tennessee Titans — the same team the Ravens now meet.
Eight years ago, where did it all wind up, a couple of weeks later? With the Ravens beating their old rival from the 1958 championship, the New York Giants, in the Super Bowl.
Now flash forward to the current Ravens, awaiting their contest with the Titans. Baltimore slipped past Miami last week, while a certain football team from Indianapolis was losing its first-round playoff game.
In sudden-death overtime.
By a score of 23 to 17.
The football gods’ ironic little wink? Who knows? Football is still a game of blocking and tackling, not the mystical calling-up of numerical symbols. But we like to think there are patterns in history, and a give-and-take in the moral universe.
So let’s imagine the heavens parting, and the football gods peering down at Baltimore and declaring, “We know what you went through with the hated Irsay and his unconscionable kidnapping. We know about the years when you begged the NFL big shots to restore your football legacy, and the sneers they gave in return. And we remember the crushing disappointments of the league expansion, when Baltimore was passed over, and Paul Tagliabue coldly suggested building a museum instead.”
Maybe this is the gods’ little gesture of acknowledgment of the great crimes, and maybe a little balancing of the moral universe.
No? OK, then how else do we explain the off-the-chart odds of the Indianapolis Colts’ elimination from championship play — twice — by the same 23 to 17 score, and in similar sudden-death overtimes, as the Baltimore Colts’ triumph so many years ago in the most famous football game in history?
And why wouldn’t we take it as an omen of hope for the Ravens? Hey, in football, you take your omens wherever you can find ’em.
