Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 6, 1995 TAG: 9511060136
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: Medium
No matter what happens today, Baltimore will have to wait before officially toasting its very own NFL team.
The Cleveland Browns reportedly have reached an agreement in principle to move to Baltimore, a deal that is expected to be formally concluded today, just a few miles from where the team would play its 1996 home games.
Although Maryland governor Parris Glendening will attend a news conference concerning the Browns, the man in charge of luring the NFL club to Baltimore was not giving out any information Sunday.
``If there's anything tomorrow, we'll let people know in the morning,'' said John Moag, head of the Maryland Stadium Authority.
Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White postponed a trip Sunday to meet with Baltimore officials. It was not immediately known when he would make the trip.
According to Moag, White's presence wouldn't change a thing.
``He's doing what he thinks he needs to do,'' Moag said. ``But I don't see his visit as relevant to anything the Maryland Stadium Authority is doing.''
The first step in the relocation is having Browns owner Art Modell sign on the dotted line. Then comes the tough part - getting approval from NFL owners.
Under NFL bylaws, a team's move must be approved by two-thirds of the owners. White said he will send letters to all the owners, asking them to reject the proposed move.
Cleveland officials, including White, plan to argue against any possible Browns move during the NFL owners' meeting Tuesday in Dallas.
It might not be easy for those owners to approve the departure of a storied franchise that regularly draws 70,000 fans at a crumbling stadium that was built during the Depression era. Tradition is a factor, too - the Browns joined the NFL before the old Baltimore Colts.
``I just don't see a team that's been a pillar in the community being given approval to move,'' said Jim Speros, owner of Baltimore's pro football team of the present, the Stallions of the Canadian Football League.
Speros said Saturday he has been told by several state officials that the Maryland Stadium Authority has reached an agreement in principle with the Browns.
``If the NFL does [allow the move], they send a message to the whole National Football League and every city in the United States: If you can take a team like the Browns out of Cleveland because an owner didn't get his way, then what's going to stop a merry-go-round of events going on forever and ever?'' he said.
Of course, Speros has a rooting interest against the move: an NFL team in Baltimore would force him to take his team elsewhere.
But Speros is not alone in his sentiment. New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft told the Boston Globe, ``I'm not going to vote for it. I just don't think it's right.''
It might not matter how the owners vote. After rejecting the Los Angeles Rams' move to St. Louis, the owners changed their minds after being faced with legal action, and the L.A. Rams became the St. Louis Rams.
And, the NFL owners were incapable of stopping Al Davis from moving his Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles, then back again.
It probably is too late for Cleveland to do anything to change Modell's mind. Even if Cuyahoga County votes to renew a ``sin tax'' that would provide $175 million for a renovation of Cleveland Stadium, Modell still stands to make a bigger profit if his team plays in Baltimore.
``It's just not the answer,'' Modell said of the referendum. ``It doesn't do the job.''
Baltimore has been striving for an NFL team since Robert Irsay packed the Colts' equipment into moving vans in the middle of a snowy night in March 1984 and took his team to Indianapolis.
by CNB