THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608040217
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ED MILLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: 58 lines
Two hours before gametime, and some fans still couldn't believe it.
``I'm not taking anything for granted,'' said 34-year-old Tony Butta, of Baltimore, hoisting a beer on a hill overlooking the Memorial Stadium parking lot. ``I won't believe it until I see the opening kickoff.''
Baltimore fans had been burned before in the 12 years since Robert Irsay snuck their beloved Colts out of town under cover of darkness. There was talk they would get the Cardinals. The Rams. An expansion team. Nothing ever came of it.
But on Saturday night, after 12 long autumns without it, NFL football returned to Baltimore.
The fact that it was just an exhibition game did not dampen the enthusiasm of the stadium-record 63,804 fans who came to watch the brand-new Baltimore Ravens take on the Philadelphia Eagles.
``The stadium was more beautiful than any time I've ever seen it,'' said Ravens coach Ted Marchibroda, who coached the Baltimore Colts from 1975 to 1979.
And maybe as loud as Marchibroda ever heard it.
The fans cheered the Baltimore Colts marching band, which had never disbanded. They gave it up for owner Art Modell, the anti-Irsay, who brought them the team from Cleveland. And they erupted when Vinny Testaverde found Michael Jackson for a 31-yard touchdown with 11:04 left in the second quarter.
The fact that Baltimore won 17-9 was lemon on the crabcake.
Fans arrived hours before kickoff and cheered each other in the parking lot. One of the loudest ovations was for Hamid Quayyum, a 27-year-old Baltimore man who dressed as a Raven by smearing black make-up over his body and donning a pair of home-made wings. Quayyum and a friend dressed as Batman held a sign that said, ``Baltimore is Back.''
Back in a league that's changed a great deal since 1984, when Irsay took the Colts to Indianapolis. On Saturday, fans paid $15 to park in stadium lots. Inside the stadium, sweatshirts were going for $62, and Starter jackets for $115, a sum that would have bought season tickets in the old days.
Outside, a ``no tailgating'' rule was widely ignored.
Craig Barlow and his wife, Angel, cooked sausages on a gas grill sitting in the bed of their pickup truck. Craig Barlow had engraved ``Ravens'' on the lid of the grill.
While tailgating is an old football tradition, some Ravens fans are still groping to create some new ones. Before the game, Jim and Amy Carrier of Baltimore hawked offical Ravens ``caws'' for $10. The idea is for fans to blow them like kazoos.
``I believe that it's a turkey call,'' Jim Carrier said, examining one of the caws. ``We're trying to get 60,000 of them in there.
``Hey, it's better than the Tomahawk chop.''
Quayyum, the fan dressed as the Raven, said he plans to make his getup a new Baltimore tradition.
``At least until it gets cold,'' he said.
Quayyum, an otherwise rational fellow, works for an interactive television company, named, appropraitely, ``Welcome to the Future.''
To the future of football, in Baltimore. by CNB