The news came across in rather pedestrian, almost unobtrusive fashion.  Art Modell, former owner of the Baltimore Ravens, former owner of the Cleveland Browns, died of natural causes in his adopted city of Baltimore.  He was 87 years old. 

Somehow I always imagined that the news would come across with a far bigger impact, at least in Cleveland.  But maybe it’s because the fans, like me, never figured that Modell would actually die.

 By all accounts, Modell had been on his death bed since the early ‘80s.  He had heart attacks and all manner of maladies and yet hung in there to live another day. He was Hyman Roth, perpetually dying but always sticking around as a thorn in someone’s side.  Even Modell saw the humor in his supposedly poor health, often joking about how he continuously cheated death.  It wasn’t the only thing he cheated. 

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Art Modell, who meant so much to the City of Cleveland and Browns fans from 1961 to 1996, and so little from 1996 to the present, is dead at the age of 87. Lest we forget (or, for the benefit of younger fans), let us remember his king-sized public persona over most of those five decades:

1) According to “The League” by David Harris (Bantam Books, 1986): “Modell was, one sportswriter noted, ‘a hustler kind of guy,’ easy to have a drink with, jovial, but always playing the angles. Modell liked being in the inside of things and rubbing shoulders with other insiders.”

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From the Associated Press:

In a pep-rally atmosphere, with hundreds of cheering fans in attendance, God stood beside aging former NFL owner Art Modell on a dais just before sunrise Thursday morning and delivered the news that He would be moving Modell’s soul and ethereal spirit to the afterlife.

“This is truly a proud moment in the long and rich history of the afterlife,” God excitedly told the crowd. “To bring such an historic human being to our community is quite an achievement. This is truly a glorious day.”

Modell had been one of the most historic members of humankind since his creation in 1925, creating an passionate fan base along the way. Many of those fans expressed bitterness and anger at the Almighty Father’s announcement.

“While we do regret the disappointment and heartbreak Art Modell fans are no doubt experiencing today, this is simply something that had to happen,” God said.

The Absolute Being explained that he quietly signed the agreement to move Modell last Saturday night aboard a parked airplane owned by Al Lerner.

While possible impediments emerged when doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital attempted to prevent the move Wednesday night, God was pleased to announce that these obstacles had been averted. He also doesn’t expect any opposition from other religious deities, who could technically try to block the move at their annual divine-being meeting in January in San Diego.

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So he’s dead.

Now what?

For years, I had my celebration for this special day all planned out. Champagne, fireworks, dancing, carnal passions. The works, really. Full spread. All on top of his freshly planted grave. So when I heard last night he was gravely ill, I figured I’d be happy and ready to celebrate when I awoke to the inevitable news this morning.

Strangely enough, though, I didn’t experience great joy and rapture at the imminent passing of Art. It made me a little sad actually, which is strange because I despise the man and everything he did to my fair hometown. I despise his running Paul Brown out of town, even though I wasn’t even born when that happened. I despise his running Marty Schottenheimer out of town. And most of all, of course, I despise him running out of town.

He kicked an entire town right in the franks and beans for his own personal profit, a loyal town which had done everything they could to support him (outside of respond to Art’s blackmail to build a new stadium on Art’s personal timeframe irrespective of the economics involved in a struggling city). The “football team” we got in return for his treachery is a sad shell of its former self, and a disgrace to the glorious colors and the legacy of the past. We got an empty soul of a stadium, a veritable “Factory of Sadness”, and an apathetic and detached owner that ran the team like a drunken hobo performs brain surgery.

Art was the type of person I should hate, and in who’s death I should revel. But here I am, a little melancholy about the whole thing, and certainly not feeling right about having the off the chain celebraish I had planned. Why is that?

I guess for one thing, I’m awash in the realization that human life is indeed greater than athletic rivalry. Let’s all keep that in perspective. Football is a game, a sport, something to amuse us and help us escape from the ennui of our mundane existence. Human life is a precious and valuable commodity that we as a society necessarily put above all else. Even the worst of humans, such as Modell, should rank above the best of sport achievements in our moral priority. Note that a special exception exists for those who actually take and destroy human life, like Osama Bin Laden and Jerry Sandusky – we are decorously allowed to revel in their deaths because of the depraved indifference with which they treat other lives. And while Modell did behave with depraved indifference toward Cleveland, it is certainly quite different when the damage is the removal of a football team over the removal of life or innocence.

Being honest, though, I don’t think I’m sad for Art as a human. At best I was depravedly indifferent to his life, and his passing as a person fills me with no special sadness. Upon reflection, I think to me that his death marked the end of an era, a tangible link to glory days of the Cleveland Browns from my youth. By actively hating the living black soul of the man who stole that from me, I was able to keep that era alive in my heart. “We would be great now had he never moved,” I told myself, and as long as he was there to rest that prop of courage for my soul on top of, I had the glory days of the past alive and well inside of me. But now, he’s gone, and I’m faced with the grim reality of Shurmur’s Shitheads performing miserably in front of an emasculated crowd in the Factory of Sadness every Sunday. Forward is the only way I can look now, as the past is now dead and soon buried, and the journey ahead does not promise pleasantry.

So strangely for me, I find myself not celebrating his death (but won’t begrudge you the opportunity to do such). I certainly won’t celebrate his life today, or remember anything positive from it – of that I am certain. To me, Modell is now merely the nearly invisible scar on my knee from falling off my bike 30 years ago, a scab long since picked off and flicked away, and the associated painful memory nearly forgotten.

Might I relieve myself on his grave someday? Sure, if I’m in the neighborhood and have to pee, I’d gladly make his corpse my urinal mint for a moment. But I won’t seek it out, because that whole chapter of our past, good, bad, and ugly, is now gone for me. Some hate is now removed from my soul, and the sting of the honest reality of the current state of Cleveland Browns football replaces it.

So “now what” indeed? Well, today I guess we all just move on. That chapter of our past has officially departed, and all the baggage with it is now checked to its final destination. It's kind of ironic and appropriate this happens right before the first game of the season under new ownership.The book of the Browns is now officially yours, Mr. Haslam. Please steward it more effectively than Mr. Modell did.