When the Colts left Baltimore - Taking a team is one thing; stealing a city's legacy and history is quite another.

When I was a lowly freshman and starting to learn a bit about our lovely Charm City, a Fresh Food Café cook told me about the historic midnight flight of the Baltimore Colts. I had heard the story before, but never from the perspective of someone who had lived through the event, someone who woke up one morning to find his favorite team gone without a trace.

If I remember correctly, he said that the departure of the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis was something like waking up one morning and finding that the Grinch had stolen the city's Christmas, except the Grinch was your best friend.

I offered the analogy of Lando Calrissian selling out Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back.

"Something like that," he said.

The phrase "something like that" is about as close as any of us Baltimore visitors will ever get to fully knowing what it was like to have our hometown team betray us overnight.

For those who don't know the story, it began when team owner Robert Isray started a series of negotiations with a number of cities across the countries about moving the team. The primary interest was an Indianapolis real estate developer by the name of Robert Welch, whose continual lobbying efforts to move the team to Indianapolis led to Isray participating in secret negotiations with the Indy deputy mayor David Frick. After Isray visited Indianapolis in February, mumblings of a possible move reached the Baltimore community and the Maryland state legislature gave the city of Baltimore the right to seize the team from Isray under eminent domain.

Isray was forced to conduct the rest of his business from the shadows. Behind closed doors, the city of Indianapolis offered Isray a $12.5 million loan, a $4 million training facility and the brand new $77.5 million, 57,980 seat Hoosier Dome, a stunning offer that left the former Baltimorean drooling. The offer was accepted and on March 29, 1984, at 2 a.m., 15 trucks loaded up the team and all its possessions from its Owings Mills training complex, and by 10 a.m., the Baltimore Colts were no more. The move was unquestionably a heist on the part of Isray. The flight was initiated in the middle of the night to avoid Baltimore seizure of the team, and each truck took a different route to Indianapolis in order to delude the Baltimore City police force from stopping them. It was a mastermind plan and by the time the city of Baltimore woke up, their World Champion team was gone.

Barry Levinson, director of such films as Rain Man and The Natural has recently released a documentary on the flight of the Baltimore Colts, focusing on the team's marching band that was left behind in the move.

"When the Colts left Baltimore in 1984, the Baltimore Colts marching band had no team, obviously, but they continued to march for 12 years without a team," Levinson said in an ESPN interview. "They marched at barbecues, or Fourth of July things, or anything that they could do. Eventually they started marching at some of the NFL games for other teams, Cleveland included, marching to keep the spirit of football alive and hoping to get another team. And that's basically what the documentary tracks, that 12-year period of this fanaticism to get another NFL franchise."

When the Colts left Baltimore, they took just about everything with them, except the uniforms of the marching band, which were still in the dry-cleaners and the game ball from the historic 1958 Super Bowl against the New York Giants.

When the marching band director, John Ziemann got the call from the dry-cleaners, he hid them in a cemetery, fearing that Indianapolis would come to re-claim them, and he hid the game ball in a bass drum. "It's a very, kind of cock-eyed story in a way," Levinson said. "It's kind of humorous and it has its touching elements because there's a sort of nostalgic element to it and there's the guy, John Zyman, who mortgaged his house, did everything he could just to keep that band going in the hopes of getting another team."

Levinson is an obvious choice to direct the documentary. As a Baltimore native, his family had season tickets and he went to every game as a child. In a time when players were part of the community in which they played, Levinson had the privilege of calling such legends as Johnny Unitas and Art Donovan his neighbors.

One Baltimore native who saw the team vanish, Hopkins Writing Seminars professor Greg Kane, had a different perspective on the team's midnight flight. While many former fans seem to remember only the betrayal, Kane recalls the travesties that Isray committed before he made his final goodbye to Charm City.

Kane's lasting memory of Isray involved the trading away of star running back Lydell Mitchell for racial reasons. Mitchell was one of the best running backs in the leagues and requested to be paid accordingly.

"Now it was bad enough that Colts management rejected Mitchell's request to be paid as one of the best running backs in the league, but these idiots decided to really distinguish themselves in the Idiot Sweepstakes," Kane said.

"They were downright racist about it, claiming that granting Mitchell's request would make him one of the highest-paid blacks on the team. Then, when Mitchell went public, they decided to insult his intelligence -- and ours -- by claiming that they said 'highest-paid BACKS,' not 'highest-paid BLACKS,' as if Mitchell were too stupid to distinguish between the two words."

Kane was happy to see Isray go, but understandably irate over the fact that Isray didn't just take the players with him, but the iconic emblem of the once great Baltimore team.

"Had he changed the name to something specific to the history and traditions of either Indianapolis or Indiana, and left the name Colts, the horseshoe insignia and colors and the legacy here, then all would have been good," Kane said.

"I think that's why there's still such bitterness and resentment against Bob Irsay and his son Jim. Taking a team is one thing; stealing a city's legacy and history is quite another. It didn't help that after the Irsays got to Indy, they make public comments blaming Baltimore fans, not their own incompetence, for the team's pathetic showing during their latter years here and during their early years in Indianapolis. They also opposed moves by other owners who wanted to bring their teams to Baltimore, claiming that frequent moves would make the league unstable."

Many Baltimoreans still harbor a deep resentment toward the Indianapolis team, still feeling the scars that Robert Isray left behind on their city.

But many more, including Kane, have moved on.

"I harbor no resentment toward the current Colts team," Kane said. "In fact, I'm a Colts fan, but more of a Peyton Manning fan than a Colts fan... The current Colts team is just another set of jerseys. The ones who played here, almost to the man, identify with Baltimore, not Indianapolis. Guys like Lenny Moore and Art Donovan still live here."

Levinson's documentary was released on Oct. 13, and premiered at M&T Bank Stadium on Oct. 6, with several original members of the historic band in attendance.