The anger never left

Friday was Purple Day at the Woodbrook Early Education Center. Children age 2 to 5 came dressed in the color of Baltimore’s pro football team, the Ravens, who have an NFL playoff game here today against the Indianapolis Colts.

One of the teachers at Woodbrook, Chris Bollinger, said, “We don’t say the Ravens are playing the Colts. We say they are playing Indianapolis.”

Bollinger is a mother of four and a grandmother of four. She is also quite mainstream when it comes to expressing this city’s sentiment about today’s opponent.

Yes, it’s personal. And yes, they hate them.

This will be the first time these teams have met in the playoffs. The Ravens, who came here from Cleveland in 1996, are expected to win because they have the best defense in the league. The Colts, who began playing here in 1947, are given a chance because they have one of the best offenses, and quarterback Peyton Manning.

That the game is being played in this city makes it even juicier.

Tony Viscardi, a 59-year-old insurance salesman and longtime Colts fan, who once had a basement full of the team’s memorabilia, said, “You are going to see the most important game in this city in 30 years, since [Ken] Stabler and the Raiders beat us in the ’77 playoffs, on Christmas Eve.”

Ron Windsor, 58, a state program manager in the Department of Labor, Licensing and Transportation, said he is a longtime fan who won’t go to the game today “because I worry about my heart.” Asked if he had a health problem, Windsor said, “Nope.”

Marty Bass, a TV personality at WJZ, said, “If the Ravens lose, they will have to install nets under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.”

The Colts left on a snowy March night in 1984, when owner Robert Irsay, saying he feared the team would be taken by eminent domain, packed up his team’s offices and headed to Indianapolis. To this day, the image of Mayflower moving vans driving away under the cover of darkness is a rallying point for everything anti-Indianapolis. In a recent radio interview, two Mayflower executives pleaded with Baltimore fans to remember that those who drove away with their franchise and hearts were Mayflower vans from ... Virginia.

Bob Douglas is a lawyer now. In ‘84, he was a journalist for the NBC affiliate here. He was working the late news when he got a call from a gas station attendant near the Colts’ headquarters, telling him that a Mayflower van had just pulled in and asked directions to the Colts’ offices. Douglas assigned reporters and photographers, and one captured the now-famous shot, from behind bushes and locked gates, of the vans pulling away. Then Douglas called Irsay at home. He was the only reporter to get through.

“It was about 11 p.m.,” Douglas said. “He answered the phone, I identified myself, and he started mumbling. He was in his normal condition. I didn’t understand a word. Then he hung up.”

Unlike Los Angeles, which lost the Rams and Georgia Frontiere and the Raiders and Al Davis at about the same time and seems proud of its stalwart goodbye and good-riddance stance, Baltimore has happily held a grudge.

Writer, director and producer Barry Levinson, a Baltimore native, captured the city and its sports fans best in his 1982 movie “Diner,” filmed here. In it, a young fan played by Steve Guttenberg bases his marriage decision on his girlfriend’s knowledge about the Colts. When she misses the final question, Guttenberg proclaims with disgust that the marriage is off.

In Thursday’s Baltimore Sun, Levinson, writing about the upcoming game, said, “I root against the Indianapolis Colts every time they play. ... I want nothing good to happen to that team.”

The depth and breadth of memories and anger here is remarkable.

Most of it is directed toward Irsay, who died in 1997. He has been characterized over the years as a drunk, loudmouth, liar, penny-pincher and a crude and antisocial boor. And that was by his friends. His mother, who was 84 when quoted in a 1986 Sports Illustrated article, said of her son, “He’s a devil on Earth, that one.”

The Colts are now run by his son, Jim, who has built them into one of the top teams in the league and seems to be an exception to the apple not falling far from the tree. When the Colts’ departure comes up, as it has a lot this week, Jim Irsay often starts his answers, “I loved my father, but ... “ He also keeps saying that it has been nearly a quarter-century and he wishes Baltimore would at least try to get over it.

No chance.

Mike Gibbons, executive director of the Babe Ruth Museum, which runs the Sports Legends Museum at the Orioles’ Camden Yards, adjacent to the Ravens’ M&T; Bank Stadium, said he cannot forgive Irsay and the Colts because, “You can only have your heart captured once.”

Much of the anger stems from Indianapolis taking not only Baltimore’s team, but its history and uniforms.

“I can remember, watching the Colts play and seeing that blue and white that was so bright you had to squint your eyes,” Gibbons said. “Now, when I see it, it is hard not to root against it.”

Viscardi, the insurance salesman, said he was angry over the presence of the likes of legendary quarterback John Unitas in the Hall of Fame as an Indianapolis Colt. Unitas, who died in 2002, never played in Indianapolis.

“Why would they want to take our blue and white, why our history?” Viscardi said. “I don’t think there’s a horse in their whole damn state.”

Bass, the TV personality, said his station ran a poll this week asking: “Are you over the Colts yet?” He said the results from more than 150 e-mails in less than 20 minutes were surprising -- the baby boomers or the oldest people weren’t the angriest. It was the 30-to-40 age group.

Said Bass: “I can quote you one directly, and it summed up what the others said. ... ‘I saw my father cry twice in his life -- when he buried his father, and when the Colts left.’ ”

Jack Kahl is 68. He once co-owned a famous restaurant here called the Golden Arm. The other owner, Unitas, had the golden arm.

“That was a special time, the days of the Colts,” said Kahl, adding that he follows the Ravens, but not with the same interest. He said there will never be another Unitas: “He was an icon who didn’t know it. He told me one time that the only people in Baltimore who didn’t have his autograph were the ones who didn’t ask.”

When Irsay and Mayflower drove away with the Colts, Kahl and Unitas renamed the men’s room in their restaurant. It was called the Irsay.

Those en route to the Irsay room were said to be heading there “to take an Irsay.” That trip to the men’s room became a fine Baltimore dining tradition until the restaurant closed. Before that, though, the Irsay Room lost its official label.

“People kept stealing the sign,” Kahl said. “We kept replacing it, but we couldn’t keep up. I bet there are 1,000 of those signs around Baltimore.”

Memorial Stadium, the home of Colts and Orioles games of yesteryear, is mostly wide-open space now. There is an assisted living center, a new YMCA, a playground, a huge field. There is no indication of the history, other than a sign at the turn-in that calls the area Stadium Place.

Outside Gate A at M&T; Bank Stadium, there is a gray statue of a football player, arm cocked to throw a pass. The high-top shoes are discernible and so, barely, is the No. 19.

Friday, a local television reporter stood there and interviewed a fan who called himself “Sports Steve.” He wore a full-length purple cape and said, in reverent tones, that the black cape he carried on his arm was given to him by Unitas. The reporter said he’d never seen emotion in the city building like this.

The Ravens will do their best to play to that today. Without telling the local media, they have decided to ban the word “Colts” from public address or scoreboard references. The opponent will be listed on the scoreboard as Indianapolis. When Manning is introduced, he will be “Peyton Manning of Indianapolis.”

The Ravens want their fans to know they empathize with Baltimore’s disdain for any other team wearing that blue and white and that horseshoe. They think the fans will catch on quickly.

Not to worry.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. For previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.