Superbowl Art???????

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The hyperlink goes directly to the story of the excitingly choreographed game-winning play of Superbowl 47.

But why is Number 4 wearing an ART patch?


Because ART is a person to whom I am eternally indebted.
But so is the city of Baltimore because Art Modell is the reason the Baltimore Ravens exist.

In 1984, the city literally lost a professional football team overnight.
Then along came 1996 when Art Modell moved another football franchise from Cleveland to Baltimore.

Mr. Modell purchased the original Cleveland Browns in 1961 then relocated them on the east coast. The team was rechristened the Baltimore Ravens.

Art Modell died on September 6, 2012







Once upon a time, Art Modell was a patron at a restaurant in Rockefeller Center. He referred to the man who served him drinks as a "Mixologist with the precision of a Heidelberg chemist." That is the city where the Bayer Company patented the word Aspirin.

When informed that My son's favorite football player is Jim Brown, who should be crowned on the throne of the Cleveland Browns, Mr. Modell rewarded the bartender mixologist with two fifty-yard line tickets to see Jim Brown play at Yankee Stadium against the New York Giants on December 9, 1962.

To describe Jim Brown as the "greatest running back in the history of professional football" is to repeat the words of at least 443,232 people, including everyone who is aware that the NFL existed before the Superbowl was born. 443,232 is what you get when converting 12,312 rushing yards to rushing inches.

He played for only one team and never missed a game.
In a nine-year career with the Cleveland Browns, he scored 126 touchdowns in 118 games. In the entire history of the National Football League, Jim Brown is the only player (with more than one hundred games) to average greater than one touchdown per game.

On December 9, 1962, Jim Brown scored one touchdown at Yankee Stadium but the New York Giants defeated the Cleveland Browns by a score of 17-13.

The mixologist's son, however, could not have been happier. I know this for a fact because the thirteen-year old boy was a die hard New York Giant football fan. That boy is me


Had my father told Mr. Modell the truth about my football allegiance, we probably would have sat in the nosebleed section of Yankee Stadium, instead of being ten rows at midfield on that wonderful winter day.

Jim Brown (2002)

The mixologist's son & the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree (2002)