How One Colts Fan Follows the Team from Prison

[Colts And Orioles]

Originally Posted by Racehorse

Either way, his premise about not giving a rat's patoot about Baltimore is spot on.

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No, itsn't.

As I previously stated, there would be no Indianapolis Colts had there not been a Baltimore Colts in the first place. You can thank the city of Baltimore for being stupid enough to threaten Robert Irsay with eminent domain, but the team that you now know and love would not exist in its current form had things not played out the way that they did.

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[Racehorse]

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles

o


No, itsn't.

As I previously stated, there would be no Indianapolis Colts had there not been a Baltimore Colts in the first place. You can thank the city of Baltimore for being stupid enough to threaten Robert Irsay with eminent domain, but the team that you now know and love would not exist in its current form had things not played out the way that they did.

o

The city and the residents, not the team.

It seems that you are the only bright spot in that place.

[Colts And Orioles]

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles

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Antonio Barnes has been a Colts fan since they played in Baltimore ........ Glenn Doughty, Nesby Glasgow, Lydell Mitchell, and Curtis Dickey are some of names that come off of the top of his head when asked about the origins of his Colts fandom.

He also vividly remembers March 17th of 1984 ........ the night in which the Colts, under the threat of eminent domain, fled the city of Baltimore and arrived in their new home in Indianapolis.

Barnes stayed loyal to his team, in spite of the change in venue from his home city of Baltimore to Indianapolis. His jobs in prison include cook (his shift starts at 4 AM), tutoring the mentally handicapped, and suicide watch. He is serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder. His life in crime began at the age of 12.

In Barnes' mind, he deserves what he has gotten ........ he detests the 17 year-old punk criminal that he once was. In fact, unlike many of his fellow criminals, Barnes DID NOT become a drug dealer out of necessity. He never went hungry as a child, he always had a roof over his head, his family had a television, and his parents even took him to Colts games at Memorial Stadium on Sundays. But it wasn't his parents, or even the Baltimore Colts players that Barnes looked up to ........ it was the hot-shot street hustlers manning the corners of his neighborhood, with their flashy cars and attractive women. For making this choice, Barnes wound up paying the ultimate price. He has accepted his fate, and is doing whatever he can to salvage his wasted life.



A Life Sentence, and a Life Reformed: How One Colts Fan Follows from Prison

(By Zak Keefer)

https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...on/2274831002/






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(FIVE YEARS LATER)


After having spent 36 years in prison, Barnes was finally released on parole.

On Sunday, he attended his first Colts game since September of 1983 ...... this time in the city of Indianapolis, almost 600 miles from Baltimore.



Bird, ‘The Wire,’ a Life Sentence, Paroled, and a Colts Game 40 Years in the Making

(By Zak Keefer)

https://theathletic.com/5173667/2024...more-the-wire/





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