When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore: A Father and a Son, a Team and a Time

Describes 1950s Baltimore, offers profiles of famous Colts players of the era, and recounts the author's relationship with his father

Pro football had a checkered history in Baltimore that began with a wobbly start in 1947. In 1953, a new team was brought from Dallas, the Colts, who, particularly after the acquisition of quarterback Johnny Unitas in 1956, became one of the best in the league. In 1958, the Colts won the championship in an overtime contest with the New York Giants that fans call the greatest football game ever played; 13 years later the Colts won Super Bowl V. Gildea, a sportswriter with the Washington Post who spent his Baltimore youth as a Colts fan, recaptures the optimism and joy of his early years in this warm memoir. After Unitas was traded in 1972, the Colts were good but not great. In 1984, a new owner moved the franchise to Indianapolis, hiring 11 trucks to accomplish the deed in the dead of night. Baltimoreans now refer to the team as the "Indianapolis Vans." Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A lovely memoir of a sports-mad kid growing up in Baltimore during the 1950s--funny and bittersweet. For Washington Post sportswriter Gildea (The Fighting Irish, 1976), the key events of his childhood and adolescence are inextricably linked to the fortunes of the Baltimore Colts football team. So it's only logical that in reliving those times, he casts a fond glance back on his relationship with his parents--a doting, slightly overprotective mother and a pharmacist father, as big a sports fan as his son--as well as on the Colts of his youth. Gildea writes, ``To me the Colts had been the best reminder since the Brooklyn Dodgers of how something so simple as a team could arouse emotional attachments. Then, like the Dodgers from Brooklyn, the Colts were gone.'' Much of the book is spent recounting the closeness of those ties. Gildea recalls a quartet of Colts fans: his father, the poet and humorist Ogden Nash, a longshoreman named Joey Radomski, and a unique character named Hurst Loudenslager, called ``Loudy.'' This last figure looms as an unusual example of a fan who became closer to the players he idolized than almost anyone but their families. The text also includes visits with numerous luminaries of the great late-'50s Colts teams, including Hall of Famers Y.A. Tittle, Johnny Unitas, Bert Reichichar, and Weeb Ewbank. But the heart of the book is Gildea's elegy for his own family and for a time that seemed simpler for sports, for families, and for America. He doesn't sugarcoat that picture, however, and speaks frankly about the effects of Baltimore's Jim Crow laws on black Colt players. In its moving evocation of lost times, this does for pro football what Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer did for baseball. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Football isn't often associated with nostalgia, certainly not to the degree baseball is. Perhaps it has to do with the violent nature of the game, or maybe it's because football didn't become part of the general social consciousness until the 1970s. For some, though, football carries special memories. Gildea, an award-winning Washington Post journalist, grew up in Baltimore during the 1950s. In those years, the Baltimore Colts went from National Football League doormat to league champions and in doing so formed a special relationship with the community. With an appreciative nod toward the film Diner, which also explored coming-of-age with the Colts, Gildea recounts the team's on-field exploits but dwells more on the players' interaction with the city. Many have maintained their homes in Baltimore and started successful businesses. Art Donovan, a tackle in the glory years, has become a local legend. But this is much more than an account of a football team. Gildea and his father shared a passion for the Colts, and it was the foundation of a deep, loving relationship. A lion's share of Gildea's fondest memories arise from the Sunday ritual of mass followed by a trip to Memorial Stadium to see their beloved Colts. Of course, the Colts have since moved to Indianapolis, Gildea's father has passed away, and the players are all in their autumn years. This is a very special experience; it's seldom so many topics--fathers and sons, heroes, aging, love, life, and death--are examined so sensitively and so perceptively in one volume. And you thought it was just another football book. Wes Lukowsky

In this poignant memoir, Gildea (Fighting Irish, 1976) blends memories of his boyhood in Baltimore during the 1950s with profiles of former Colts stars to produce a portrait of city life not unlike that once found in other pro football towns across America. Gildea skillfully interweaves his own reflections with those of the players (e.g., Johnny Unitas, Bert Rechichar, Art Donovan) to illustrate the bond between the town and team that was ultimately broken when the franchise moved surreptitiously to Indianapolis. In contrast to the modern era of free agency-where loyalties between owners and players seem nearly nonexistent-this work evokes a time when the home team often served as the "generational glue" for many families. With gentle style and rich insight, Gildea delivers a gem of a book. For most popular sports collections.
William H. Hoffman, Ft. Myers-Lee Cty. P.L., Fla.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.