Ray, Ron and Others
Now that I'm the only columnist here who hasn't written at length about Ray Lewis's latest entanglements with the Ravens (although our "former'' metro columnist, who resigned the day before her first column, never got around to it, either), I'd like to address it this way: by pointing you to my podcast about it, and to sum it up briefly.
Main point: maybe he deserves more money, maybe he doesn't, and maybe he's being ungrateful and maybe he's just being a businessman assessing his market value. But what he unquestionably is doing is threatening his legacy in this city. Those who love him really, really love him, and those who hate him for various reasons can't deny that he's the reason Baltimore has the only professional championship it has in the past 23 years, and its only football championship in the past 34 years. Either way, he has invested himself fully into this organization on and off the field - to use an overworked but appropriate phrase, he's the face of the Ravens and the face of pro football here. Without him, they really would have been just another team the last 10 years, a hasty fill-in to ease the pain of the Colts leaving (while creating all-new pain in the city they left), a run-of-the-mill bunch in gaudy uniforms and nothing else to really distinguish them. The Ravens' identity, for better or worse, is Ray Lewis's.
If he goes out like this, though, it'll be for worse. He's burning bridges at an alarming rate, and even if you believe (as he seems to) that the team hasn't competed well the last two years and that Brian Billick has outlived his usefulness as coach, you can't agree with how Lewis has conducted himself in all of this. He's running the risk of turning a slavishly loyal fan base completely against him, and for all he's been to this city, it would be terrible for his Ravens career to end this way, with people wishing he'd leave.
Meanwhile, I hope we've heard the last of the comparisons between him and Miguel Tejada. There might not be two players in two sports in two situations less similar than him and Ray Lewis. Both complained about the direction of the team and made noise about wanting to leave, and that's about it. When Tejada (who's played here two years, not 10) leads a championship parade down Pratt Street, and when every third Baltimore area resident is wearing his jersey, then we'll talk. OK, now you can listen to me drag all those thoughts out to great length in the podcast.
But before you do that, rejoice in the fact that the lawsuit from a year ago involving Michael Vick and a sexually transmitted disease has been resolved. The situation with the Falcons' quarterback, of course, unleashed the Ron Mexico phenomenon upon the world (it even crossed over into the video game business; see last item) and led to a milestone NFL policy change. Now one has to wonder if Vince Young's stock is dropping because scouts really think he is "the next Michael Vick.'' Or worse, "the next Ron Mexico.''
And one last draft-related item: the controversy over the house Reggie Bush's family lived in has spawned a poll on USAToday.com - if NCAA rules were violated, should his Heisman be taken away? The logical answer, of course: as long as a certain other USC tailback retains his, it would be hard to take Bush's away.
Finally, a promise: a look at the NBA playoffs tomorrow, once all the series have completed two games (and, so far, two suspensions).
Comments
To say that the Ravens without Ray were just another team is to show how ignorant you really are and how arrogant your present job llows you to be. The super bowl team had anumber of people who were even mor important that Ray to the success of that team. Were you employed by the Sun at that time?
Posted by: lewesjim | April 25, 2006 3:04 PM
David,
Its amazing how fast things have changed with Ray. Part of the issue I think is the fact that his 'clique' turned off so many people in the last two years.
Maybe McNair coming in will chill him out, or it won't.
I won't be shedding tears when he leaves. Its partly because of how he has acted in the last two years, and because bottom line football is a game and paying a player what Ray makes, at his point in his career, isn't the best thing for the Ravens to do.
Posted by: Tim | April 25, 2006 4:12 PM
A comparison is merely a suggestion of likeness between two things. I think the comparison of the Tejada and Lewis situations are not as unreasonable as you suggest. They are both the best players on their teams in Baltimore, and they have both said that they want out of Baltimore. Just because the Ravens happen to be the more popular team in town does not negate the validity of the comparison in most aspects.
If you want to talk of imperfect comparisons, you recently made one between Babe Ruth, Karl Malone, and Walter Payton when you belittled people's talk of Bonds' chase of Ruth's home run record. Malone and Payton are certainly more unlike Ruth than Tejada is to Lewis. Ruth carried his record for over thirty years (the others didn't--or never held them) and was one of the country's original sports icons. Malone and Payton were great players, adjectives were never given to them to describe tremendous feats. It is not ridiculous to make a fuss over Bonds' eclipse of his home run mark. Aaron's accomplishment is not lessened in the least by talking about Ruth; if anything, it is honored more, for it understood by most people that there was a man who far surpassed Babe's Ruth original accomplishment.
Posted by: Owen Smith | April 25, 2006 6:04 PM