Baltimore embraced Lewis; let's hope he stays

The Ravens head into the NFL playoffs today, but who knows where Ray Lewis heads after that? He is their greatest star and their spiritual leader and has played his whole professional career here, but lately you can't mention his name without talk of his possible exodus from Baltimore.

What a pity that professional sports has come to this. Once, we had John Unitas throwing footballs on 33rd Street for 17 seasons, and Lenny Moore racing for the end zone for another dozen, and Gino and Artie and Parker and others lingering for a decade or more, and you knew they weren't going to receive your embrace one moment and then bolt for the door a moment later.

But those were the old rules of sport. Today, the professional athletes follow the money and damn any sentiment that might compromise their bank books. (Does the name Mark Teixeira ring a bell?) So the Ravens will take the field in Miami today against the Dolphins, and already the newspapers and the radio talk shows have been thinking beyond the playoffs and wondering aloud about a Ravens team that might have to face the future without Lewis.

His contract is up, and he'll expect money commensurate with his name, his abilities and his history. All three are not necessarily at the same level. Lewis' name already belongs with the great ones of his sport. His on-field history is Hall of Fame material. But his abilities, after years of physical pounding, make his financial value questionable.

In Miami today, Lewis will put such matters aside. He wants badly to win. The Ravens' season is at stake and so is a chapter of Lewis' legacy. He will spend his percentage of 60 minutes in his customary state of raw fury.

But everyone who follows football closely knows what else is at stake. Lewis is 33 years old and concluding a seven-year contract that pays him $6.5 million this season. He's going to want a lot more money to stay in Baltimore. He'll want to be paid for his name and his history. He's been All-Pro seven times, a Pro Bowler 10 times. He's led the team in tackles nine years out of 11. The Ravens will have to weigh all this along with physical abilities that inevitably dwindle after so many years.

Inevitably? Absolutely.

There came a time, during last summer's training camp, when a top Ravens official was asked about Lewis' future: Lewis was still the club's marquee player but no longer the utterly dominating force he was during their Super Bowl season.

"That's true," the official quickly acknowledged, "but Ray doesn't know it yet."

He still sees himself as the Lewis of old. In sports, psychology matters. But so does sheer muscle and bone, and the ability to chase down a running back sprinting around a corner.

"What happens," the Ravens official said, "is they lose it right away. You'll be watching them in practice and think, 'What's the matter with him? Is he hurt?' But it's not an injury, it's just the beginning of the end."

What Lewis showed this year is that, while he's not the player of the great Super Bowl season, neither is he done as a quality player. He was in on 117 tackles this year, 85 of them solo. He's a big-play guy, an intimidator.

But he'll be 34 before the Ravens hold their next training camp. Football's not like other sports. It's not like basketball, which still holds traces of the days when it was called a "no-contact" sport. And it's not like baseball where the finances are different. The Yankees can spend like there's no tomorrow; football has a salary cap. The Ravens have to determine if keeping Lewis means the triumph of sentiment over salary -- or if paying him big money precludes paying other stars what they're worth.

Lewis would probably like to stay here. This is where he's played his whole pro career, and his family has settled, and he's got off-field business connections. In Baltimore, he's the heart of modern football history.

This is also where Lewis was embraced after his involvement in a murder trial in Atlanta nine years ago. Ravens' fans embraced him and so did then-owner Art Modell. And, in the ensuing years, Lewis has fashioned a new off-field image as businessman, spokesman and mature leader.

Would any of this matter during contract negotiations? Try to remember another athlete whose reputation was tarnished: Roberto Alomar. After Alomar's spitting incident and his national disgrace, the only one who stood by his side was Orioles owner Peter Angelos.

And, the first chance Alomar got, he turned his back on everybody and bolted town.

Here's hoping for better days -- in Baltimore -- from Ray Lewis as his Ravens play Miami.

(baltimoreexaminer.com)