25 ways to 'celebrate' silver anniversary of Ravens first season after stiffing Cleveland

It's the 25th anniversary of the most pathetic year in NFL history.

It was the first year there were no Cleveland Browns.

It was the first year for the Baltimore Ravens, who had no business existing at the expense of the NFL's best fan base getting its team hijacked in broad daylight.

The story of the move has been told a thousand times. It never changes. It was a sick thing to have happened.

More Cleveland Browns: Baker and the Browns need to get back to 6 o'clock on a Sunday in Kansas City. Can they?

Life went on. People lived and died and failed and thrived. None among the living is well served by wallowing in the wrong that was.

Among useful ways to mark the anniversary is to wonder at the passing of time, to marvel at how the world and its people have changed, and maybe even to take some amusement from the misfortune.

As we await Sunday's Browns at Baltimore game, we'll do that in 25 snippets.

1, In the fall of 1996, Joe Judge, who would go on to be head coach of the New York Giants, began the autumn as a freshman quarterback at St. Joseph's Prep in Philadelphia.

When Judge's father lost his job, Joe transferred out because the family couldn't afford tuition. St, Joseph's primary 1996 freshman QB, Kevin Stefanski, played on.

2, Team headquarters remained in Berea, Ohio, in the early months of '96. Head coach Bill Belichick and scouting executive Mike Lombardi represented the transitioning team, which did not yet have a nickname, at the scouting Combine in Indianapolis.

At least, they represented until owner Art Modell approached Belichick and Lombardi in Indianapolis to tell them they were fired.

Modell was 87 when he died in 2012. Lombardi returned to the Browns in 2013 and was dismissed after one season. He now operates a podcast called The GM Shuffle.

Belichick, who will turn 70 in April, revolutionized the hooded apparel industry.

3, Ozzie Newsome was promoted to top personnel executive at the '96 Combine upon the firing of Lombardi. Newsome spent his entire Hall of Fame playing career (1978-90) with the Browns. He has had front-office jobs with the Browns and then the Ravens since his last season as a tight end.

At age 65, his title is executive vice president. He would be one of the most beloved Browns had the team stayed.

4, Cleveland was supposed to win the 1996 World Series but lost in the playoffs to, of all teams, Baltimore. Albert Belle's grand slam powered Cleveland to a 9-4 win over the Orioles to cut the Orioles lead in a playoff series to two games to one. The new Baltimore Ravens fell 46-28 to the Patriots two days later.

Belle, now 55, finished his weird career in Baltimore.

5, The Orioles have been baseball's answer to the expansion-era Browns. Cleveland got a replacement team in 1999 and has had four winning seasons in 22 tries. Baltimore's baseball team has had four winning seasons in the last 23 years, bottoming out with .

115, 108 and 110 losses in MLB's last three full seasons.

6, Orlando "Zeus" Brown, who became the starting right tackle for the 1994 Browns' playoff team, made the move to Baltimore in 1996, went back to Cleveland in 1999, sat out three seasons after getting hit in the eye by a referee's penalty flag, returned to the Ravens and played from 2003-05, and died at the age of 46 in 2011.

7, The Ratbirds, as a few Browns fans know them, debuted on Sept. 1, 1996, with a 19-14 win over the Oakland Raiders, secured on a late Earnest Byner touchdown.

In addition to Byner, Ravens who spent substantial time in Cleveland included center Steve Everitt, tackle Tony Jones, running back Leroy Hoard, receiver Michael Jackson, defensive end Rob Burnett, safety Eric Turner and kicker Matt Stover.

8, On Nov. 3, 1996, Vinny Testaverde quarterbacked the Ravens to a 21-3 lead over Cincinnati, but defensive lineman Big Daddy Wilkinson delivered one of four interceptions that took the Bengals to a 24-21 win.

9, A 10th-year pro in 1996, Testaverde made the Pro Bowl despite a 4-12 year. His record had been 16-15 as a Browns starter.

10, On Nov. 5, Bill Clinton won re-election as President over Bob Dole in an election with the lowest voter turnout since 1924, the year the Canton Bulldogs moved to Cleveland and won an NFL championship.

11, The eerie sight of Cleveland Municipal Stadium disappearing one wrecking ball swipe at a time began in November of 1996.

On Nov. 25, the Ravens fell to 3-9 with a loss to the second-year expansion team in Jacksonville. The last game of the original Cleveland Browns was a 24-21 loss at Jacksonville the previous Christmas Eve.

12, Bernie Kosar, squeezed out of Cleveland by Testaverde, backed up Dan Marino with the 1996 Dolphins. Kosar appeared in his last three NFL games, against the Cardinals, Colts and Eagles.

13, On Nov. 23, 1996, Nick Saban's Michigan State Spartans closed the regular season at 6-5 with a loss at Penn State. Coming off a 6-5-1 year, Saban was off to a lukewarm start.

Saban became Cleveland's defensive coordinator in 1991 and escaped the tumult of the move by leaving after the 1994 season.

14, Saban's 1996 Michigan State staff included included Pat Shurmur, Mark Dantonio, Dean Pees and Todd Grantham.

Oklahoma's program was in tumult after Howard Schnellenberger coached the Sooners for one year and decided to quit. Baker Mayfield was 1 year old.

15, Jim Tressel's Youngstown State Penguins closed 1996 with a 14-3 win over Hofstra, fueled by a Demond Tidwell to Tim Tyrrell touchdown pass. That's the Tim Tyrrell who is head coach at Hoban.

Larry Kehres piloted Mount Union to a 14-0 season.

16, John Cooper's Ohio State team stormed into the Nov. 23 Michigan game at 10-0, using Stanley Jackson and Joe Germaine in a QB platoon behind left tackle Orlando Pace. An all-star defense included Mike Vrabel, Luke Fickell, Andy Katzenmoyer and Antoine Winfield.

Michigan, led by Charles Woodson, beat the Buckeyes 13-9. Michigan freshman Tom Brady did not play.

17, Dan Dierdorf, Al Michaels and Frank Gifford worked their 10th season together in the Monday Night Football booth, with no Ravens games on their slate.

That crew worked two Browns games in 1995, one before the move to Baltimore became public knowledge, one against Pittsburgh shortly after the news broke.

18, Former Canton McKinley QB Josh McDaniels was a John Carroll sophomore making a transition to receiver in 1996.

McDaniels' high school coach was his father, Thom, a Belichick admirer.

Josh McDaniels, 45, has worked on New England's staff for all nine of Belichick's Super Bowls as a head coach.

19, Bill Parcells' Patriots hammered Pittsburgh 28-3 in the 1996 playoffs en route to the Super Bowl, where they got thumped 35-21 by Mike Holmgren's Packers.

Carmen Policy asked Holmgren if he might jump to the expansion Browns in 1999. It was a short conversation.

20, Kirk Ferentz worked on Belichick's Cleveland staff from 1993-95, then made the move to Baltimore without Belichick.

He left after the 1998 season to become head coach at Iowa, where he is signed through 2026. He passed Don James recently and keeps moving up on college football's all-time wins list.

21, Belichick liked Eric Mangini's hustle and gave him a job as a low-level Browns assistant in 1995. Mangini hung on after Belichick got fired and worked for the Ravens in 1996, rejoining Belichick after the latter landed with the New York Jets in 1997.

Mangini went 5-11 in 2009 and 2010 as head coach of the Browns. His 33-14 win over Belichick's Patriots in 2010, when the Browns were 1-5 going in, remains hard to explain.

Mostly outside the NFL the last 10 years, Mangini does some analysis work for Fox Sports.

22, On Dec. 1, 1996, a 1-7 Ravens cold streak was interrupted by a win over Bill Cowher's defending AFC champion Steelers.

23, Former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle died on Dec. 6. Two days later, the Ravens lost to the Bengals, who had two recent No. 1 overall picks, Big Daddy Wilkinson and Ki-Jana Carter, on their team.

That night, the Cleveland Cavaliers routed the Los Angeles Clipper 90-69 with a starting lineup of Terrell Brandon, Bobby Phills, Chris Mills, Tyrone Hill and Mark West, with Danny Ferry coming off the bench.

24, There's something sinister about John Harbaugh's 21-3 record against Cleveland as head coach of the Ravens. His parents were staunch Browns fans. So was he. So was most of his family.

Harbaugh was special teams coordinator for the Cincinnati Bearcats in 1995 and '96.

25, "Happy Gilmore" hit theaters in 1996. Adam Sandler played a flaky golfer who ran up on his tee shots, putted with a hockey stick, got in a fistfight with 75-year-old Bob Barker, and was mentored by a one-handed man named Chubbs.

That noted ...

Happy anniversary, Baltimore Ravens?

Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Cleveland Browns mark 25th anniversary of move to Baltimore Ravens