Professional sports is a business.
It's incredible how quickly people forget that when it comes to favorite players. But Indianapolis Colts fans have to find a way to forgive Colts owner Jim Irsay for making the decision to release quarterback Peyton Manning.
Everyone has been all-but-certain this was going to happen for nearly two months, but some ostriches are willing to bury their heads deeper than others. Some fans held onto a tiny glimmer of hope that they hadn't seen Peyton's last game in blue and white.
The fact of the matter is that the greatest Indianapolis Colt to ever play in this great city will not be an Indianapolis Colt anymore.
It's the franchise's saddest day since Baltimore residents watched Mayflower moving trucks ship their team halfway across the country.
But it had to happen.
Peyton's worth to the city of Indianapolis has been literally immeasurable. The children's hospital bears his moniker. He paved the way for the city to build Lucas Oil Stadium, which in turn paved the way for the city to host Super Bowl XVLI. That Super Bowl brought an estimated 1.1 million visitors to Indianapolis. The city has nearly doubled its number of hotel rooms.
By all accounts, the Colts could be playing in Los Angeles right now if not for Peyton Manning.
And Peyton's worth to the football team was nearly as immeasurable ... when he was on the field. He's a four-time NFL MVP. He won the team a Super Bowl championship and took them to another. He turned the organization around completely, pulling it up from the dregs of the league and making it a serious contender anytime he was on the field.
He wasn't on the field in 2011.
So how much is a 35-year-old quarterback who missed an entire season thanks to four neck surgeries worth?
Not worth a $28 million roster bonus, according to the Indianapolis Colts. And reasonably so. Again, professional sports is a business. To pay a person who may never be able to do his job again makes no sense. It's not fiscally responsible.
Especially when the organization has the opportunity to draft a young, healthy, promising heir apparent.
This is a business decision. So was the decision to draft Peyton No. 1 overall in the 1998 draft, ahead of Ryan Leaf. That decision worked out well (understatement of the year), and hopefully this one will, too, for both parties, because it is the best decision for both parties.
In a story that somewhat parallels Peyton's, Babe Ruth was the heart and soul of the New York Yankees for a decade and a half before he decided that he was about done playing and wanted the team to fire the manager so that Ruth could serve as player-manager before becoming a full-time manager. But that Yankees front office didn't feel that they owed Ruth any special treatment and stuck with their current manager.
So Ruth left the organization and played the with Boston Braves in 1935. He batted .181 with six home runs and retired mid-season. The Braves went 38-115, the fourth-worst record in the history of Major League Baseball.
The Yankees, on the other hand, finished 89-60, falling just three games short of winning the American League pennant.
What the Yankees did was make a business decision.
Because professional sports is a business.
Michael Raines writes for the Indianapolis Indians and indyindians.com and will continue to root for both Peyton Manning and for the Indianapolis Colts. He can be reached at therainesdelay@gmail.com.
