Art Donovan’s ring was taken during trip to Hong Kong in 1977
By Peter Hermann and Edward Lee (Baltimore Sun, 8/24/11)
Colts legend Art Donovan never thought he’d get his ring back.
The cherished keepsake of the 1958 NFL championship game — often called “the greatest game ever played” — was stolen from a Hong Kong hotel room in 1977. Donovan assumed it was gone forever.
But 34 years later, the ring has been returned to its rightful owner after it showed up for sale on the Internet. A Howard County police detective followed up on a tip and found the ring, engraved with the defensive tackle’s name and jersey number, listed for $25,000 on Craigslist.
“I hoped the one who stole it had fun with it,” Donovan, 86, said on Tuesday. “What can you do? Life goes on. People want to ask, ‘Did you weep?’ There’s a lot more things in this world that are more serious than losing a ring.”
His wife, Dottie, was more excited about the ring’s return. She had put it on a charm bracelet along with the couple’s class rings from college, which remain missing. But the championship ring — from the 23-17 sudden-death victory over the New York Giants — is now back home with the Hall of Famer in Towson.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Donovan’s eldest daughter, Debbie Donovan, noting the ring’s three-decade-long, 8,000-mile odyssey from Hong Kong to Curtis Bay to Elkridge.
“It’s just beautiful,” she said, the ring safely back in family hands. “There’s not a ding, not a scratch on it.”
Police were able to recover the ring when a detective posed as a buyer, offering $20,000 for the keepsake.
Police said that the person who tried to sell the ring, identified in a police report as Charles Ice II, will not be charged with a crime. Ice told detectives that the ring had been purchased years earlier by his wife’s now- deceased former husband, and that Ice didn’t know it had been stolen.
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