Is the city of Baltimore no better than the Irsays?

Get ready to hear the whining summore now that the Colts are in the Super Bowl

 

I am a fan of neither the Colts or Ravens but you have to love the knife-twisting turn of events this year from the perspective of unparalleled angst for all Baltimoreans.

They came off as sanctimonious synchophants in the build-up to the Colts-Ravens playoff game.

Now they get to watch Manning lead Indy to the Super Bowl...and perhaps win it.

Other than rooting (hard) for Chicago, what's left for Baltimore fans this year?

 

Maybe it's because I've been in the business too long. I don't know. But this is exactly how I feel.

The "long-suffering fanboy" storyline is tired. If you are standing behind a team for 30 years without them giving you a good reason to, you're not noble or loyal or anything like that. You're sadistic.

The only good excuse you can have is that they're geographically closer than anyone else, so it's easier to go watch a major-league game there.

 

I always confuse masochistic and sadistic. Good thing I'm neither.

 

Interesting how Baltimore also ended up with the St. Louis Browns. Moral of the story: Don't call your franchise the Browns unless you want to end up in a historic but festering burg on the Mid-Atlantic Coast.


"On the Baltimore Orioles Radio Fucking Network!" [/earlweaver]

 

Because it's applicable:

 

Well put. As a Steelers fan, I despised Art Modell for taking away the team's biggest rivals. I know I'm supposed to believe the Browns are the worst franchise in football, based on the Steelers' history, but I can't.

Instead, the Ravens to me represent the worst franchise in all of sports. Worse than the Yankees. Worse than the Lakers. Worse than Duke hoops. I will always root for the Browns twice each season -- when they play the Ravens.

 

Agreed with that, yeah. Can't ever root for the Browns against the Steelers. It's my team.

 

I cheer for the city, the colors and the franchise. Players will always come and go, whether via trades, free agency or the waiver wire. The Steelers will always be there. I cheer for the players, so long as they're wearing helmets with the logo only on the right side.

 

Agree with you on the Bengals, and I see where you're going with this. I might not be a fan of everything the franchise does, but for better or worse, that's my team. I can't just hop on someone's bandwagon the moment there's too many arrests or too many poor personnel decisions or too many losing seasons. That's my team, nothing will change that.

If I were to root for players and not the teams, I would simply change players each season to match my fantasy teams. You won't ever me doing that.

Steelers, Penguins, Pirates, Royals, Jayhawks ... those are my teams for life. Nothing will change that. Well, unless the Penguins move, but that's another discussion for another time.

 

It would have to take a prolonged period of despicable players and/or performance for me to change my ingrained fanboy rooting interests (NFL: Packers; NCAA: Michigan; MLB: Braves.)

Other sports, I can pick 'em up when I want to or drop 'em when I don't, due to geography or indifference or convenience. In many cases, I root for individual players (even in those team sports above, although it's hard to root for my favorite players when they go to teams I hate -- case in point: Glavine w/ the Mets). But I can't bring myself not to root for my teams, for better or for worse. My (usually middling) fantasy teams are made up of players I like, and most of those players are on the real-life teams that I love.

Laundry or not, that's who I love -- that's who I live and die with every season -- and I just can't see myself not rooting for them.

 

Glad you brought up Barry Sanders, my favorite football player all-time, great Kansan that he is. I loved to watch the man play, but that didn't necessarily make me a Lions fan. It meant I was more likely to root for the Lions on the NFC of the playoffs -- Steelers are irrelevant there, of course -- but that's pretty much all it meant. I never became a real fan so much as I followed what he did.