Baltimore bests AFC's 'best'
This was my emailed response to Mark Kiszla, Sports Columnist at The Denver Post, following his hatchet-job piece on the Ravens’ playoff chances during their second-ever Super Bowl championship season. The column, titled as Ravens aim for different result vs. Broncos in playoffs, was originally published on January 7, 2013. <A>
Good afternoon to you, Mark.
I am writing you from Wilmington, Delaware, where several thousand Ravens fans, including myself, are delirious with yesterday’s AFC Divisional Playoff outcome. In this immediate area, where most fans’ professional allegiance is to the north of our locale in Philadelphia, there is a notably smaller but hearty group of us who share a distinct affinity for the Blackbirds of Baltimore. For many, it’s likely due to the collegiate heritage of yesterday’s hero, Joe Flacco. For me, it’s simply a result of rooting a lifetime for all of Baltimore’s teams. You see, I was just a young man of thirteen during Baltimore’s bittersweet 1983—a year which both crowned our Orioles champions but also saw a future star drafted by the Colts turn his back on an entire city. Then, following that final season of 7-9, a worthless owner who did the same. I, like Baltimore, weathered a dozen dark years without a franchise to both cheer and bemoan.
I know that you’re familiar with the history of our city’s football saga, but I am convinced that you fail to see the relevance of this team, our Ravens, to the collective civic pride. We were left for football orphans during, of all times, the middle of a snowy night. We were treated like football foster children by the league itself when it first allowed for our Colts’ colors, name, records, and history to travel west to Indianapolis; and then when it overlooked us for one of the potential expansion cities in the early 1990s. We were rendered without promise.
Mr. Modell’s own civic torture changed all that. We were given promise and, ultimately, our hope was restored. Yet even today, we are bestowed with the dubious distinction of pro football’s illegitimate children. Because history has belied it this way: Bob Irsay moved the Colts, but Baltimore stole the Browns. And this is what, after all we’ve endured, we’re forced to accept.
But something remarkable happens each Sunday during fall in Charm City. We tune out the pandemic hatred for our town and our team and we dig deep to give everything that we have to the men who don purple and black. Our concrete nest, M&T Bank Stadium, is not attributed with the arguable reputation of the “toughest place to play in the NFL” because of altitude, such as in your Mile High City. It’s not for climate either—such as during Green Bay’s December—nor for acoustics’ nod to Seattle’s 12th man. No, it’s due solely to our fan’s resilience. A resilience that you and other assured columnists and so-called experts saw on display in full view yesterday from the Ravens themselves. Our resilience—both fans’ and franchise’s—is symbiotic. And it always will be.
After reading your column from last Monday, January 7, 2013, headlined Ravens aim for different result vs. Broncos in playoffs, and subsequently sharing it with like-minded Blackbirds boosters, I adopted a self-imposed gag order. I would not respond to you. I would not offer opinions on message boards. I would not call sports talk radio. Instead, I would read, I would listen, and I would recall. Recall the 2000 season, when our redemptive flock of football heroes were just neophytes in the postseason conversation and similarly dubbed with little chance for success, no shot for glory, and void of due respect. Again, I know that you know that history too.
Today, I have lifted my gag order. Today, I respond. For I knew this day would come.
My resilience never wavered.