Bryan Stabbe
End Point, November 2008
You may not know this, but there are people out there who hate you. These people don’t live thousands of miles away either, in fact these people may even live within your own home state. Just a scant trip up I-95 you will find these people who go by the name of Baltimoreans. “Hate me?” you might ask, what could I have possibly done to warrant animosity from our neighbors to the north?
While you may not think of them as your enemy, they hate you and your DC sports fandom is to blame.
At this point, as a “native” of the District, I have a borderline blasphemous confession to make: I am a Baltimore Ravens fan. Though I may not be a fan by birth, the unfortunately long season-ticket line for the beloved ‘Skins led my family become NFL refugees wandering through the football desert in search of a home. When Art Model moved the original Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, we found our football sanctuary.
I remember clearly my first Ravens game back in the old Memorial Stadium, a week two home opener, sitting in the sun watching Vinny Testaverde march the offense down the field against the Cincinnati Bengals. I was excited to watch the new team play, in their unconventional mid-90’s purple uniforms, and attend my first NFL game. Everyone was loud and happy and I was glad to be a part of the spectacle. At regular, but seemingly random intervals throughout the game, the fans would boo heartily even though the Ravens were beating the Bengals soundly. I recall asking my dad why everyone was so angry (keeping in mind that I was 6 at the time,) and he told me that they were showing the score of the Redskins-Steelers game score on the scoreboard; and Washington was winning. I was dumbfounded that these people with whom I had allied myself could have such a hatred for the team I had always identified with as my own. As the game wound to a close, and it became apparent that the Ravens were going to lose (by a narrow margin), I announced that I wanted to leave because I didn’t want to be there when the Ravens lost but that everyone would cheer because the Redskins lost too. Having grown up singing “Hail to the Redskins” the only H.T.T.R. I saw that day were haters. I was witnessing a collective inferiority complex on a grand scale.
This was also the first, and certainly not the last, time I found myself with feet in both camps. Matters became a little more complicated once the Redskins moved to the hulking new Jack Kent Cooke Stadium (now known as FedEx Field), and my prayers were finally answered: Redskins season tickets. My connection with the team was now closer (not that Landover is that close to anything,) but it meant that my alliances were torn between my two clans.
The same story applies on the diamond, where I once bled Oriole orange, chowed down on BBQ from Boog’s, and knew all the words to John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.” But even before the Nationals came to town from Montreal, I had grown apart from the O’s. After my childhood hero Cal Ripken retired in 2001, the Orioles owner, the despised ambulance-chaser Peter Angelos, went about systematically decapitating the franchise that hasn’t come close to having a winning record since. Then in 2005 when the Nationals came to DC, I found myself a new geographically-convenient alliance, and have attended every significant game since. Even at the inaugural season opener at RFK the hostility was apparent. When fans shouted “O!” during the National Anthem, there was a spattering of boos throughout the stadium.
Over the past several years, the divide between the two sports towns had grown wider and wider. Though the Redskins were known to be the dominant football force in the mid-atlantic region throughout the 80’s and early 90’s, the Ravens have won a championship (2001) in recent years when the Redskins have come up short and appear to continue to take deliberate steps further removed from their former winning ways. Still don’t think the rivalry is real? Well who were the Nationals playing when they achieved their highest single day attendance? You guessed it, the Battle of the Beltway versus the Orioles (in a game marked by a crushing bottom of the 9th inning walk-off homerun by the Nats.) Both teams boast of beautiful ballparks (coincidentally designed by the same architecture firm) which in many ways embody their city: the majestic downtown retro-style, brick facade of Camden Yards in downtown Baltimore; and the sparkling, modern, state-of-the-art Nationals Park nestled along the waterfront in DC.
As for me, I will continue to straddle the divide. I’ll be “Wacko for Flacco” while igniting my Natitude. I’ll have a side of Old Bay fries with my Ben’s Chilli Bowl Half-Smoke (all the way of course.) I’ll shout my “Coooooley’s” as lustily as my “Heeeeap’s.” Does that make me less of a fan? I don’t think so, but I’m just fine having my crabcake and eating too.