How The Baltimore Ravens Changed My Life

It stinks being the new guy in town.

I speak from experience, having moved three times in the span of eight years to places where I didn’t know a single soul. 

There are so many things people who don’t move around take for granted, like where to get a decent haircut or a good place to eat.  I had to find those things out for myself over and over. But you know what the toughest part was?  Making new friends.

When I arrived in Baltimore in October of 1999, I was expecting a similar experience to those I’d had in previous stops like San Diego and Portland, Oregon, where I’d find a local sports bar to watch my football on Sundays – alone – and quietly envy those around me who were enjoying the games amongst friends. 

Baltimore was different.  I’m not implying those other places weren’t friendly.  They were, and I ended up making good friends in both cities that I still keep in touch with today. It’s just that in Baltimore, strangers were much more welcoming to me right away.

I found this out my first Sunday in town, when I walked into a bar in Federal Hill, one of Baltimore’s popular neighborhoods if you’re looking to get a drink or five. I chose this particular place because it offered NFL Sunday Ticket, which not everyone was doing ten years ago like they are today.  The bartender, a young woman in her 20’s, chatted me up a bit and then introduced me to a group of regulars who had gathered there.  Within minutes I was laughing and sharing beers and talking football with them like I was one of the guys.

Of course, they were all die hard Ravens fans.

This was a relatively knew experience for me.  I grew up in a small town in southern California two hours from the nearest football team.  Not that football was popular there.  Everything they say about So. Cal. being laid back is true, as evidenced by the fact that not one but two NFL teams skipped town because of lack of support.  As such, I ended up rooting for the Cowboys. 

Being a Cowboy fan was fun, especially in the early 90’s, but I never experienced what it meant to live in a city and root for that team, particularly the feelings of community and identity that comes with it.  Baltimore changed all that. 

During that 1999 season, I watched as people from all walks of life gathered on Sundays to watch the Ravens at one of the hundreds of neighborhood bars in places like Federal Hill, Canton, and Fells Point.  All of the details about a person that usually keeps people apart from one another didn’t matter come game day.  If you were a Ravens fan, then you were part of the gang.  I slowly began to convert.

The feeling of community that I experienced only intensified the following season, when the team went on that magical run that culminated in a Super Bowl victory.  During the entire playoffs, many of the city’s skyscrapers boasted purple lights at night.  A popular slogan was co-opted from a Seinfeld episode, and “Happy Festivus” became the official rallying cry.  I worked downtown then and everyone was wearing purple, it seemed. 

When the final gun sounded on Super Bowl Sunday and the Ravens were crowned as champions, thousands of people spilled out of neighborhood bars and began celebrating in the streets like they had each won the lottery.  In a sense, they had.  They cheered, and I cheered with them. 

I made up my mind then that I was done moving around.  I had found my home.  And I had found my team.  All of my life I’d been a fish out of water, crazy about the NFL while those around me could take it or leave it.  Now I was where I belonged.  I did what I had to do to career-wise in order to stay in Baltimore and the next year I bought a house in the city, thus cementing my roots.    

Three years later, while at another neighborhood sports bar during football season – this one within walking distance from my home – I noticed an attractive young woman walk in.  She was by herself, and the place was crowded.  As fate would have it, there happened to be an extra seat at my table.  The bartender, who interestingly enough was the same woman whom I’d met at the bar I’d visited when I first moved here, told her I was “cool” and to sit by me.  She did.  Two years later we were married.  It was a Ravens-themed wedding...