Bitter Baltimoron

This site is dedicated to the Baltimore sports fan.
We have had the highest highs, the lowest lows, and have been given plenty of heroes to admire. We have won championships, set losing records, gained and lost franchises, and the true fans have embraced every team that’s played here. We aren’t the darlings of the media or the smallest market in the country, but we have our own distinct proud identity. The true Baltimore sports fan is hesitant to embrace Washington franchises, but will die with any team that wears Baltimore on its jersey.

Baltimore fans showed their resilience when they flipped the bird to Paul Tagliabue and Jack Kent Cooke, by never accepting the Washington Redskins as a substitute for the departed Baltimore Colts. Despite the Redskins’ successes while Baltimore was without a franchise, many fans drove the extra mile to Philadelphia to cheer on the Eagles rather than accept Washington’s team. After getting spurned in the 1993 expansion by a city with a metro area a fifth of Baltimore’s size, the city did not give up on football and obtained a Canadian Football League team to show it was a loyal football town. In the two seasons with a CFL team Baltimore averaged over 30,000 fans per game, a number that far exceeded any attendance figures posed by the other five CFL teams playing stateside at the time.

Art Modell took notice of their attendance figures and in 1995 announced the Cleveland Browns would be moving to Baltimore. The city was villainized by the national sports media for taking one of the most storied franchises in the league. The Browns had been dominant in the 50s and 60s and had numerous hall of famers, which ironically were same credentials the Baltimore Colts had when they left for Indianapolis to no national outcry.

ESPN and other national media outlets have since expressed sympathies for Baltimore’s plight to reclaim its football history officially within the NFL and at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As time passes, we are no longer the big, bad bullies who stole the Browns, but just another good football city with a baseball team whose glories are long past in the era of free agency.

This site will not just be about Baltimore sports, but it is important to understand the perspectives expressed on the site are that of a Baltimore Sports Fan.