The area surrounding M&T Bank Stadium on a Ravens game day is a sea of purple. Tailgaters far and wide flood the parking lots ? grilling, having a few drinks and talking about their team and their city. They come to celebrate a team that is entering its 11th season in Baltimore, having already won Super Bowl title (XXXV) in 2001.
But as a whole, what team does Baltimore truly embrace? Is it the Ravens? The Steelers or Redskins? (Perish the thought!) Or does Baltimore still cling to the horseshoe of the Colts?
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The Ravens are the obvious, convenient answer, but after a decade of existence, do the Ravens truly charm Charm City?
“The Ravens have assimilated themselves well into Baltimore,” said former Baltimore Colt and current Ravens? broadcaster Stan White. “I think there is a small segment that were diehard Baltimore Colts fans that don?t want to change. I run into them.”
White said he thinks most Colts fans were able to transition to a new team, especially people with kids. After all, the transition between teams is nothing new for Baltimore.
Blue-collar Baltimore has had a tumultuous love affair with football. There were two go-arounds with the Colts, the first one coming in the All-American Football Conference in 1947-50, when the team wore green and silver. After that Colts team dissolved in 1951, Baltimore was without a football team for two seasons until the NFL?s Dallas Texans came to Baltimore, bringing their blue-and-white colors but adopting the town?s old football mascot.
From 1953 to 1983, the Colts were Baltimore football. From the NFL championships in 1958 and 1959 to Super Bowl V in 1971, from Johnny Unitas to Art Donovan to Bubba Smith, Baltimore bled blue and white. That is, until that fateful March 28 night when owner Robert Irsay left in the middle of the night with the Colts for greener pastures in Indianapolis.
During 12 years without the NFL, there were the Baltimore Stars (United States Football League) in 1985 and the Baltimore Stallions (Canadian Football League) in 1994 and 1995, and there was even speculation of the city landing an NFL expansion team (proposed to be the Baltimore Bombers) in 1993.
Forty-year-old Pasadena resident Jeff Young, one of approximately 18 Ravens fans that own the S.W.A.T. tailgate truck parked in Lot H at every home game, used to watch the Stars and the Stallions.
“I would go to the games, but it was not the same,” said 40-year-old Pasadena resident Jeff Young, referring to both the Stars and the Stallions. “It was not the NFL. In the United States, the NFL is it.”
Young said that he and his fellow fans were determined to back the Cleveland Browns when they announced their move to Baltimore for the 1996 season.
“I did not want what happened with the Colts to happen again,” he said. “There is kind of a fear factor there that you don?t want to have them pack up and move because the fans aren?t supporting them.”
Baltimore may not have had an NFL franchise for 12 seasons, but the Redskins were in Washington and the Eagles were in Philadelphia. The temptation was there to start rooting for another pseudo-home team.
“Most of your fans that were Baltimore fans did not want to back the Redskins, and they were not going to jump sides just because we did not have a team,” Young said. “I rooted for the Dallas Cowboys.”
George Gmeiner, 42, of Eldersburg never attached himself to the Colts. He had always been a Redskins fan growing up.
“Tickets were so easy to get,” he said. “I walked up to the Colts? training camp and bought them from the window. Nobody went to Colts games. That is why they left. That is how this town is ? if you are horrible and you are horrible for awhile, people are going to stop going to the games.”
Gmeiner feels that many old Colts fans didn?t like the way Baltimore took Cleveland?s franchise. The city, he said, would have done better to go after an expansion team.
“Some of the older people still watch the Colts, but it is like watching a fire,” Gmeiner said. “They hated it. If we would have gotten a brand new franchise here, I would have supported them.”
With no home team, Gmeiner said Baltimore?s football fan base was divided among the Giants, Steelers, Redskins and Eagles.
“We did not have anybody to root for,” said Dale Davis, 54. “That is why we have so many Steelers fans and Eagles fans and Redskins fans in the state.”
Davis, who is also known as the Ravens? Maniac, an ultra-fan, said he saw more fans flock to the Steelers and Eagles than the Redskins because of lingering feelings from the days of the Baltimore-Washington rivalry.
“A lot of people turned to Pittsburgh during that time,” Davis said. “I can honestly say I have never rooted for Pittsburgh. We were so ecstatic about receiving a football team that fans were going to turn to that team no matter who they are or what they were.”
Lauren Smith, 45, who previously served as the president of Ravens? Nest No. 1 in Bel Air, has deep roots in Baltimore football. She served a two-year term, and her mother was the first female president of the Council of Colts? Corals.
“Besides church, Sundays at our house, that was our day,” Smith said. “A lot of people adopted the Steelers and the Redskins when the Colts left. I don?t see a lot of people dwelling on the Colts. If they are out there, they don?t say it much.”
On Sept. 17 at M&T Bank Stadium, the Ravens will play their 2006 home opener, and the city that supports it will be there. Smith, perhaps speaking for an entire city, is greatly anticipating the event.
“We needed an NFL team in this town,” she said. “That is all the people wanted.”
