(authors note: Three years ago, today, the Baltimore Ravens won their second Super Bowl. To mark the occasion, I will re-post what I wrote, back then…)
What it Means to Baltimore
Today, M & T Bank Stadium is silent and the good people of Baltimore have returned to work and school and the normal routines that associate to their individual lives. The traffic on Pratt Street has resumed its normal morning rush hour crawl and life goes on in Charm City. Yet, there is indeed something transcendent in the wake of a Super Bowl victory that will last beyond the shards of confetti drifting in the air, beyond the arrival of spring and, yes, beyond the season to come in the Ravens’ quest for repeated glory.
When the Ravens won their first Super Bowl championship a dozen years ago, the wounds suffered by the loving fans of the departed Colts began a process of healing, almost as if to say, the NFL is wrong- Baltimore deserves a team, after all. But the chip that seems to have been glued to the shoulders of Baltimore’s frenzied football fans remained, despite the fact that the Ravens have had more than their share of winning seasons and post-season playoff berths. Despite these successes, Baltimore still felt compelled to justify their existence in the National Football League- as if the relocation of Art Modell’s franchise, which only resulted in a three-year hiatus for Browns fans, somehow approached the absolute travesty of what Robert Irsay had done to Baltimore, pilfering a cherished tradition of name, identity, logo, tradition, history, etc. While any reasonable and impartial observer can plainly recognize the difference between the two, the talking class would still deny the late Modell’s entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame- that same establishment that has the very gall to identify Johnny Unitas, John Mackey, Art Donovan, Gino Marchetti, Jim Parker, Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore and Ted Hendricks as Indianapolis Colts. (Now that is a travesty). At least, soon-to-be-inducted Jonathan Ogden, the first player the Ravens drafted in 1996, won’t suffer that indignity, and neither will the fans who have supported the Ravens these last seventeen years.
Now that the Ravens have won their second Super Bowl since their own inception, the time for self-justification has, at long last, passed. The Ravens are World Champions for the second time and there can be no denying Baltimore its deserved status as home to the World Champions of professional football. The city has won NFL championships in 1958, 1959, 1968 and 1970 (Super Bowl V) as the Colts, a USFL championship as the Stars in 1985, a Canadian Football League Championship as the Stallions in 1995 and, yes, a second Super Bowl Victory as the Ravens in 2000. But this time, in culmination of the 2012 season, it’s different because the city’s third Super Bowl victory is immeasurably sweeter, than all of the previous championships combined. Why? Because Baltimore, at long last, needs no justification for its existence in the National Football League…after all these years, they have arrived.
Viva le Ravens!
Je t’aime, Baltimore!
-Drew Nickell, 6 February 2013
©2013 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.