Baltimore

It was a season of high hopes, we were entering the second year of the Morninghweg/Millen era. We decided that we must drive to Baltimore to see Joey Harrington's first game as a pro (albeit preseason) since surely it would be a story to tell our grandkids, how we saw the Lion's future franchise quarterback play his first game.

Baltimore is a great city, they have a nice harbor with food and stuff a stone's throw from the stadium. The atmosphere is pretty awesome, they have a team band, a full one with drums and horns and everything. They march to the stadium, and we found out the Baltimore fans hate when rude Lion fans get in the band's way. I didn't know, this kind of stuff was foreign to me.

They sing a fight song that is might close to the Redskins...what a rip off. In fact, their entire band, their fight song, everything...they just ripped it off from the Redskins. Art Modell...what a slimy man. Not only does he steal the Browns away from Cleveland, only to invent the Ravens...stealing a big portion of the Redskins fanbase and all of the Redskins traditions.

Joey would play the second half, so we watched Mike McMahon throw fastballs into the dirt after scrambling for no good reason. Remember him? I never like him from the moment we drafted him.

McMahon took us nowhere against the Raven's starters (no surprise) and then the Raven's backups, and finally the Raven's band. Actaully, I think McMahon engineered a field goal drive against the woodwinds section.

By the time the second half started, we decided to abandon out nosebleed seats (I think $40 for 2) and moved ourselves to the rapidly emptying lower section. It's preseason, no one really stays very long.

So we watch our newly annointed savior, Joey Ballgame take the field. He played pretty shaky, throwing one pick...but in the closing moments of the game, we actually had a tie ballgame with the ball in the hands of the guy who led Oregon to 23 comeback victories in his heralded career. Certainly, he could lead a drive down the field and get Hanson in range for...nope...interception, returned for a touchdown. Game over, Harrington costs his team the first of many games.

Oh well, we left pretty happy. Ignorance is bliss, we still had hope for Joey, and hope that the 2001 season was an aberration.

When leaving, some Baltimore fans who had been overserved (my euphamism for drunk) reminded me that my team was 2-14, so I kindly reminded him "who cares, the Lions could go 0-16 and they wouldn't move the team to Indiana".

Apparently, this is still an open wound for the Baltimore collective, and I suddenly had the entire city wanting to either beat me or see me beaten. I smartly kept walking, and toned down my trash talk until I wasn't so badly outnumbered. That's something you need to learn as a travelling football fan...you need to know when to shut up.

Overall, it was a good trip. Got to see a new stadium, got to see Joey blow his first game, and see Kalimba Edwards turn in his first worthless performance. I also found out that a Honda Civic Hybrid can get you from Detroit to Baltimore on a single tank of gas. (But traded it in for an Explorer right before gas skyrocketed, dummy).