The Ravens Backing Down to the Orioles is a Slap in the Face to America
Hardball Talk – The NFL starts today. I’m sure most of you are happy about that. But as the sports/media zeitgeist goes football crazy, I’m going to remind myself that (a) the Orioles are playing a home game in Baltimore tonight; and (b) the Ravens are opening on the road. Why? Because the NFL was unable to bully and whine to get its own way and have the Orioles move their game… [T]he NFL and its surrogates, claiming Divine Right to have its Super Bowl champ open at home on Thursdays, publicly moaned and complained that the Orioles should make way for the more popular and successful NFL… Not because some treasured and long-standing tradition was in peril (the home game on Thursday night for the Super Bowl champ is a relatively new invention). But because, dammit, the NFL deserved to have that date for their use more than baseball did. Because it’s the NFL. Well, poo, you lost, football people. And for my part I have no problem feeling petty and nyah-nyah-nyah about it all. And I sort of hope that the O’s-White Sox game tonight goes 18 sloppy innings before a 1/4 capacity crowd, just for the yuks.
Look, I don’t have a dog in the fight in tonight’s Ravens at Broncos game. It’s one of those Eastern-Front-in-WWII games where I’m rooting for massive casualties on both sides. Because really all I care about is how it affects the Patriots and the AFC playoff picture. But as a disinterested observer, like all red-blooded, God-fearin’ American patriots I’m a football fan too. And just on general principle alone, the Ravens should be fucking ashamed of themselves that they couldn’t arrange a home opener. I mean, I get scheduling conflicts all the time, but this isn’t the Big Apple Circus or the Boat Show coming to town. This is the NFL season kicking off, and the Super Bowl champions blinked first in a staring contest with a baseball team over a goddamned parking lot. And not some contender in the heat of a pennant race. This is the Orioles. 9.5 games behind the Red Sox and in 6th place in the Wild Card. It’s an abomination. Like when they cancel a multimillion dollar dam project to save some obscure fish that natural selection was about to wipe out anyway. And get a load of this smug seamhead rubbing the NFL’s nose in it, even knowing damned well no one in the world outside of the 8,000 losers too cheap to eat their tickets to the Orioles-White Sox will give a shit about baseball tonight. Like I said, the Ravens should be ashamed of themselves. If they had an owner with any kind of balls, he would’ve bought out the ballpark and just used their parking lot anyway. Or bought the team and disbanded it. First the Ravens screwed the great football town of Cleveland, then they aided & abetted a murderer, and now this. No wonder everyone hates them. They don’t deserve the championship. @JerryThornton1