Our party will go on without former Ravens and Titans quarterback Steve McNair on Friday night after all. I’ve been busy planning the biggest purple party in Nashville on Friday night and getting arrangements in order for our bus trip. And I woke up this morning to a bunch of emails, blog comments and phone messages and texts regarding McNair’s appearance at our Ravens Pep Rally on Friday night.
Or lack thereof…
The story goes like this:
I was looking for a party location. I found two: Limelight (Friday) and Graham Central Station (Saturday pre-game). The owner of Limelight is friends with McNair and his people. They absolutely agreed to do the party for charity and absolutely knew it involved Ravens fans and Baltimore. The flyers were purple. As a matter of fact, I spoke with McNair’s agent yesterday who booked McNair onto the Comcast Morning Show earlier this morning with Drew Forrester to promote the event.
Apparently, once the flyer was sent out across the internet, a TV station in Nashville (WKRN) got wind of it and made a big stink on the evening news last night, basically calling McNair a “traitor” for associating with anything Baltimore this week. (Again, folks, this was a CHARITY event to raise money for his Tennessee-based foundation and the Ronald McDonald House here in Baltimore!) Here’s the clip from the City Paper of Nashville. According to them, he’s now bowed out of having anything to do with Baltimore, Ravens fans or the color purple.
I get it. It’s probably not a bad move on his part considering he lives there and they just put him the Ring of Honor in Nashville.
I like Steve McNair. He was always a stand up guy here in Baltimore and I certainly understand the situation he faces in his hometown. (And after all we’ve been through here this week with the sickening display from Mr. Yankee, Mark Teixeira, I really get it!)
No hard feelings. No big deal. We’ll throw the party, give the same amount we were going to give to the foundations and have a good time. We’ve got enough drama already with the game kicking off at 4:30 on Saturday.
Good luck to McNair. Good luck to the Titans. Good luck to my dear friend Jim Schwartz.
It’s Festivus. It’s football. Let’s just have some fun down in Tennessee.
Party starts at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Limelight. Tickets can be purchased here.
And if you don’t get to Nashville until Saturday, we’ll be waiting for you at 11 a.m. at Graham Central Station as well for more purple fun.
Over the past 10 years the folks from Nashville have been the most hospitable and decent we’ve found in all of our NFL travels. Nice people, good times, pretty girls, country music and cold beer. That’s what we’re expecting to find all weekend.
Oh, and we’re gonna beat their football team and move on to the AFC Championship Game.
