nervous negative nellies spouting all sorts of nonsense in the second half of any Ravens game.
And we’re in the midst of a week when a 17-point win in dreary winless Cleveland did nothing to impress the natives or drive the locals back to the stadium this weekend to watch the Colts try to wreck the Ravens season for Christmas.
The Ghost of Baltimore Football Present is empty seats – and lots of them. Going cheap. Or not going at all…
I hear a lot of “I can’t give my tickets away for free!”
No one is saying, “Wow, those Ravens look great! They’re gonna win the Super Bowl!”
But, after 22 years, that shouldn’t be the barometer of any franchise’s core fandom. And it certainly doesn’t explain why PSL owners and vested people who have spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years would suddenly turn on the team and make the owner, the franchise and the NFL the mortal enemy and want it to fail in Baltimore.
It’s a crazy time in our country and our world. This is just an example in my little piece of the world.
I’m not here to preach to the fringe or to detail the many, many lies and manipulations of the orange con man in the Oval Office who has made a mockery of our country and its morals and laws repeatedly during his lifetime. In my opinion, he should and will wind up in prison. I would applaud his impeachment and anxiously await it every morning. He is a repugnant man on many issues across many spectrums – a foul, dishonest human being and a morally bankrupt soul who has no business running our country or having access to power of any kind let alone nuclear weapons.
I campaigned for Bob Ehrlich in Maryland twice. I ate dinner at his home in Annapolis. Gov. Larry Hogan is a great man, who attended my event last year to help There Goes My Hero and is a cancer survivor and inspiration. This isn’t even a Democratic vs. Republican or ideology issue.
But if you want the “root” of The Knee, it goes back to the man running the “show” here in America.
If you’re a still all in as a Trumper, God bless us all but we’re gonna agree to disagree on about a thousand counts including the sanctioning of Fox “News” or Breitbart as a source of qualified or credible information. But this blog and series isn’t about taxes or North Korea or praising murderous dictators or Middle East politics or the propaganda of Fox News or the grotesque visions of America of Steve Bannon or Roger Stone or alternative facts or incompetent appointments or global warming or pussy grabbing or tweets of rage that should encourage a legitimate piss test for him.
(I do find it fascinating that we piss test football players but not elected officials?)
This is about the Baltimore Ravens and their fan base and what the team owes the community or the PSL holder in the upper deck in regard to professionalism and “patriotism” (and clearly that’s a word that encompasses a wide variety of interpretations), which is at the heart of this anger and rage and outrage over a bunch of African-American Ravens players using their free speech and very peacefully exhibiting an overtly anti-Trump stance at Wembley Stadium.
And, honestly, I haven’t met an “I’m done with the Ravens after the London knee” person yet who didn’t share that common denominator – a spiritual and intellectual or maybe just political kinship with Donald J. Trump.
The Knee is all about Donald J. Trump and his American empire – just the way he likes it.
I’m guessing an overwhelming majority of the folks holding licenses for those nouveau empty purple “and never coming back to a Ravens game again” seats think Donald J. Trump is a man of integrity and truly their spiritual leader fighting for their blue collar jobs to come back at the plant and a gold toilet for their powder room. Ignorance and want. Folks love his “vision” – his yuge words, deeds, actions, rallies and daily threats and butchering of the English language on Twitter. This has become a cool, new normal – to call NFL players “sons of bitches” after dinner on a Friday night and to attack Jemele Hill, Elizabeth Warren, wives of fallen soldiers, parents of fallen soldiers, and well…I’m sure there’s another one coming tomorrow morning before sunrise.
The attack on facts and the free press in this country is a disgrace.
And although I was skeptical two months ago about this significant and specific group of core fans staying away forever, my opinion has changed.
If you say “I’m never coming back” I now believe you. It’s been three months. You’ve checked out. I see it every day. I hear it every day. Part 3 of The Ghost of Baltimore Football Future is this theme: “And now what…?”
I’m convinced that everyone who has ripped down their purple lights and taken the purple flamingo off the lawn and loudly and frequently proclaimed their new found disdain for everything purple on every social media thread of
