While the Raven victory over Houston last Sunday was not perhaps the team’s best game, it was still unbearably dramatic in the last quarter as Baltimore held on to their skimpy lead. For real Ravens fans, it seemed like a lifetime, as they watched the Texans complete pass after pass while Flacco continued to be humiliatingly sacked.
But perhaps the greatest disappointment felt by Baltimore’s true blue was having to attend one of the thousands of game parties throughout Maryland last weekend, since there was a good chance they didn’t actually see the game by doing so.
Playoff parties are in many ways the greatest dilemma for real fans. On the face of it, these gatherings are innocent looking enough affairs. What’s wrong with friends gathering to cheer the home team on? With good beer and a table of top shelf goodies, the idea of settling down to watch your neighbor’s “state of the art” flat-screen TV sounds pretty darn good to the dedicated.
And yet serious danger lurks at these events. Sometime soon after the first kick off, game parties become real parties. Spouses and half-hearted fans start chatting with only token eye contact with the sports broadcast. By halftime, real conversations begin. And by the third quarter, the die-hard realizes that most of the people in the room don’t realize there is a football game going on at all, let alone one about a divisional championship. It can be maddening for the devoted.
Even more perilous for the real fan is to be held hostage in one of those deadly conversations with one of the indifferent. What was once a simple task of grabbing another beer and some chips during the commercial break becomes a gauntlet of hazardous social sand traps, complete with iPhone slide shows of renovation projects gone wrong.
As the devoted few creep back to their seats, they look back at their “friends” and remember the words of Eddie in the movie “Diner” after his fiance had flunked his Baltimore Colts quiz, “You… You…You make me sick.”
Next Sunday will prove to be another challenging moment for the Ravens fan. New England will not be a walk in the park. Baltimore will need the complete focus of the players, the coaches, and their fans to find victory. So at the new game party this Sunday, when one sees the fanatics sitting by themselves, show respect for the Ravens fan, like any other professional, for doing their job.
Mike Tomlin says
You need to man up Wheelan!
Why on earth would a real Ravens fan even consider attending a social butterfly party (because that’s what you’re describing here) instead of crawling into a man cave somewhere with no more than 6-8 fellow cavemen (maybe a jersey wearing female relative no more than twice removed) and lots of grease, bad protiens and hops based beverages in keg quantities? No wives/gfs! That’s who you call for a ride home ’cause you can no longer pronounce “I’mmm sssorrry occcifer”
Bad renovation slide shows? Are you kidding me? You need an intervention, you need new game day friends, you need a hardship scholarship to Ravens tailgate U!