For Ravens fans, playoff win was a moving experience

A SPECIAL thanks needs to go out today to the contractor, identity unknown, who in the 1920s built the cozy two-story, three-bedroom home of Nick and Robin Syropoulos at 2206 Kentucky Ave. in the Mayfield neighborhood of Northeast Baltimore. Only that anonymous builder's craftsmanship and his impeccable choice of flooring materials kept the living room from caving in yesterday afternoon when, 700 miles away in Tennessee, Anthony Mitchell of the Ravens grabbed a football off a blocked field-goal attempt and ran 90 yards for the touchdown that gave Baltimore victory in the American Football Conference division playoff.

It was scary.

It was beautiful. As Mitchell made this run, and the image of his feat traveled by satellite and cable into the 19-inch television set in the Syropoulos' front room, 26 adults jumped up and down on the floor. The floor did not simply shake. It bounced and wobbled, with a kind of surreal trampoline effect. The couch on which I had parked myself moved. The vibration of the bouncing -- and the screams that filled the room -- caused the miniature stuffed Ravens mascot, Poe, to fall from its perch atop the television set. The Syropoulos' two dogs, Brooksie and Casey, barked at the sudden and bizarre display of human emotion.

When, a few minutes later, Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis intercepted a pass and ran for a touchdown, the floor again withstood the pounce of hundreds of pounds of men and women and again my couch moved, and again Poe fell from the TV set, and again the dogs barked. "I was worried we might all end up in the basement," Nick Syropoulos said.

Time out for an introduction.

This Syropoulos is known to many as Nick the Doughnut Man because he used to be a salesman for a doughnut company. Since then, he has gone with Xerox, but the Doughnut Man nickname sticks -- like beer suds to his handlebar mustache. Those who go back further with Syropoulos know him also as Nick the Pretzel Guy because he once had a role in NBC's "Homicide" as a pretzel vendor who witnessed a murder.

But these footnotes from his life do not begin to tell the story. Here is a first-rate Baltimore sports nut with a large, Fallstaffian -- or should I say Zorbian? -- lust for life, friends and tailgate parties. Yesterday, he and his wife, his sports-nutty peer, packed a tailgate party into their home, and the earth -- or at least the living room floor -- moved.

You know this is the house of Ravenmaniacs immediately as you approach.