Prepare to duck as you enter Cal Bloom's Barber Shoppe in Westminster. There's a fierce-looking plaster raven atop the doorway, guaranteed to make your hair stand up. All the easier for Cal to cut it.
See the lunchroom across the way, all dolled up with balloons and banners of purple and gold? Step inside Harry's Main Street Grille and order a Terrell Suggs Panini ("Guaranteed to knock you off your feet!").
Down the road at Baugher's Restaurant - just a shout from the football field - the staff is braced for the start of Ravens training camp this week.
"It'll happen overnight," waitress Connie Toston said. "On Friday, almost every table in here will have at least one purple shirt."
Let the pilgrimage begin.
For a chunk of the past 60 years, Baltimore's football faithful have poured into Westminster each summer to see the Ravens - and before that, the Colts - practice at McDaniel College. And while this Carroll County community has long since shed its drowsy image, the arrival of the team and its legions still pumps life into the town - and cash into its coffers.
"Our business goes up about 30 percent for the first week of camp," said Harry Sirinakis, owner of Harry's, whose grandfather started the place in 1946. Three years later, the Colts began training in Westminster, and Harry's became a hangout for players and fans. It's where Art Donovan, the Hall of Fame defensive tackle, claims to have polished off 25 hot dogs in one sitting. Who's to doubt it?
"After practice, we'd go see a movie at the Carroll Theater, because it was air-conditioned, then head over to Harry's," said Don Joyce, a Colts defensive lineman in the 1950s. "Donovan would lay a half-dozen open buns on his arm, then have them filled with hot dogs, chili and onions.
"By the time the sixth bun was filled, 'Fatso' had already eaten three."
The Colts trained here until 1972, when owner Bob Irsay chose to pull up stakes to move camp first to Tampa, Fla., then to Towson State College and, later, to Goucher College. The Ravens have practiced at McDaniel (nee Western Maryland College) since their inception in 1996. They are one of a vanishing breed. Of 32 NFL teams, only 14 still train in college settings.
"We're happy here," Ravens President Dick Cass said. "It's a very intimate setting that allows the fans to get up close and personal with the players. It's a nice little boost for the town, too."
