Football Fans

The Ravens game on Sunday wasn't expected to hit restaurant businesses as hard as last Saturday's game did. For one thing, Sunday isn't a traditional money-maker for restaurants. But Sotto Sopra, which hosts popular monthly opera nights on Sunday evening, appears to be taking a hit. On Sunday afternoon, the restaurant used its Facebook page to drum up a replacement cast of diners. "Wow we just lost 40 people for opera night thanks to the Ravens game," the post said, quickly adding, "Well we support them all the way and you get a "Ravens" deal.

Not being a football fan, I was absolutely frustrated with the wall-to-wall, tenacious coverage The Sun gave the Ravens and the Super Bowl . While expressing my annoyance with your paper and other media outlets that seemed to put the Super Bowl above war, the economy and life itself to an acquaintance from Scotland, she pointed out the tameness of American football as compared to soccer in Europe and the British Isles. She said that politics, flammable emotions and the very existence of people are intertwined with soccer in Europe.

There's a large contingent of grown men (and women) who pay to use a message board so that they can hang on every word a 17-year-old kid utters. Out of context, this seems very strange. In context, really, it's not much better. What I'm talking about is college football fans and the obsession with recruiting in the modern world, especially with the development of the internet over the past two decades. These fans look at tweets, pictures and stories, trying to gather any inkling of knowledge that will tip a recruit's cap as to where they'll be playing college ball.

It's been a heck of a year for football fans in Harford County. Fans were treated the excitement of what has become one of the great rivalries in professional sports as the Ravens and Steelers split the pair of games they played in the regular season. The home team then went on to redeem itself in the post season following a heartbreaking final playoff game in 2011. And, oh yeah, there was the Super Bowl. For those keeping track, it's the second big game victory for the Ravens and the third for a Baltimore team.

Kelly Fleming doesn't mind building her family's Thanksgiving schedule around a football game. She's the mother of two Calvert Hall students and knows the annual Turkey Bowl matchup with Loyola gets top billing in her house. With the addition of the Ravens' night game against the San Francisco 49ers to the holiday sports lineup this year, though, even the Flemings had to shift their schedule, canceling plans to travel out of state for a family dinner. "We sacrificed family this year, which is sad, but it will be just as fun," said Fleming, of Ellicott City.

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- This is the way it felt when Larry Bird came to town and turned around the Celtics in 1979. This is the way it felt in 1970 when Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins inspired us to build skating rinks in every New England town. This is the way it felt when the Fenway's Cardiac Kids forged the Impossible Dream in 1967.Exaggerations don't do the job anymore. Mere hyperbole won't suffice. With only six shopping days left until Christmas, the New England Patriots are the rising stars of the National Football League.

RAVENS players invented a new routine Sunday to celebrate big plays. Several times, they formed a circle, tossed the pigskin in the air and fell down backward. Picture "Ring Around the Rosy" with 300-pound men. But the more notable choreography was happening off the field: A 39-year-old Anne Arundel County businessman who made a fortune in the temporary employment industry agreed to buy 49 percent of the team from Art Modell for $275 million.The arrangement appears promising for all stakeholders: Stephen J. Bisciotti may live out the dream of every "rotisserie league" fan by gaining ownership of the team for an additional $325 million between 2004 and 2006.

A lone warrior, Ben Clark plows his way through the pack of towering behemoths. His arms pump like pistons. His legs are a blur. Rumbling, bumbling, stumbling, recovering, he blasts forward. Finally, triumph is his.The television cameras catch it all -- the beads of sweat, the tortured brow, the glory. Clark's image is beamed to living rooms across the country, to devoted fans cheering from couches.The sandy-haired dynamo from Richmond, Ind., is, after all, U.S. Grand Master National Champion.

Baltimore Ravens fans are loving the new NFL concussion awareness commercial. In it, a mother watering the plants on her porch tells New England quarterback Tom Brady that her little boy loves playing football, and she asks what the National Football League is doing to make the game safer. Mr. Brady hands off to a game official, who talks about rule changes, and then to a doctor, who says the league and the Players Association have donated $100 million to brain injury research.

Everyone can relax now that NASA has put out a video - 10 days ahead of time - explaining why the world didn't end on Dec. 21, which is the final day of the Mayan Calendar and has long been a popular focus of goofball doomsday theorists. The nation's highly respected space agency filmed the YouTube video with the original intention of releasing it on Dec. 22, since it's entitled “Why the World Didn't End Yesterday.” I'm guessing they released it early to avert a Stub Hub meltdown caused by fatalistic football fans trying to dump their tickets for Week 16. Whatever the reason, Ravens fans can rest easy that the only doomsday scenario that might play out over the next nine days is the possibility of M&T Bank Stadium being torched by both Peyton and Eli Manning.

To understand how very conflicted Washington is about rooting for Baltimore, consider what happened to one of its biggest football fans when she dared suggest that Redskins supporters offer the Ravens a congratulatory word. The superfan in question dresses as a caped crusader and goes by the superhero name RG3 Woman, in honor of Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III. After Baltimore trounced the Patriots in the AFC championship game Sunday, she tweeted: "DC supports Baltimore! Let's go Ravens #semihometeam.

The Ravens game on Sunday wasn't expected to hit restaurant businesses as hard as last Saturday's game did. For one thing, Sunday isn't a traditional money-maker for restaurants. But Sotto Sopra, which hosts popular monthly opera nights on Sunday evening, appears to be taking a hit. On Sunday afternoon, the restaurant used its Facebook page to drum up a replacement cast of diners. "Wow we just lost 40 people for opera night thanks to the Ravens game," the post said, quickly adding, "Well we support them all the way and you get a "Ravens" deal.

The man appears in a No. 5 Joe Flacco jersey weeping, leaping, pounding his fists on the floor, flinging himself on a couch, grabbing the TV screen with both hands, looking for all the world as if he's about to explode. He's screaming at the top of his lungs, at a pitch that would surely shatter glass if sustained, lamenting that he can't take it anymore, that the play he just saw is unbelievable, that he'll surely die if this continues. And, now, he's Internet-famous. The series of videos capturing Keith Letourneau's reaction during the Ravens' 38-35 overtime playoff win in Denver have been viewed, collectively, more than 200,000 times since they were posted Sunday on YouTube.

There are some people in this town who think that Ray Lewis is washed up ("'My last ride,'" Jan. 3). Some people think he isn't fast enough anymore or that he can't tackle hard enough. These people focus on the fact that his retirement will free up salary space. However, for an entire generation, this is more than the end of a player's career. I was born in 1986. I wasn't around to experience the Baltimore Colts. I've only heard the stories. I know about Johnny Unitas and I've heard about the Mayflower moving vans.

The chant began the instant the Colts' placekicker set foot on the field. From deep within Memorial Stadium, football fans growled his name in near-ritualistic delight. RAAAOOOOL ... RAAAOOOOL. Raul Allegre would save the day, they swore. Often, he did. Four times as a rookie in 1983, Allegre booted game-winning field goals for the Colts (7-9), who boasted his right leg and little else on offense. The Mexico-born kicker accounted for 112 points, or nearly half of the team's output that year, its last in Baltimore.

With the possible exception of Mayan calendar followers and all others who expect the world to end in a matter of hours, is there a gloomier bunch around metropolitan Baltimore than Ravens fans? Rarely in the history of professional sports have people with so little to grouse about made themselves so miserable. It can't be a Baltimore thing. Just three months ago, this city was thrilled over the unexpected good fortune of a hometown team that hoped to - in the final days of its season - capture a playoff spot.

Steve McNair had already experienced the ups and downs of being an NFL quarterback, but being the starter in Baltimore might be like no other. Until last weekend, McNair was the savior of the franchise, but after a poor showing against Oakland, some fans wondered if he had traded jerseys with Kyle Boller. Ravens fans are no different than other football fans, but they have been rooting for a team that has been offensively challenged and quarterback deprived for seven years. The frustration level with quarterbacks is high and can overflow quickly.

For the first time in a two-week period, the band is silent. We're standing inside the tunnel, and even though thousands of football fans are in their seats outside, all I can hear are those fears and worries that have bothered me since I joined the Marching Ravens. Only on this day, the doubts aren't whispering in the back of my head. They're screaming, fighting to be heard over the crowd noise. We're about to leave the tunnel, and I know exactly how this is supposed to look. I'd seen the marching band's pre-game routine many times.

Everyone can relax now that NASA has put out a video - 10 days ahead of time - explaining why the world didn't end on Dec. 21, which is the final day of the Mayan Calendar and has long been a popular focus of goofball doomsday theorists. The nation's highly respected space agency filmed the YouTube video with the original intention of releasing it on Dec. 22, since it's entitled “Why the World Didn't End Yesterday.” I'm guessing they released it early to avert a Stub Hub meltdown caused by fatalistic football fans trying to dump their tickets for Week 16. Whatever the reason, Ravens fans can rest easy that the only doomsday scenario that might play out over the next nine days is the possibility of M&T Bank Stadium being torched by both Peyton and Eli Manning.

Baltimore Ravens fans are loving the new NFL concussion awareness commercial. In it, a mother watering the plants on her porch tells New England quarterback Tom Brady that her little boy loves playing football, and she asks what the National Football League is doing to make the game safer. Mr. Brady hands off to a game official, who talks about rule changes, and then to a doctor, who says the league and the Players Association have donated $100 million to brain injury research.