I am as big of a Baltimore sports fan as you’ll find. Growing up, my family of five were all about sports. My sisters and I all played recreational sports, including indoor soccer at the Maryland Sports Arena. I grew up cheering for the Maryland Terps. We were season ticket holders to the Baltimore Blast. We went to numerous Baltimore Orioles games every year, and watched all the games that we did not attend. When the Ironbirds moved to Aberdeen, my parents became season tickets holders and housed players. If it was Baltimore or Maryland, I loved it.
Since Baltimore didn’t have a football team when I was growing up, we each adopted a team, and cheered them on every Sunday. I grew up a Seattle Seahawks and New York Giants fan. My sister was a Philadelphia Eagles fan. My parents were Washington Redskins fans. Every year, we would travel to New York or Philly and attend a game. But the day that it was announced a football team was moving to Baltimore, I immediately ditched my allegiances and rooted for the home team 100%.
I was very blessed to have parents who loved sports, and they passed on that love to me. But in 2001, I was a senior in college and was offered my first full-time career job in Portland, Maine, so I took it. This meant not only moving away from my family, but moving away from Maryland. One of the hardest parts of that was not getting my daily dose of Baltimore sports. Thankfully for me, the internet was taking off and I had a direct link back to my home.
Since I was a single guy living on a full-time salary, I bought DirecTV and the Sunday NFL Package. I sat in my living room every Sunday from 1 pm-11 pm and watched football. There was no such thing as MLB.TV then, so I was stuck trying to keep up with the Orioles by watching ESPNews, Baseball Tonight, and whatever I could find online. If the weather was just right, I could get WBAL AM radio in my car, and I would drive around just long enough to hear the game through all the static.
When I met my wife Nicole I knew she was the woman of my dreams when she would sit with me on Sundays and want to watch the NFL Package all day long. But as our family grew, and our budget became tighter, sacrifices were made, including DirecTV.
When we moved to Columbia, South Carolina in the summer of 2012, I was using Skype more often and realized I could really use this to my advantage. So my sister, living in Maryland, would set up her laptop in front of her TV, and Skype me. So instead of talking to my sister, I would be watching the Orioles game on Skype!
Thankfully, I now use MLB.TV to watch every Orioles game. I would also use the internet to watch some Ravens games, but most of the time I would listen online or head to a local sports bar to watch them, since that was just once a week.
The internet, especially Twitter, has played a huge role in being a displaced fan. I’m able to follow the beat writers for each team and get the same information I would if I was still living in Baltimore. Literally, in 2015, there is nothing anyone in Baltimore knows more than me just because they live there. I can listen to 105.7 online. I can watch Orioles games online. I can listen to Ravens games and follow along on Twitter, if I’m not watching at a sports bar. This is all made possible by a wife who supports my addiction – Thanks honey!
It is not easy being a displaced sports fan, but life has definitely gotten easier. Before the Ravens, when I was a Seahawks fan living in Baltimore, I hardly ever got the news I needed to keep me really in-tune with my team. But now, I have everything I need at my fingertips.
While I have all the sports “news” that I need, some might say that I’m missing the fan perspective. They might say that I’m missing having my finger on the heartbeat of the city to know how they feel about the team. But I would disagree. Sites like Russell Street Report and Eutaw Street Report give me everything I need to keep up with the fan perspective. Between reading posts by fans, comments on those posts by fans, or the message boards, I see how the fans are reacting to the teams and their situations. Honestly, if you have read my articles on those sites over the last four years, you probably never knew I didn’t live in Baltimore.
I miss Maryland. 10 or 15 years ago, I would have said that it would have been nearly impossible to really know and understand your favorite team being displaced, but that’s simply not the case anymore. I can live in South Carolina, come back for a live game once a year, and watch the rest of the year online and still feel like I’m right there.
So as you celebrate another Ravens playoff appearance, or another Blast championship, or another Orioles division title, know that I am right there with you, all the way in South Carolina – as are displaced Baltimore fans the world over.
