Ravens Fan From Nj

[humblecoder]

Hi everyone. I just found this board, and I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce myself. I am a Ravens season ticket holder in the land of the Jets and Giants. How did a Ravens fan end up in Jersey, you ask? Well that's a pretty interesting story.

Growing up in NJ, I was a casual fan of the Giants. I saw casual because I rarely went to any games in person. You see, in the NYC area, Jets and Giants tickets are very hard to come by unless you know somebody or you have a lot of money to spend on tickets, which I had neither. Not being able to actually go to games in person certainly limits your fandom quite a bit, so I just followed the Giants from afar.

Fast forward to 1996... my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) got a job in Baltimore, so I said, what the heck, let's both move to Baltimore. As you can see, I arrived the same time as the Ravens did. So I am watching TV and I saw some commercial where they are trying to sell Ravens seasons tickets. This was a totally new concept to me. Where I am from, Jets and Giants season tickets are basically handed down from generation to generation, and you could spend 100 years on the waiting list before you can get the opportunity to buy tickets. Now here I am being presented with the opportunity to buy season tickets for an actual NFL team without having to wait until I am in the nursing home. I jumped on the opportunity without the least bit of hesitation. I bought two seats and my wife and I headed off to Memorial Stadium for some real, honest-to-goodness NFL football. Eventually, we ended up in that palace that is M&T Bank Stadium (for those of you who went to games at Memorial Stadium, you know what I say that M&T is a palace).

At first, I was sort of lukewarm regarding this new team of mine. I still had some affinity for my hometown Giants. However, when you attend the games, you get caught up in all of the excitement and the passion, and eventually you live and die with the team. After that first year, the Giants were no longer my favorite and I had purple blood flowing through my veins. Lest you think I am kidding, when the Ravens played the Giants in the Super Bowl, I was rooting my heart out for the birds from Baltimore!

As it happens, in 2000 my wife and I had to move away from Baltimore to upstate New York (near Syracuse), which is about a five hour drive from Baltimore. We discussed what we should do regarding the tickets, and we decided that we would keep them and attend as many games as we could (it was a short discussion, by the way). So during the 2000 Super Bowl season, we drove the five hours each way for every home game (preseason included) and of course we were there for the playoff game against the Broncos. Sometimes I questioned the decision to keep the tickets. The drive was long and it pretty much killed our weekends during the fall. We would drive down Friday night after work, arrive around midnight in Baltimore. We'd stay over until Sunday (game day) and then we'd drive back after the game. We'd often arrive back in upstate New York after midnight, and I'd be dead tired. We drove through snow storms. We drove through rain. We drove through traffic and constructions. We drove on the lonely interstates where there was no exits for miles. We got to know every rest stop, gas station, and fast food place along I-83 and I-81. Oh I almost forgot that we had to lug our two dogs with us on the trip to Baltmore and back because we often couldn't find a dog sitter. Such was the extent of our fandom.

I remember watching the Super Bowl up in New York state with my wife that year. Even though we were in Bills country, the number of Giants fans outnumbered Ravens fans by about 10,000 to 1. I think my wife and I were the only ones within a 100 miles radius rooting for the purple and black. However, it was all worthwhile when we could brag to those Giants fans about how Stokley beat Sehorn like a rented mule on that amazing TD play. The funny thing is that a few years ago I'd probably be rooting against the Ravens, but my conversion to the "dark side" as my brother calls it, had been complete.

In the fall of 2001, we repeated our pilgrimage to Baltimore, although I think there might have been one or two games that we had to miss, if I recall. We did make it to the Monday night game against the Vikings that had to be rescheduled due to 9/11. The fans in our section knew that we were coming from upstate New York and they asked if we were okay after the attacks. I told them that Baltimore is closer to New York City than where we lived, so we were fine! Unfortunately, the 2001 season didn't end up as well as the previous season.

In 2002, we had another move and we were back in New Jersey near where I grew up. It made trips to Baltimore easier since we were only three hours away, and we could make the trip all in one day. We have attended most home games from 2002 until today. We missed a few due to other obligations. For instance, we missed the playoff game after the 2003 season because of the birth of our first son. He was born 12/31/2003, so my wife was still in the hospital recovering. We watched the game on the hospital TV in the room. Fortunately, the other bed in the room was empty, otherwise that person would have heard a lot of cursing coming from the other side of the room! Also, we stopped going to the preseason games. Since they are at night and sometimes during the week, it makes the logistics more difficult, especially with kids. We do, however, go to just about every regular season home game.

Our schedule for a 1pm game is as follows... We'll wake up early, get dressed in our purple and black, kiss the kids goodbye, leave them with one of the grandparents (God bless grandparents), pack the car with a cooler and snacks, and leave the driveway by 8am. At the behest of my wife, we stop for coffee while I fill up the tank with gas, and then we head onto the NJ Turnpike for our trip south.

By about 10am, we are crossing into Maryland. We stop off at one of the rest stops for gas and a bathroom break, and then resume our trip to Baltimore. Usually by 11am we are parking in Lot H with our cooler and snacks, and we enjoy lunch before heading into the stadium. We get to our seats to watch warmups, I'm Proud to be an American, Misheal Miller, lineups, and of course the game!

After the game, we head back to the car, and start the drive home. Usually it takes an hour to get back to the highway. While we are sitting in traffic, we eat dinner that we packed in the cooler. By 5 - 5:30 we are back on the highway and headed north. Depending upon traffic, we'll be pulling into the driveway between 8:30 and 9.

The above pattern is repeated 8 times a year, with some variation for 4:15 games and prime time games. I like 4:15 games because we can sleep in a little and still get to Baltimore in time for some good tailgating. Prime time games usually require an overnight stay. Last year we decided that we would only attend one prime time game in order to have mercy on our parents, who would have to watch the kids. Unfortunately, we picked the Colts game (bad choice!).

I know that this is a long post, but I'll tell one more story. My son is old enough now where he can start to understand what football is all about. We decided to take him to the Spring Football Festival this year, and he had a blast. He got to run around on the field (he did the football obstacle course like ten times), and he got to meet a real, honest-to-goodness football player (Matt Stover), and by the end of the weekend I think he became a Ravens fan. We brought him home the program from the Ravens-Bengals game two weeks ago, and he still has it on his night table! My brother jokes that being a Ravens fan in the NYC metro area is going to be tough for him, but we'll see. I'll love him no matter what team he likes, so if he falls to the pressure of the Giants or Jets, so be it.

However, if he becomes a fan of any of the AFC North teams, I think I might have to ground him for life....

[we need a QB]

hey raven fan from nj im a raven fan from long island love those ravens but im not a fan of joe flacco the ravens still need help at quarterback i dont think flacco is the answer nor the future what do you think? the ravens "D" looked great today even thou it was only the browns they played can wait till next week when the ravens play the steel curtin who had a big loss today feel sorry for joe flacco next week hope those sacks dont add up like the int's did today hope troy smith gets better soon very soon he's the ravens last hope for QB this year

[humblecoder]

Hey there fan from LI. I'm willing to give Flacco a chance. The guy's a rookie, so you have to take the bad with the good. He wasn't that sharp this week, but he's got more poise in the pocket after two games than Boller had in five years. He doesn't get "happy feet" when he gets the first sign of pressure, and he generally makes good decisions. Plus it helps that the O-line is playing lights out!

Personally, I think the team is going back to their formula from 2000: power running, QB who can manage the game, and of course a killer defense.