Baltimore becoming a one sports town again

I was born in 1979. The Colts left in 1984 meaning I came of age as a sports fan in a city with one team: the Orioles. Needless to say, it sucked. Baseball seasons became that much more important even though they usually ended in heartbreak. I hung on every pitch, every at-bat. Because during football season I was relegated to rooting for another team in another city.

Fast-forward some fifteen-odd years later. The Browns moved to Baltimore, became the Ravens and won a Super Bowl a few years later. The Orioles, meanwhile, fell into the abyss of horrible sports franchises sometime around 1998 and they've yet to crawl out. Actually, they're only sinking deeper and deeper into it.

So here we are, back in that same place, living in a one sports team city.

Let's face it, the Orioles might as well join the ranks of the Blast, the Bayrunners, Mariners and any other minor-league cut-rate sports team that plays its home games in Baltimore. The O's should move to the Baltimore Arena and play the games there, inside that old, decrepit monstrosity of terribleness. The Orioles don't deserve Camden Yards.

Even die-hard Oriole fans are starting to turn in their fan cards. And why shouldn't they? The Orioles have turned their back on fans for years. It's time the remaining fans do the same to them. Sports fans around Baltimore are praying that the labor dispute that has the NFL on hold gets resolved soon so we can forget about the Orioles and focus all our attention on the Ravens.

It happens every year.

This year was supposed to be different. But shame on us for thinking that could ever happen.

So here we are again, folks.

We might as well join the ranks of Buffalo, Tennessee, Green Bay and Jacksonville as one-team football cities. Because let's face it, the Orioles don't play Major League quality baseball.