Why I feel Inferior...

Quick. Off the top of your head, think of 1 or 2 of the most prominent teams in Major League Baseball. By "prominent" I mean past success, size of fan-base and media coverage mainly. Now do the same for the National Football League and NCAA Basketball.

I'll give you a second.

Ok, if you're like most, you probably named all or some of the following teams:

-New York Yankees
-Boston Red Sox
-Pittsburgh Steelers
-Duke Blue Devils
-North Carolina Tar Heels

Since this is a Baltimore-based blog, I probably don't need to tell any of you with an IQ over 10 what those teams have in common.

Baltimore/Maryland sports fans have spent years seeing their teams live in the shadow of superior rivals, both on the field/court and off. It's bad enough that these teams have taken a liking to kicking our collective rear, but we also have to hear about them on almost a daily basis. During baseball season, you can't get away from Yankee/Red Sox rivalry talk, ditto for UNC/Duke during basketball season. The NFL is slightly better, the Ravens haven't been completely owned by the Steelers, but the fact remains that Pittsburgh is one of the storied NFL franchises, and we as Ravens' fans have to deal with hearing about them.

The most sobering statistic, in my mind, is the total number of titles won by our rivals since 1983 (the last year the Orioles won the World Series for those of you that shouldn't be reading this blog). Between the O's, Ravens and Terps, there have been 3 titles since that year-- one for each team. Between the Yankees, Red Sox, Steelers, Duke and Carolina? 14. And that's if my memory serves me correctly (which it tends not to do, maybe I've successfully erased a few of those titles from my memory bank?). Sickening.

In 26 years, Baltimore fans have had to deal with their hated rivals winning 14 championships. We've had to deal with Dick Vitale, Peter Gammons and the rest of the folks at ESPN who forget sometimes that Baltimore exists. Most importantly, though, we've had to deal with our hated rivals enjoying the constant success that most sports' fans from this area would give a kidney for. We're a passionate group, but we also bleed when we're cut. And this is why we feel inferior.

I'll enjoy posting here, and I thank Bart for the opportunity to do so.