Well, local sports stores and others in the area are filled with shirts that say “Festival” and “Biggest Festival” on them in the Baltimore area. These are some of the hottest sales you’ll find right now. Other items that fly include Baltimore Ravens flags to put on your car, along with larger flags for your home, and basically anything related to the Baltimore Ravens. Perhaps you will have to decide what the Festival and the Great Festival are.
For those who haven’t seen it yet, they are the words Ravens fans use for the NFL playoffs (Holiday) and the Super Bowl and the celebration around it (Holiday). It started in 2000, when the term was introduced on the popular sitcom “Seinfeld”. Brian Billick, who was the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, prevented his team from mentioning the word of the game in December. . The players decided to use the code for the game and it was festive. Then, as they got to the Super Bowl, they decided that Festival High was the perfect phrase.
Now, when the Baltimore Ravens are making a run at the NFL games, the jerseys and the talk are all popping up in the Baltimore area. This year, though, the feeling runs a little deeper. The feeling of loyalty in the team and the city increased because of the Ravens’ first opponent in the playoffs, the hated Indianapolis Colts. This team used to be the Baltimore Colts before their owner Bob Irsay when Bob Irsay drove them out of town in Mayflower vans at midnight on March 29, 1984.
Many say to us fans to “get over it” and “come back in the 20s, give it a rest”. Well, some of us never forget. Our team was taken away from us. That just makes this rallying around the crows that much stronger. We lost our team, and then finally in 1996 got a new team. The team that came here first is the Cleveland Browns, but at least their owner left the city with the team’s identity. When he came to the Baltimore Browns, Mr. Modell left his name and all his history to the citizens of Cleveland. Guess what Bob Irsay didn’t give the city of Baltimore that kind of consideration, and it’s one of the reasons the Colts are despised in this town.
I was 10 years old when my team left town. I spent my teenage years growing up without a home of my own. For a young person growing up, the teenage years are some of the best bonding years for him with his father sitting around the television or at the games listening to stories about how your father did the same thing with his father. The opportunity was well seized of me. My team was stolen, I couldn’t enjoy watching the team that my father had watched as a child with him. Sure, he told me all the stories of the team when he was little, but he just didn’t have enough to touch that framework, as he would have if I had the same team to watch. My father had a great relationship and before his death in his late 90s, he never got it. they share a true fatherly bond, passing on the connection to the football team to their son. I’m not the only one who missed this opportunity, many of us who grew up in a decade when there was no NFL team in Baltimore, my younger brother included.
The fact that we are playing teams that have left us just adds to the hype of the Festival in Baltimore. Not that it needs extra hype. This town is full of the spirit of crows, as evidenced by the flying furniture on the gymnasium store shelves. The time of this law, the game has passed. Someone might say, “If you have to win, let him go,” but I’m sorry, Baltimore will never forget what happened to our team on March 29, 1984.
This matchup is the perfect matchup to light up the town, enjoy the January Festivities in front of the games, and then the Big Fest until February 4th. We look back and realize that revenge is so much sweeter during the festive season.
