State of Overall Fandom

[NJBird]

As a lifelong fan of the Orioles, youth fan of the Colts and then the Ravens, and a fan of Terps basketball (never that into football) this is probably the most down I have been on all of "my" teams possibly in my lifetime or at least since the late 80s when the O's were terrible and MD was dealing with the fallout of the Bias death and of course no Ravens/Colts.  It seems that all 3 "franchises" are kind of in a funk, malaise or just a pure state of mediocrity which is really strange and depressing.  As an active reader of both the Hangout and Russell Street Report, there are constant posts by fellow diehards just looking for a winning strategy to get behind, believe in and ultimately get excited about.   I am not trying to come up with answers here but it just kind of hit me as we get ready for Orioles' Spring Training without a lot of hope for 2018 that this lack of hope and excitement has creeped into all 3 "franchises" as I am not convinced any of them have given us a real reason to believe today that they have a long-term winning strategy.  

In the past while the Orioles might have been insufferable there was at least hope and excitement with the Ravens, Terps, etc. (and vice versa) but in general over the course of 12 months we generally had at least 1 team to root for which had a legitimate chance to make the playoffs.  It made the down years easier to take as we could at least look forward to one of our other teams.  As I see it today all three "franchises" are kind of stuck for various reasons and what we are left with is fan lethargy and I have to believe it makes many of us start re-prioritizing our free time.  Instead of attending or watching the games we step away to a degree and the effect kind of snowballs to each franchise (and potentially across the "franchises") which has led to poor attendance which only seems to be getting worse.  I am not saying the spirit can't be rekindled but without the genuine feel of "hope" more and more fans will become disenfranchised or fed up (look at the Ravens this year) and it is possible many of the fans never return.  While that might be ok in larger markets where new fans can readily emerge, Baltimore is certainly more vulnerable given our smaller market size as there are only so many sports fans in the area. 

[Three Run Homer]

I think the Terps are looking pretty good for next season...all of their best players are freshmen or sophomores, Justin Jackson and Bruno Fernando will have a chance to get healthy over the offseason, and they have some good recruits.

Sorry I can't be more optimistic about the O's or Ravens!