Generally speaking, one would think it is 2 winners who meet each other in crucial events deciding championships. We know that is the case for the likes of the Lakers/Celtics, Bulls/Knicks and Notre Dame/USC. These are awesome battles that make for riveting TV events that are almost always a much watch. Sure you don't have any real rooting interest in either team. You may have come to pull for one or the other over the years like I have for the Patriots over the Colts. My reasons are that the Pats have drafted so many Gators to their team that just watching them allows me to keep up with a ton of the guys who helped bring championships to Gainesville. You may very well have your reason as well. I don't put quite as much weight into these rivalries as I do for local rivalries.
The Texas/Oklahoma, Cubs/Cardinals, Dodgers/Giants or Alabama/Auburn. This is where you stake your claim on your local team, the one you ride through thick and thin, championship or lottery. Your heart and soul is in these rivalries. There should almost be subsets of this rivalry as very often this rivalry is between a winner and a loser as well. The big brother beating up the little brother, year after year. Your locational rivalry can be as bold as the perpetual Boston vs New York rivalry which has shown itself in almost every league. Hockey has the Bruins/Rangers, NBA has Celtics/Knicks, NFL's Pats/Jets and of course the grandfather of them all; The Yankees vs The Red Sox. These rivalries have taken another city and decided I to blow up this whole war to a completely different level.
I decided not to preface too much about rivalries and not go too in depth into their histories and how they're built before I got to the one that I really want to talk about...
Washington DC vs Baltimore
The Battle of the Beltway
This is a newer rivalry in lots of ways. The first rivalry and the one currently closest to my heart is the Baltimore Orioles vs The Washington Nationals. As it is well documented, I am a DC boy stuck living and working in Baltimore markets for the last 10 years or so. The people of Baltimore love the Orioles. The downside is that they love winning more. This just means that had the Orioles been a winner any time in the last 15 years, they would be a bigger draw, more appreciated and loved than their football counterparts, The Ravens. This totally helps out this DC/BMore rivalry because all DC has known over that same timeline is losing(except the brief and rare winnings of the Caps and Wiz making a couple playoff runs over that span). The Nationals have only existed since 2005 and winning teams don't leave cities(Baltimore knows all about this). The Montreal Expos were a perfect fit for DC and our culture of being lovable losers. So here we are now with the Orioles and Nationals who wouldn't even play if it wasn't for the implementation of MLB's inter-league play. In baseball, American league just plays American league and National plays National, except when they finally meet in the World Series. Well, let's be honest, by the time that Nationals and Orioles meet in the World Series, they will have the makings of a very nasty rivalry. I don't even know if this rivalry means anything at all to the players, but Os fans hate Nats fans. Mostly cause Baltimore loves to hate on people. Luckily, DC loves to hate you more after you hated us first!
Needless to say, I went to my first Nats/Os game in Baltimore at Camden yards a couple weeks ago and despite being kicked out after my team had a 12-5 lead that would later become a 17-5 win, I had a blast!!! My Os fan friend that I went with was distraught that he had been kicked out again(I think he said 3rd time), but I had a great time being heckled by all their fans for being one of what couldn't have been more than a hundred or so Nats fans at the entire park. that heckling is how rivalries begin to brew. IT ISN'T ABOUT THE TEAMS!!!! It's completely about the fans using the teams as their representatives of their passions and their home!! My team isn't any better than the Os and yet I was being berated(and I love it) by bitter fans because I was the representative of the team who was beating them so badly on this day. I am very optimistic of this rivalry and it's future and even more excited about bringing my buddy to the Nats park when the Os come to town in July. Let's battle, let's fight and let's make this rivalry great!!!
Know what... I'm not good at blogging consistently at all... but I'm gonna try and give you the Redskins vs Ravens blog the week prior to their preseason game in August. It probably won't happen and even still, we may not even have a season, much less a preseason for me to reference this game, so... until then. Here's my rolling top 5 beers of all time list for you to enjoy on your way out.
1. Goose Island: Bourbon County Stout
2. Weyerbacher: Insanity
3. 21st Amendment: Monk's Blood
4. Lagunitas: Brown Sugga (preferably the barrel aged)
5. Stone: Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout(would be much higher but isn't available any longer)
5a: Weyerbacher: Imperial Pumpkin Ale
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