Put me down as one of the Ravens fans who was inexplicably pissed off that the Orioles weren’t willing to move the time of their September 5th home game to accomodate the Ravens. The Super Bowl champions should be opening up at home on that day but will instead play on the road at Denver. You know who else ain’t having it? Rex Ryan.

“Well who really cares, you’ve got 81 at home, maybe you could have done the right thing and given one up and then played 82 on the road and then 80 at home,” he said. “I really don’t think people are going to care about that game.”

“You have a chance to have the defending world champs open up the season at home where they rightfully should. That’s unfortunate,” the Jets coach added.

The Ravens wanted the Orioles to play a day game in order to accomodate the football game at night. Ryan’s idea to play the baseball game away would complicate matters a bit more. It is interesting that the Orioles claimed it would be too difficult to accomodate the Ravens yet somehow thought both stadiums could handle simultaneous events during a joint Baltimore-Washington DC Olympic Games. One would think Peter Angelos would make some concessions but he’s like Mumm-Ra if he was composed of asbestos, tobacco and crocodile tears. He won’t even let any other attorney be a partner in his firm. He probably eats the male babies left out beyond the wall by Craster.

The scourge that is Angelos is still no reason for Ryan and Ravens fans to get so worked up about this issue. It would be great for fans to salute the team without climbing over cars and gates like a scene out of World War Z. However a win is more important and they’ll be home the following week to slap the Browns around like Ike Turner. Fans should be more interested in seeing how Flacco and the new defensive personnel perform. Perhaps John Harbaugh can ask for a moment to thank Denver for Elvis Dumervil right after the national anthem.

I wouldn’t be going to the game even if it was played at home so there’s no need for me to get worked up. I can watch from the comfort of a bar or home seat accompanied by friends and cheap beers. I’ll be wetting myself from the fact that pro football is back and I don’t have to use baseball to fill the emptiness in my sporting heart. My father used to take my brother and I to games at Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards but Angelos and Bud Selig killed my love affair with the sport many years ago.

The Orioles team on the field is likable and fun to watch for a change but the front office and ownership make it a chore to embrace them fully. Ravens players were incredibly supportive of the Orioles down last season’s stretch and through the playoffs but Angelos threw that back in the face of the most popular team in town. Accordingly they refused the opportunity to be honored on Opening Day. Nice try.

That’s the reason why football is #1 in a town which used to be owned by the Orioles. It’s also the reason Ryan threw some bows on them. Well done but now get back to hugging Mark Sanchez and telling him to find a happy place before a quarterback who literally shits himself takes his job. What? Too soon?

This one goes out to Petey from Rex.

50 Cent – Wanksta [HQ] by CaMGuY

UPDATE: Buck Showalter responds

Buck said Rex Ryan should be more concerned w/ playing #Ravens this yr. “I would stay in my supposed area of expertice.” #Orioles #Jets

— Eduardo A. Encina (@EddieInTheYard) April 19, 2013

I began fearing the potential of a “Harbowl” over a year ago. Last winter, we received a reprieve from that dreadful moniker but alas, no such luck this season. On Sunday evening, when it was all but certain Baltimore would advance to play San Francisco in Super Bowl XLVII, I tried to find a rooting interest. I reviewed all of the salient points — I once lived in Baltimore for three years; my favorite quarterback of all time is Joe Montana; like me, Steve Young is a handsome, dark-haired attorney; and also like me, Joe Flacco fights to protect facial boundaries from an aggressive unibrow. But I’ll be damned if I couldn’t find one legitimate reason why I’d want either team to win: they are both easily detestable. Let’s break it down:

So basically what you’re telling me is that I’m left with picking between Patrick Willis and Steve Bischotti? Perhaps an exciting Harbaugh Bowl SuperBaugh Brother Bowl Super Bowl XLVII just wasn’t meant to be: from replacement refs to head trauma to the coaching carousel, maybe the NFL is just having an off-year. Maybe, Roger Goodell can start making the Super Bowl more meaningful by bringing back the sweet location-themed logos. Either way, I have a week to make this game interesting. Otherwise, it’s going to be up to bourbon and/or gambling. Please don’t make me go there, Rog!

Long Island will not be denied. Watch them represent at the Preakness this past weekend.

If Long Island and Jersey douches ever join forces with the date rapey frat boys of Maryland and Virginia, the resulting horde would be unstoppable.

Oh there was also a bikini contest in case the running of the urinals was too low brow for race attendees. Your move, Belmont Stakes.

Last year Preakness officials wanted you to “Get Your Preak On”. This year they pulled out the big guns and asked the god of Port-A-Pot racing and power hurling to bless Pimlico with his presence.

The Maryland Jockey Club unveiled Kegasus as the mascot for this year’s Preakness. The drunk centaur is supposed to appeal to the 21 to 40 age group in hopes that they’ll invade the infield and treat it like a prostitute.

…Maryland Jockey Club President Tom Chuckas said an over-the-top figure like Kegasus is just the thing to get young people fired up for the May 21 race.

“It talks their language,” Chuckas says of the infield demographic. “We have never hidden the fact that we want people to come to the infield and party.”

Dr. Jonathan Chase was unavailable for comment as he was busy stopping drug dealers in Liberty Heights in the form of a koala.

Everyone isn’t thrilled with Kegasus. Unbelievers think he leaves pain and drunken debauchery in his wake. All he wants to do is make people chug Natty Boh from his booze horn.

On the event’s website (theinfieldfest.com), the homepage depicts Kegasus in his element, a dank, wood-paneled “man stall” with beer mugs lined up on the window sill, not far from a pitcher and the full-blown keg he was apparently named for. Bikini tops dangle from the walls. Cheese curls fill a basket.

“Be legendary,” he implores.

“Half-horse half-man with beer in hand, he strolls the infieldfest,” goes the first Kegasus radio ditty, featured on YouTube with a picture of the centaur gripping a beer mug in each fist. “He’s bold, he rocks, he’s hot to trot, for girls with beautiful yes!”

At no point does Kegasus mention sunstroke or alcohol poisoning. Blasphemy will not be tolerated on the west side, hon. The 2011 Running of the Urinals will be most epic if he has anything to do with it. Be legendary indeed.

We are just about three days away from the second-most important horse race in the United States.  Yes, it’s the 135th Preakness Stakes, and just in case you were hanging out in lovely Baltimore, MD this weekend and wanted to take in some racing, be forewarned, it might get messy.  Come along with me as we get ready for Baltimore’s Mardi Gras (what, you thought I was going to talk about the actual race?):
 

For Jamie Myers, going to the Preakness and letting loose on the infield is a rite of passage, a youthful, bawdy tradition that, for better or worse, will always remind him of growing up in Baltimore.

Oh man, I really hope Jamie doesn’t have a real job.  That’s a bad start.  Most places don’t like the word “bawdy” associated with anything.  And since it’s a word that probably hasn’t been used in a conversation between Baltimoreans this century, you know it’s really bad.
 

There are real photos and those just in his mind of the mind-boggling consumption [sic], the young women lifting their T-shirts, the epic carousing. He remembers that time when he and his buddies showed up outside Pimlico at 6 a.m. with two cases of beer, but by the time the gates opened at 9, they’d already drained it.

 
I think it’s pretty clear at this point Jamie is probably just your regular Federal Hill brah who slings beers at the local bar.  “Yo, Hoyt, gotta come to Preakness, there’s going to be some epic carousing!”  He can’t possibly have a job that requires any kind of decorum.  Furthermore, how long has horse racing been a place where you drink beers at 6am and see girls popping their tops like it’s Spring Break in Cancun?  Very brahsome.
 

Though he’s skipped it for a couple of years, the 34-year-old private school administrator…

 
No, brah! Nooooooooooo!!!!
 

Race officials have bent over backward to lure back revelers who abandoned the Preakness last year with the start of the BYOB ban. Badly needing them back, organizers brushed aside questions of taste and propriety to let young folks know that if they want debauchery, the Preakness is where they’ll find it. They announced cheaper tickets, hipper bands and a bikini contest. They broadcast a risque ad campaign urging former race-goers to come back and “Get Your Preak On.” They sent pretty girls out to hot spots in skimpy “Preak On” tank tops to cajole bar flies into buying tickets. And perhaps most vitally, they debuted a bottomless $20 mug of beer.

 
Translation: “Loyal booze hounds, we tried to clean things up.  We wanted to discourage alcohol abuse and make it a more family-friendly environment.  We failed.  We’re desperate.  We’re broke.  We’re whores.  Come to Preakness and feel free to drink yourself stupid on cheap beer.  Mouthbreathers welcome.”  What could go wrong?
 

Chris Glisson heard the call. They had him at bottomless beer.

 
At least he’s honest.  Soon to be unemployed with Jamie, but honest.
 

The 28-year-old tech worker who lives in Fells Point is giving the race another chance, mainly because with all the talk of beer and babes, it sounds like the Preakness might have rediscovered its boozy fundamentals.

 
Well, he’s a “tech worker,” so there’s one guy who’s probably going to be doing a lot more gawking than fighting — that’s a good sign.  P.S. I’d pay good money to hear Jay Bilas or Mel Kiper Jr. refer to a player’s “boozy fundamentals” during a draft broadcast.  Somebody send this to Keith Law, I think he’d do it.
 

Glisson created an invitation of sorts on Facebook, hoping he can get his friends to return, too.

 
Offffffff course he did. 
 

“It’s coming back,” he says of the Preakness. “In a way.”

 
Until the race goes broke and gets moved to a nicer track next year…  Or someone gets drunk and dies trying to steal a horse…  In that “way,” yes, it is coming back.
 

He thought the sheer possibility alone of the spectacle one might see worth the price of admission. “Where else do you go at 9 a.m. and there’s already a line of beer cans on the ground?” he says.

 
Just off the top of my head: Cancun, Key West, Acapulco, Panama City, Lake Havasu, every college football stadium on Saturdays in the fall and Keifer Sutherland’s house…   
 

A little Sodom. Perhaps a sprinkle of Gomorrah.

 
We’re talking about Baltimore, right?  I think you mean, “A little smack.  Perhaps a sprinkle of gonorrhea.”
 

“I don’t want this turning into a Kentucky Derby thing with everyone laidback and sipping cocktails — that’s not Baltimore,” he says. “Preakness is a totally unique Baltimore thing. There’s nothing like it.”

 
Yes, there is.  It’s called “Spring Break” and it happens every year in multiple cities all over the country.  And the only unique thing about it being in Baltimore is that unlike every other party, it will never go away, no matter how much penicillin you take. 
 
In other words, I’ll be there.

"Open bar, dude!"