Not long after the Ravens came into existence in the 1990s, my born-in-Cleveland, lifelong-Browns-fan father sent my young nephew a postcard of Baltimore's new football team. On the back of the postcard was a simple message: "Dear Peter: Don't ever cheer for this team."
So Dad and I both got a chuckle when, in 2011, I began covering the Ravens for Comcast SportsNet. Now, after six years with CSN, I'm excited to join PressBox as its new Ravens beat writer.
I'll own up to something right from the start: I am not from Baltimore. I don't have 19 generations of Gilman or Calvert Hall in my blood -- we are, as of this year, first-generation Loyola Blakefield, in fact -- but my roots here do run pretty deep. I grew up in Washington, D.C., right about the time the Senators left town, so I have always been a big Orioles fan. And since Redskins tickets were impossible to get, once a year or so we would venture up I-95 and catch the Colts at Memorial Stadium. In fact, we have two seats from Memorial Stadium on our front porch, painted sky blue to match Memorial Stadium's lower-level box seats, the ones we could never get.
