Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Ravens: Winners

Feb 4, 2013; New Orleans, LA, USA; Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh holds the Vince Lombardi Trophy as he speaks at a press conference at the New Orleans Convention Center the day after defeating the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

Baltimore Orioles beat writer Rich Dubroff wrote a brief article yesterday that made the observation that only Baltimore has both football and baseball teams that have done as well and gone as far in the playoffs this year as have the O’s and Ravens. Calling it “For Baltimore Sports, these are the Good Old Days,” he said …

"Baltimore’s MLB and NFL teams have each won a round in the playoffs, something no other city’s teams have done this season. Only Detroit and Pittsburgh had baseball and football teams make the playoffs, and they didn’t go as far as the Orioles and Ravens."

Of course, the interesting additional angle on that is the fact of the Orioles knocking the Tigers out of the first round of the baseball playoffs, just as the Ravens did the same to the Steelers last week. That is sweet!

Our blog – The Baltimore Wire – is in the category of local sites on the FanSided Sports Network, covering the Orioles, Ravens, Terps, and anything and everything else of local interest to Baltimore and Maryland sports fans. We write from a fan’s perspective, and our fortunes and emotions as fans rise and fall with our beloved teams.

I am sitting here with my laptop writing these words on my 60^th birthday. So I can remember some good old days. Even though I grew up in New Jersey, I was a Baltimore sports fanatic (due to a dearly-loved older sister who was married and lived in Baltimore). I was a CRAZY fanatic about the Orioles and Colts. I talked about them all the time at school. It was the theme of creative writing papers, while I went to class with Orioles and Colts shirts, sweaters, jackets and hats. Every kid knew what I loved, and every one of them to this day would remember my Baltimore passion.

So I was certainly thankful in 1966, when I was in 6^th grade, to have the Baltimore Orioles win the World Series by sweeping the Dodgers in four straight. I was at the fourth and final game on a Sunday afternoon, and was pleased to be back at school in New Jersey the next day to show off the tickets from the game.

That season was the first in football to have the NFL and AFL winners meet in this new thing called the Super Bowl. Even while the Colts were routinely among the best teams in the era of Johnny Unitas and Raymond Berry, it was of course the Green Bay Packers who won the first two versions of the Big Game.

But after the 1968 season, on January 12^th of 1969, the Baltimore Colts were the NFL representative in Super Bowl III against the New York Jets. Among the great upsets of sports history, Joe Namath and friends prevailed on that day 16-7.

But later that calendar year, the Orioles put together the first of their three consecutive great seasons, going to the World Series, but losing to another upstart team in the New York Mets. The Colts were only 8-5-1 that year.

1970 was a year that will always be remembered by Baltimore sports fans. The Orioles proved the World Series slogan of that year to be true – that the Bird flies smoother than the Machine – as the Orioles defeated the powerful Red Machine of the Cincinnati Reds. Following that victory was the Super Bowl win of the Colts over the Dallas Cowboys 16-13.

In 1971, after the Orioles dropped the painful World Series to the Pirates, the Colts took a 10-4 record against the 10-3-1 Dolphins, losing that divisional game 21-0.