It could be worse. He could have written his essay about Steve Spurrier.

I grew up in the same situation in Northern VA rooting for the O’s and Redskins. DC didnt have the Nats yet so thats how i got hooked on Baltimore sports. Since the Ravens came to Baltimore I have liked them more and more each year but I still feel a strange obligation to the skins, however, I hate Dan Snyder and if I do totally jump ship thats why sometimes he makes me like Angelos.

Pete,

Hopefully he got your political sense :-)

Pete,

I believe I started a lively discussion about this a few weeks back. Glad to see your son jumped out of the way of that purple bandwagon. Loyalty is a tough thing to come by, and you son has it! Go Orioles and Hail to the Redskins!

"Gandhi", not "Ghandi".

Better Marty Schottenheimer than Marge Schott.

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Pete's reply: My bad. I looked it up and still misspelled it. It's fixed.

I have just gained a measure of respect for you Pete, and your son is a great kid/man! Go O's and Go Skins!

Pete, that is why I exposed my son to country and rap music early, so now he rebels and happily listens to classic rock. I do empathize though. I grew up around the skins and I will not embrace Mr Snyder, and have a hard time embracing Ravens since they did the reverse Colts thing.

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Pete's reply: I've tried the reverse psychology thing, but for some reason, it didn't work with him.

Your son can afford season tickets but still lives at home?
I think you failed in several ways.

Smart kid...Skins come first in the world of sports for me and although I live in DC, I HATE the Nats and love the O's.

Can't fault the loyalty. I grew up in Rochester NY so I'm an O's and Bills fan. I've since moved to AZ and it isn't easy watching two losers every year, but I love em!

There aren't many things worse than a Skins fan. Has there ever been a creature with a more distorted sense of its place in the world than the vile, repulsive Skins fan?

Pete, I can empathize with your son's excitement. I just received my season tickets for the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League in the mail, and I can't wait to go to my first game. Maybe I could piggyback it with the Michael Jackson 2009 tour when he comes to Philly.

I still haven't received my 1984 season tickets for the Baltimore Colts, though. And do you happen to know when Baltimore Stallions tickets go on sale?

Born in Baltimore I grew up in Laurel and the Skins were my second favorite team. Pat Fischer was the toughest little cornerback SOB I ever saw, used to pick up Jim Brown and drive him into the turf.

I must say I did a far better job with my kids, two were born in Laurel, two in PA and all are Ravens and O's fans. My 20 year old started to drift to the dark side{The Steelers} a few years ago but I snapped him out of it.

At least you didn't raise any Cowboy fans, so I guess you did OK.

Rex Ryan will lead the Jets to the Superbowl! :-) Go Jets! Peter, who's your diaper daddy? ;-)

That's okay Pete.. My son wrote about the pitcher that broke my jaw in 15 places. Wayne Simpson when trying to make a comeback. Marty is a character to write about. It all works out in the end. The Redskins tickets though is tough to take. .

The upside is, once football season starts, you'll be free to watch the ravens games free of continual banter about how the redskins are the true area team and the ravens really aren't that good.

Pete, your son's a good man. The Redskins are a proud organization with rich tradition and he wants to be a part of that. Sounds like a great kid to me. Marty, though. That's a bit of a
head-scratcher.

I'm just waiting for Bryan to tell us what the upside is (ha, ha).

Pete-
Good Parenting 101.
You raised a fan who's loyal to his team through tough times and doesn't jump on another team's bandwagon when it would have been easy for him to do so (Ravens last 10 yrs vs. Skins last 10 years, plus your affiliations).
I live closer to the Nats, but will always be an O's fan. Loyalty's important in a person. Good parenting Pete.

Bryan, Pasadena - what's the upside again?

How anyone can root for a team dominated by a megalomaniacal owner and condemned to medocrity by years of inept personnel decisions is beyond me.

Go Os!

It's worse than you think. The Skins' revenue stream comes from fans who are, for the most part, US government employees or persons working for quasi-governmental companies. Through your federal taxes, you are indirectly supporting the Skins. Your son's tickets are just one more cruel blow to endure.

In addition, D.C. is located on land that belonged to the State of Maryland. The State and its citizens should be receiving tax revenue.

Some sense of decency and order will be restored when the Ravens beat the Skins like the old Colts used to regularly trounce them in lopsided games.

love the skins and orioles. you have to remain faithful through the good and bad, or you're not a true fan. go, 'skins!

I have a new found respect for you (Of course it's new) Admitting in public that you are in fact a bad parent. An x-friend had a son who was a squeelers fan so of course I no longer associate with him lest I might somehow get associated with the hole tepid affair. I guess its too late to try for another one (son that is).

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Pete's reply: Yeah, unless Megan Fox likes gimpy old sportswriters.

Same for me, I grew up in DC when the Ravens and Nats didn't exist. I've been a Skins and O's fan for as long as I can remember.

When I was 19 I put my name on the Skins season ticket list. 5 years later, I got my tickets, but by that time the US Navy decided I should be living in Hawaii. I still have my tickets but now I only get to go to a game about every 2 years.

Skins and O's fan for life!

Pete - Having spent the 1st 20 years of my life in the same town that you reside I can cetainly see why he went to the enemy. Our community was filled with both Colts fans and Ravens fans and it led to some pretty brutal tackle football games. (had my wrist broken by a Skins fan but broke the nose of another so all was good)

Skins remind me a lot of the O's, a once proud organization now owned by meddling owners (although P.A. seems to have finally gotten it and Little Danny will never get it)who almost single handedly ran the teams into the ground.

Go O's! Go Ravens! Go (to h@ll) Redskins!

Goodness Gracious ! Am I the only Ravens' fan here ?

pete, pete, pete. i am so sorry that your son is a skins fan.

i am sure he isn't as delusional and annoying as the other skins fans.

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Pete's reply: Not sure about that.

Well said, Andrew.

Pete, Speaking of the NFL, Eli Manning just signed a 6 year contract extension with the Giants for $97M, which makes him the league's highest paid player.

Eli's good, don't get me wrong, but this money is disproportionate to where he ranks among pro singal callers. So disproportionate, in fact, that when I read it, I wondered to myself, "Wow, is Scott Boras now taking on NFL players clients?"

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Pete's reply: I agree. That's a little much, but it's only money and it is the NFL.

"Orioles season ticket waiting list..."

In all my years of reading your work, that is the funniest thing you have ever said.

lol Don't think I agree with that. I just get a lot of that from my Redskins friends. So to be free of that for 8 weeks in 16 while the son is away at games. Hey look I'm just trying to find some sort of light to treasonous children lol

The only Washington team that any person from Baltimore should like is the Capitals. End of story.

It looks like poor Gandhi's name is still misspelled in one instance.

I'm often a fan of parents letting kids be themselves, but perhaps you should have put the kibosh on writing about Marty Schottenheimer, unless he did so in a sly and satirical fashion.

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Pete's reply: He got accepted to equivalent schools, so I'll just give him credit for originality and gift-wrapping me a funny blog entry.

Don't they have those cult deprogrammers anymore in which they kidnap kids and stick them on a mountaintop somewhere until they are mentally reattached to reality?

Probably fairly expensive, but you certainly cannot turn your back upon your very own flesh and blood, for God's sake.

We're talking about the Redskins. This is serious stuff.

all these foreskin fans are making me nauseous. they are the most delusional fans in sports.

GO Skins. GO O's. Gotta respect the group that grew up with both between the cities and have stayed loyal It's important. Love the fact that there are so many showing up here.

My son asked me the other day: "Pop, why do we like the Orioles?" He's 8 and I guess he finally realized they lose most of the time. I responded, after a good, hard spanking, by telling him the truth: We like the O's because the Yankees power their stadium lights by keeping little kids chained to life sized hamster wheels and forcing them to run 23 and a half hours a day. And the only way the kids get free is if the O's beat the Yankees. Now he understands. (c:

It's probably his way of rebelling because you denied him the opportunity to grow up in the OC. Things could be worse. He could be a Wizards fan.