Today’s newsletter is presented by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s Wild And Swingin’ Holiday Party.
Hello, Downtown!
If you still cheer for the Chargers, there are plenty of sports bars in downtown San Diego. You’ll find fans clinging to what was, but unfortunately is no longer: an NFL football team named after San Diego.
People with unbending loyalty, and sadly, masochists with abandonment issues, are out there in bars like Barleymash in the Gaslamp Quarter and Bubs in East Village. They wear powder-blue jerseys with Philip Rivers’s #17 or the hallowed #21 of LaDainian Tomlinson.
Those fine folks are not to be derided or mocked. Rather, they ought to be nurtured and counseled. Yes, counseled by a therapist to realize their team left in 2017. Denial and separation anxiety need to be channeled into acceptance.
It’s going to be touch-and-go for me when the Chargers play the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night Football on Nov. 16 (5:15 p.m. on ESPN). This season, the Bolts have not won a game in eight tries.
Maybe it’ll take an 0-17 year to frame the Chargers as perfect losers not worthy of San Diegans’ attention. Perhaps the losses will halt some local sports journalists from being enablers.
Here’s why this matters so much to me. I’m from Baltimore and was a fan of the bygone Colts. That team split from the city (literally leaving in the middle of the night) in 1984. I thought I could still follow the Indianapolis Colts. But every time somebody said “Colts” without preceding it with “Baltimore” my throat tightened and I felt the plaque building in my heart.
Baltimore got a new NFL team in 1996 called the Ravens. I lived in San Diego but slowly came around to that new, extended family in my home town. Concurrently, I rooted for the Chargers. When they left, too, I wasn’t going to wallow in another fan base and cry into my Stone IPA.
On Monday night, I’ll be cheering for the Ravens. Even though the team is 4-5 and losing quarterbacks faster than Spinal Tap drummers.
Chargers diehards, I salute you. As a two-time child of NFL divorce, I know the heartbreak. Loyalty is good. But look out for yourself. Do an emotional self-evaluation. Get in healthy relationships.
Together, let’s root for Chargers owner Dean Spanos to join late Baltimore Colts owner Robert Irsay in hell. Relegate them to the worst nosebleed seats in the underworld’s most dilapidated stadium. Every Sunday, seat them next to ICE officers who were football fans from San Diego and Baltimore.
Ron Donoho
Downtown News newsletter host
Downtown story spotlight
Construction crews arrive, parking woes follow. Golden Hill Cafe is latest local business to feel the pain.
By JW August • Times of San Diego
Workers at the Golden Hills mainstay noticed that nearby public parking began disappearing about the time construction began on a new mid-rise.
Downtown News thanks our corporate sponsors. Find out more about sponsorships and advertising opportunities here.
More Downtown news
Downtown News thanks our corporate sponsors. Find out more about sponsorships and advertising opportunities here.