Show the Blast some love

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BALTIMORE (Map, News) - If the Blast wins its fourth Major Indoor Soccer League championship in six years on Saturday and no one is there to watch it, does it really matter?

It should, especially in a once-proud sports town where losing now seems to be contagious.

But since the game between the Blast and the Monterrey La Raza is being held in beautiful downtown – wait for it – Milwaukee, the only way locals can catch it is on Fox Soccer Channel. But that’s a diving header for a different day.

The question du jour is this: Considering the Blast again led the league in attendance — drawing more than 100,000 spectators and averaging more than 7,000 fans per home game — why isn’t the team revered with the same passion as the Orioles and Ravens?

Name another professional team in this city with more championship banners and a bigger presence in the community during the past decade than the Blast.

I won’t begin to compare an MISL championship to the euphoria that would surround a title claimed by the Orioles or Ravens, but it still carries weight. In fact, players and die-hard indoor soccer fans will proudly take the trophy that comes by beating the La Raza and tell you to take the Lombardi Trophy or World Series ring and stick it in your upper 90.

Baltimore, often dubbed, “the biggest small town in America,” may not be New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, but it’s still big enough for Ravens, Orioles and exploding soccer balls to prosper.

But for some reason, we are allergic to any professional league that doesn’t have a three letter acronym. Our history of stiff arming anything dubbed “minor league” or not affiliated with the big 3 1/8 — MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL — is longer than Northern Parkway.

We know what happens when we turn our back on a team in this city, but we still take the Blast for granted. If you need a reminder of teams that spent about as little time on the job as former Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Clark, here’s a short list of the ghosts of Baltimore’s past that packed up and left town without making national headlines by using Mayflower moving vans: Bullets, Bayhawks, Thunder, Clippers, Skipjacks, Blades, Bandits, Bayrunners, Hustlers and Claws.

That’s a lot, hon. What in the name of Stan Stamenkovic is going on here?

We already watched the original Blast fold along with the entire MISL in 1992 only to be reincarnated from the ashes of the short-lived Baltimore Spirit, who were then transformed by Ed Hale back to the Blast. And since taking control of the franchise in 1998, he’s built this Blast for you through community initiatives and by signing local guys like Guliano Celenza, Billy Nelson and Mike Lookingland.

In the same way this city had an unabashed love affair with Colts and Orioles’ players in the 50’s and 60’s because they lived next door and worked day jobs to survive, we should appreciate the Blast in the same manner.

Blast players don’t make millions of dollars and wearing the red jersey is something most of the players do for a second job. I don’t see Ray Lewis going to work at Johns Hopkins like Blast defender P.J. Wakefield does to make ends meet.

Yes, despite having thighs like tree trunks and acting like they were shanked with a machete every time they make physical contact with another player, indoor soccer players are just like us.

Look, I am no soccer maniac. I’d much rather spend a day watching football over futbol any day of the week, especially on Sunday. I’ve never ran to the computer to see if the Blast pulled out a late game against the California Cougars.

But I love the Blast because it is Baltimore.

With rug-burned roots dating to 1980, the Blast often is overlooked much like former Dallas Sidekick star Tatu at a pick-up basketball game. But at the end of the day, I’ll take a MISL title over 5-11 and 10 straight losing seasons.

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143 days ago: Like it or not, Hebron’s run was one for the books

» 165 days ago: Show the Blast some love «

199 days ago: Tough day at the office for sports writers