Baltimore bears

The quality of play has none of the slow fumbling which fans of high-school ball might expect; these are, after all, semi-pro players, and many of them veterans of other semi-pro gigs. It is a Tuesday night after practice, and five Bears sit reduced to human proportions in their civvies at Cheers Pub on Route Smitty paints cars for a living.

Players love to recount their tryout histories, and the conversations can be as labyrinthine as discussions of lineage with an English baronet.

Whoever the speaker, somehow, the impression emerges that before you sits the rightful king. Mark, for instance, has tried out for the Ottawa Bootleggers, the Washington Commandos an arena team , and an experimental Baltimore arena team, the Claws, which rose and fell without playing a game. Smitty, who played for Harford Community College, has a theory about why the Bears are Bears and not rubbing pads with Rypien and Kelly. In Mobile, Alabama, they play high school football games before crowds of 15, because the only thing they have going there is the football team.

Guys who play football in places like that get known. We get nothing. Smitty also bemoans the thought that players are judged by standards other than athletic. The team has been known to throw fundraisers for the wounded, but the several hundred dollars collected is a drop in the bucket next to the cost of knee surgery. Some players are not insured through work, so they risk physical and financial ruin every time they strap on the pads.

Ken Coldwell, a bespectacled, heavyset, bearded man with a tiny gold football helmet hanging on a gold rope around his neck, got involved with local semi-pro ball back in The result was a regional powerhouse: 56 wins, 22 losses, and one tie, with two league championships represented by the drainpipe-sized rings on his fingers.

At five bucks a seat, you might look at the crowds and think the Bears are generating a decent chunk of revenue. That would be true were it not for the fact that each home-team player gets a pass that admits his personal entourage of four. Coldwell will be the first to tell you nobody goes into something like the Bears for the money.

Why they allow themselves to get wrapped up in this curious game is a little harder to explain. It is a bright, brassy Sunday afternoon at Patterson High, and the Bears are facing crosstown rival Arbutus. Wednesday, am Baltimore, MD. Wednesday, pm Baltimore, MD. Derrick E Vaughan , Local Business. Oct Event Details. Mon, Oct 25, at PM. Add to calendar. Interested Reply Share. Baltimore News. Maryland School Closings.

That Fall football for sure. Rinse food cans and wrappers before disposal. Compost vegetable scraps properly away from house.