Loyal to a Fault

“We are not descended
from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to
associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular."
Edward R. Murrow

This week’s blog is inspired by Gail Oehling, a former high school classmate of mine. I did not speak with Gail, nor ask her opinion on any particular topic. All I did was make an entry on Facebook, the social network website. Gail, I promised I’d elaborate on my abridged answer to your simple question of “Why?” when I posted “F the Steelers.”

I am a Cincinnati Bengal fan. I’ll say it again for those of you who think that perhaps I wrote that down in error, or had a momentary lapse of reason. I am a Cincinnati Bengal fan. I have been a fan since their inception.

The year was 1968. Some of you who read my balderdash every week weren’t even born. Like the nation, my life was in a state of flux. My parents had divorced the year before. My father relocated to Columbus, Ohio. In my youth, I regularly harassed my father to take me to sporting events. Rarely was I successful. However, on one of my all too infrequent visits to Ohio, he procured tickets to a Cincinnati Bengals game. The Cleveland Browns were the hot ticket back then. Judging by the attendance that day, Bengal tickets, on the other hand, were pretty easy to come by. It didn’t matter; I was at a professional football game with my Dad, a first.

We drove down from Columbus in my father’s red Corvair Monza, at a rather rapid rate I might add. The Bengals were playing the Houston Oilers, now known as the Tennessee Titans. The Bengals did not have their own stadium yet, so they played their home games at Nippert Stadium located on the University of Cincinnati campus. The facility held only about thirty thousand spectators. It was a good thing too, since the Bengals were never in any danger of selling out. The only times the stadium was filled to overflowing was when fans of the Browns or the Pittsburgh Steelers made the roadtrip. For many years after that inaugural season, Browns or Steelers fans usually outnumbered Bengal fans at Nippert, and later, Riverfront Stadium. The day I was there, there were few Bengal “fans,” and fewer still Oiler fans who’d venture from Houston for a football game.

The Bengals were new. They hadn’t been around long enough to develop a following. The old American Football League was still considered by many, a joke; a novel experiment, not a threat to NFL supremacy. None of this mattered to me. They had an honest to goodness Bengal tiger in a cage on the sideline for Christ sake! The Bengals were owned and coached by the legendary Paul Brown. The same Paul Brown who previously owned and coached the Cleveland Browns; the same Paul Brown who helped force the merger of the All-American Football Conference and the NFL; the same Paul Brown who ignored the gentleman’s agreement to not sign African-American players. I got to see him and his new team in the flesh. I was hooked. I became a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals though I resided in New Jersey, no easy task.

You see, for many years the Bengals… how shall I put this…sucked, or blew, depending on how you look at things. University of Cincinnati star Greg Cook, became my favorite player. I am sure none have a clue who he is, nor do you give a shit. The Bengals made him their first draft choice in 1969. Greg Cook was the AFL Rookie of the Year. That same year, he led the league in passing efficiency, as well as the Bengals to a 3-0 start. Sadly, he tore his rotator cuff in the forth game of the season. While enduring incredible pain, he played the rest of the season because he “felt obligated.” That season became his only season. Then assistant coach Bill Walsh, claimed Greg Cook would have become “one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history” had he had the medical care available today. That was who I chose as my favorite player. The Bengals have followed a similar path as their first “franchise” player. That is the team I chose to lasso my loyalty wagon to.

While the Steelers, a team that plays in the same division as the Bengals, were winning four Super Bowl Championships; the Bengals have had two near misses, bookends to the decade of the eighties. Both losses, one in 1981, the other in 1989, came at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers. The latter game remained in doubt until a 49er touchdown with fourteen seconds to play snatched victory from my team. I had hoped to attend that game in person.

At the beginning of that season, my friend Gregg had promised me if the Bengals made the Super Bowl, since it was in Miami where Gregg’s parents lived nearby, we would go. The notion of the Bengals in the Super Bowl seemed so absurd, Gregg felt confident of his declaration. When the time came, Gregg was so inundated with work, taking off for a football game was impossible. Undaunted, I went to a bar called “The Bartley House” located in Flanders, N.J. the Friday before the game. I offered hotel, game ticket and airfare to anyone who would accompany me. There were no takers. Obviously, those present thought me unstable. I was relegated, unhappily, to watching my football world crumble on television.

Their souls now crushed after that devastating Super Bowl loss, The Bengals then went on to register the greatest level of futility for a decade in the history of professional football, a .245 winning percentage for the nineties.
Once in the last twenty years, the Bengals have seen their record climb above .500. So unappealing to network ratings are the Bengals, that the team went nineteen seasons between Monday Night Football appearances. The Bengals lack of a national following warranted a span of fifteen years between nationally televised games. The Detroit Lions, whose name for the past several years has been synonymous with ineffectual play, at least appear on TV every Thanksgiving. Merchandise was another vast wasteland of ignominy I was cast to while obsessed with my Bengals.

For many years there was nothing “Bengals” available for purchase in central Ohio. Geographically, Columbus was closer to Cincinnati than Cleveland. No matter, the Bengals just didn’t sell. Chronic losing has that effect. The idea I could purchase anything Bengals in New Jersey was sheer madness. The only Bengal items I owned until the advent of the Internet, were my Bengals pennant bought at that game in 1968, and a cheesy baseball cap acquired at a Jets/Bengals game that took place in New Jersey. Today, with the help of my wife and other relatives and friends, I own many things Bengals.

My wife Helen, had two sets of pillowcases custom-made for me, one orange, one black, festooned with the Bengals logo. She forbade the sheet idea, so I take my small victories where I can get them. My wife has gone to great lengths to feed my Bengals addiction.

There is the orange and black Bengals cooking apron, with matching oven mitts of course. There is the foyer of our home where she has adorned the wall with my hats, yes, there is now more than one, on my custom-made Bengals hat rack. The newest hat was given to me by my son. Above the rack , a custom-made sign tells a visitor they are in “Bengals Country.” Framed, signed pictures of former Bengals hang near the sign.

My wife purchased Bengal floor mats for my car. She has contributed three of the nine t-shirts I own, her daughter and granddaughter, one each. My friend Barbara kicked in one; my step-mother two. In addition, I own three replica jerseys with player’s names on the back. My son is responsible for one. Two of the players are no longer with the franchise. For when I travel to see the Bengals in cold climates, I bring along my Bengals ski hat and gloves. A couple of years ago I bought a pair of Nike basketball shoes that match all of these articles of clothing. They are a conversation piece at every game, and I’ve been to a few.

As a New Jersey resident I’ve seen the Bengals play the Eagles in Philadelphia. I’ve seen them play the Jets twice, once at Shea Stadium, the other at The Meadowlands. In 2004, while spending Christmas with my father for the first time in thirty-five years, as a present to him, I got tickets for three generations of Berstler’s to go see the Bengals play Cory’s team, the Giants. I referred to it as returning to the seen of the crime.

I wrote a five page e-mail to Jason Williams of Bengals ticketing describing my lifelong love affair. He told me he was so taken with the story; he circulated the e-mail throughout the organization. I was able to purchase fifty yard line seats for the three of us. Little did I know I’d be returning one year later, to a playoff game no less.

As hard as it was for the rest of the football world to comprehend; the Bengals won their division title in 2005. Their first game would be against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Cincinnati. I called my friend in the ticket office. I got two handicapped tickets for Cory and I. We flew up the day before the game and stayed at my father’s house, a two and a half hour drive from Cincinnati.

We had to pick our tickets up at the “Will Call” window. We left my father’s in plenty of time to get there before the window opened. When we arrived, we saw a massive tailgate party commencing, satellite dish, twenty-five watt sound system and all. I made my way over to see if the contingent planned on watching my son’s Giants do battle at 1:00. “Tom” said he was. He asked me where I was from. I told him originally New Jersey, but now I lived in Florida. He thought me a real trooper to fly up for the game. Tom then asked how long I’d been a Bengals fan. I said since 1968, and proceeded to tell him what I’ve just said here. Tom said, “That makes you a lifer; let me go get the other one.” Amid the huge expanse of parking area cluttered with hundreds of Bengals fans, Tom knew of only one other “lifer?” From that moment on, Cory and I were treated like royalty. A chair with the Bengal insignia crocheted by the other lifer’s wife,(Tom’s mother)was brought out for me, and placed directly in front of the TV. No one had ever sat in that chair since Tom’s mom passed away. It was her chair. I was the first. Loyalty has its privileges.

As game time approached, we all made our way into Paul Brown Stadium. On the very first play of the game, Carson Palmer connected with Chad Johnson (now Ocho Cinco) for a sixty-seven yard pass play. My first thought was how was I going to afford to go to the Super Bowl? What I saw erased that thought. The Steelers lineman had made an extra lunge toward Carson Palmer after he released his pass. He struck Palmer awkwardly on his knee, ending Palmer’s day, and effectively any chance for a Bengals victory.

All Cincinnati radio stations had urged Bengals fans not to sell their tickets to anyone from Pittsburgh. Hence, only about two-thousand Steelers faithful occupied seats. When they saw Palmer go down injured, some of these assholes began to cheer. I seethed, cursing every one of them.

The Bengals fought on valiantly. The Steelers did not have the game completely in hand until the forth quarter. While I mulled over what should have been, The Steelers went on to win their fifth Super Bowl title. They would win another still, while the Bengals wallowed in mediocrity. Ever since that day, I hear a Pittsburgh reference, or see anything Steelers, I’m compelled to say aloud either “Fuck Pittsburgh,” or “Fuck the Steelers.” My wife thinks I may need psychiatric help to rid me of this defamatory tic.

I have seen other games since that trip to Ohio. Cory and I drove to Tampa the following year for a game against the Buccaneers. Where again, “lifer” status was bestowed upon me. The other Bengal fans spoke to me with a certain reverence. The year after that, Cory and I saw them play ten minutes down the road versus the Miami Dolphins, a game I had waited fourteen years for. It was the Bengals first trip to South Florida since I moved here in 1993.

Over the years I have dealt with the catcalls, been poked fun of, and heard my team referred to as the Bungles. I have withstood the barrage of insults from countless fans of other teams; yet continue to wear my colors proudly, win or lose. I watched every Bengals game broadcast for the past three years by purchasing NFL Ticket. The mouse pad I’m using at this very moment is decorated with the Bengals logo, as are the sticky notes in front of me. I have never once considered jumping ship, and onto the bandwagon of another. That’s what makes what’s happening this year so special, however fleeting it may be.

The Bengals sit alone atop their division. Their record is 7-2. It would be 8-1 had it not been for what’s been referred to as “the greatest fluke play to end a game” in NFL history. (There’s a whole other story behind that game alone) A recent newspaper article calls them “the upstart Bengals.” Had anyone watched HBO’s series “Hard Knocks,” they would have seen that perhaps something special was going to happen this season.

Thus far, the Bengals have twice beaten two teams favored to finish ahead of them in the standings, the Baltimore Ravens, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. They swept the Steelers for the first time in ten years. Yet, both teams are ahead of the Bengals in football Power Rankings. Television commentators still act surprised that the Bengals are winning though the season is more than half over. Granted, the Bengals could win only one more game and finish with yet another record of .500 or less. I don’t think that will happen.

I do derive some self-satisfaction from the gratuitous congratulatory bullshit I received so far, even though I don’t need it. Unfortunately, unless my financial situation changes drastically in the next two months, I won’t be able to experience the playoffs first hand. Besides, there is still a lot of games left to play.

It has not always been popular for me to maintain my unwavering loyalty. That’s just how I roll. It’s so much sweeter when things go well. Like life, I’m enjoying it while I can. You never know when it’s going to end.
Oh, and Gail; “Fuck the Steelers.”