Some 15 years ago, Sports Illustrated sent a Cleveland Browns shirt and jacket to a house in Carroll County, Maryland, by mistake.
The real gift was in the storytelling contained in those pages every month, but the once-respected sports outlet also offered perks to magazine subscribers.
I wasn’t allowed to have one of them (I guess my parents didn’t want me shopping for swimwear?), but another came in the form of clothing customizable with their favorite team.
Nothing fancy, just a T-shirt and a water resistant windbreaker with an “SI” decal positioned alongside, I’d hoped, a Baltimore Ravens logo.
I’d never seen another in the wild until an encounter with Mike Burke a couple years ago, whose Ravens jacket served the same purpose as mine on a rainy evening in the Queen City.
When teenaged me first opened that box from Sports Illustrated, however, it contained a brown jacket and an orange shirt. The company had sent Cleveland Browns apparel by mistake.
It’s a funny thing. If I’d opened that box and saw black and gold, they’d have ended up where they belong: In the trash.
Just last week, I couldn’t get tortilla chips at the Martins because the only ones left had big Steelers emblems on them.
Yes, I’m a kid locked in a grown man’s body. My two-time (should have been three-time) MVP quarterback is too apparently, if you ask perennial pot-stirrer Mike Preston of the Baltimore Sun.
Upon realizing the mistake on Sports Illustrated’s part, all I could do was chuckle. They’re the Browns after all. Our little brothers.
My mother sorted things out and the mistake was corrected, and for 15 years, that Browns shirt and jacket have been waiting patiently on a hook in my childhood bedroom.
Forgotten during my journey through middle and high schools, left behind when I moved away to College Park to attend to the University of Maryland, and ignored as I grabbed my valued possessions when I moved to Cumberland to write for some small-town newspaper.
“Don’t worry guys, I’ll be back in a couple years after bolstering my resume,” I told my parents.
Until last week, I didn’t even know if they were still there.
I was at my parents’ home in Sykesville for Christmas and having an impassioned discussion with my dad about our crestfallen Ravens, whose injuries, most notably to quarterback Lamar Jackson, head-scratching coaching decisions and serial propensity to choke in the biggest moments has essentially ruined our lives.
Through a stroke of good fortune, we’ve had access to season tickets this season.
“We have season tickets on a possible Super Bowl year!” said my dad, then a cockeyed-optimist.
By Christmas Eve he’d already packed away his Ravens gear for next season in disgust. The season was over for a third time — first after a 1-5 start, then after getting embarrassed by the Bengals and Steelers at home with Rychwalskis in attendance.
(The Ravens, who have had three losing seasons at home in their 30-year history, are 1-6 with me in the stadium in 2025, by the way).
After John Harbaugh and Todd Monken decided to bench Derrick Henry, averaging 7.1 yards per carry, against the Patriots for the final 12 minutes and 50 seconds due to a scripted rotation, the season was over again after the 28-24 defeat.
Baltimore was 7-8 and needed to win in Green Bay without Jackson on Saturday, and, even more unlikely, it needed the Browns to somehow beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.
In the spirit of having hope and belief on Christmas, or some crap like that, I went on an archaeological expedition through my childhood bedroom, now used for storage, to find two artifacts of my childhood.
If I was going to have to root for the Cleveland Browns, I might as well look the part.
The Ravens held up their end of the bargain, running over the Packers, 41-24, behind 216 yards and four touchdowns from Henry, whose coach finally realized he’s one of the greatest running backs of all time.
And there I was, at the Corriganville Sheetz on Sunday morning in my Cleveland Browns jacket.
“Don’t serve him, he’s a Browns fan!” a man jested.
“Actually, I’m a Ravens fan.”
“Even worse.”
Through some cosmic forces rarely seen in recorded history, the Browns actually did something, upsetting the Steelers, 13-6, and forcing a winner-take-all Week 18 matchup for the AFC North title and a berth in the postseason.
Harbaugh was asked about his own watch party at the house with players and coaches, to which he responded:
“I’m in fan mode, to be honest with you. I’m complaining about the play calls. I’m wondering why they didn’t do this or that. ‘What are they thinking?’ The clock management. ‘What are we doing?’”
Believe me coach, we get it.
My dad has since pulled his Ravens gear out for one final push, and my Browns stuff is back in the closet where it belongs.
Let’s hope it stays there. One day as a Browns fan was enough.