Henry James' Guide to Sports

Among the dust-orange brick and low-slung rowhouses of the city north of our capitol, the sunken but not sunk polis of Baltimore, which, though it bears the weather-beaten visage that has faced hardship without the benefit of turning away, does still fairly stand, amidst this loss are perched the Ravens, wings black as ink, as if they had taken on the grit and grime of the city over which they stand guard. Other towns have come and gone, surely gone, for Baltimore has indeed watched as industries have closed as if they never were more than the thin wood of their front shutters and the ephemeral smoke that pumped out their tall and now stagnant chimneys. But Baltimore powers on, even as upstart Houston aligns against them from the south, Houston still with that shine and puck of the new, the innocent guise of a debutante who knows not yet rejection, who has not been in attendance when death has taken elders and poverty taken younger, who has not known harsh winters but only pleasant springs, and feels the breeze as a benefaction from nature rather than a warning. Of all the finer human qualities on earth, innocence most differs in its effects on its owners as on its observers, for the innocent alone are ignorant of the temporal nature of their state—indeed, it is that ignorance of time that makes up the state itself—and thus as we look fondly on a representation of our former selves, we are always interrupted by the eternal shoulder tapper, reality, there to remind us that of all the happinesses that are fleeting, none is relinquished with more regret, indeed, in the end, pried from us with more force, than the ignorance of fleetingness itself. Thus as Houston is delivered its first playoff loss in franchise history by the ink-stained Ravens today, they will know that innocence is not a whiff of the crisp spring to come, but the first gust of a long, cold winter.

Henry James’ Pick: Baltimore Ravens