My buddy Alex, who is an editor at Baltimore magazine, has an interesting post about entitlement and class dynamics in Baltimore.

I spent 7+ years in and around Baltimore, and Alex’s perspective reminds me that Baltimore is a city with a deeply rooted identity crisis. In the October 21st, 1973 edition of the New York Times Magazine (that sadly I can’t seem to find online), famous Baltimore columnist Russell Baker published a piece titled ‘The Biggest Baltimore Loser of All Time.’ It’s a fascinating read about collective identity and social history in Baltimore. In it he basically argues that Baltimore has developed a massive penchant for underachieving as a result of everything from its position as the banking capital for the Confederacy to the fact that the Baltimore Orioles are the almost-winningist baseball team of all time. In other words, they have gone to the World Series without winning more times than any other team.

It would be interesting to revisit that argument in 2006. Alex, you up for it? Let’s get Russell on the line…