Philadelphia Fans

I know that there are those out there who will maintain until the last bit of earth is dropped on their coffins that there is nothing greater than being a sports fan in Philadelphia. They will point to Philly fans’ passion and our ever-willing enthusiasm to support perennial losers.

Philadelphia, they will say, is one of the few four-sport cities (Phillies, Eagles, Sixers, Flyers), and over the course of time each of those teams has had at least a moderate run of success. The Phillies won the World Series back in 1983, at the same time that the Sixers were winning championships. The Flyers won championships back in the 1970s, and the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl in 1980. You’ll notice that all of these dates are prior to my birth.

And if historical success is your guide, then Philadelphia’s 14 major championships don’t seem like such a bad tally. But then you look at the rest of the list, and you see that LA has 16, Boston 31, Toronto 37, New York 51. Are you kidding me? Freakin’ Toronto? http://www.nuttyaboutsports.com/cities-of-champions.shtml

Boston’s 31 championships seem particularly aggravating, coming as they do from a city whose population of 599,391 is less than half of Philadelphia’s 1.4 million. What does Boston have that Philadelphia doesn’t? Both are historic cities, and both played significant parts in the Revolution. Philadelphia was even the US Capital for a while!

For young fans, especially, Philadelphia is a terrible place to be. As mentioned earlier, no Philadelphia team has won a championship since the 1980s. The Flyers came pretty close in the 1990s, the Phillies lost the World Series in 1993 (and then didn’t make it back to the playoffs for 14 years), and both the Sixers and the Eagles lost championship games in the 2000s. So for anyone born in the 1980s, all we have ever known is losing. The closest I’ve come to savoring victory is seeing the Giants win this year’s Super Bowl (I had just moved to Brooklyn).

Let me try to list the major accomplishments of Philadelphia sports teams over the past 15 years or so, excluding our losses in title games:

--We booed and threw snowballs at Santa Claus.
--We cheered Michael Irvin’s career-ending neck injury.
--We threw batteries at J.D. Drew.
--Terrell Owens.
--The Eagles made it to 4 straight NFC Championship games, losing 3 of them.
--The Phillies, after a 14 year drought and after the Mets’ monumental collapse, finally made it to the playoffs in 2007 before being swept by the Rockies in 3 games in the first round.

“Come on,” the average Philly fan will say, “how awesome is it that we boo EVERYONE?!?!”

Not so awesome, I think. You wouldn't eat an OK-tasting meal at a restaurant and then throw it at the waitress’ face because it wasn’t the best you’ve ever had. Likewise, normal fans shouldn’t cheer a player who hits a home run in his first at bat and then boo him viciously when he strikes out during the next. And yet, this is what Philly fans do.

Taken as a whole, Philadelphia sports fans resemble an increasingly paranoid mental patient. On the good days, after a win, we love our sports teams and are sure that they will bring us happiness. On the bad days, after a loss, we hate the teams and wonder why we ever supported them in the first place.

These emotional swings don’t happen from season to season, and they don’t take place solely during the playoffs. They happen after every game during every season. If the Phillies beat the Mets sometime in April, we think “surely this year will be OUR year!!!” But if Donovan McNabb throws two interceptions in September, we should bench him, cut him, and bring in a free agent. Over and over, season after season.

It is not easy being a sports fan in Philadelphia. It sucks, really. Our teams always seem to be just this side of the winners’ circle. The fans, disillusioned and deluded past the point of rationality, are unaware of any role our behavior might play in our teams’ failures. We are not the greatest fans in all of sports. We are the most mentally unbalanced.