Oh yeah...Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2009. And what a season/year it's shaping up to be for Philadelphia sports fans. The Phillies send the Mets home and win the World Series...and the Eagles are in the NFC championship game after defeating the hated NY Giants. Man, you couldn't write this!

Go Eagles!

Defining Yourself as a New Yorker

There are lots of people who try to define New York, and what it means to be a New Yorker. There’s that really annoying quote that a city authority displayed on the subways a while back saying that native New Yorkers give the city its “stability,” the commuters give it “restlessness,” and the recent emigrants give the city its “passion.” And the article in today’s New York Times talks about the assimilation of newcomers. No matter where they’re from, New York is always eager to transform recent arrivals into “New Yorkers.” The only question is how long it takes.

Why so eager to transform them? And transform them into what?

There are a lot of compelling narratives that help define New York. There’s the story of the immigrants during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; of the Harlem heydays in the 1920s and 30s; of the decline and redemption in the 70s, 80s, and 90s; and of a post-9/11 resurgence in this century. Which one of these defines New York City? I don’t think anyone can tell you for sure, but surely it’s some combination of them all.

My real question is, why is New York so eager to define itself? I’ve lived outside of Philadelphia for most of my life, and it’s never seemed so eager to talk about anything other than the Declaration of Independence and the Eagles. I’m sure that interesting stuff happened between those two events, but you don’t find Philadelphians obsessing over them.

Of course, New York City has probably had more interesting things happen to it over the past one hundred years. And for at least that long, New Yorkers have been trying to persuade everyone else how great a story New York really is. Times Square, the tourism office will tell you, is the center of the universe! Central Park is the loveliest of city parks! And look at our buildings – aren’t they so tall?!?!

Yes, they’re tall, Central Park is definitely beautiful, and Times Square is really bright and crowded. But why the self obsession? Perhaps it’s because, even more so than Washington, DC, New York portrays itself as America’s First City. In order to be that kind of city, it has to have a compelling story. And in order for its residents to feel like they are a part of that larger story, they try to fashion their own compelling stories.

But there are two sides to the story. If New York is bigger and flashier than it used to be, it’s also more materialistic and plain loud. If there is more diversity, then there is also less access to good education. I’ve written before how I think that New Yorkers aren’t more tolerant of others – we simply don’t care about one another.

Maybe the fact that New York is so big, and has such a wonderful story, compels people to write their own stories. But the fact that they are written does not necessarily make them true. It’s easy for friends of mine to write in their blogs about how classy and sophisticated they are, and how they just couldn’t possibly live anywhere but “the city.” But is sipping overpriced cocktails at swank (i.e. "sleazy") Manhattan bars the definition of urban sophisticate?

The people most eager, after all, to write themselves into New York’s history are the one’s who weren’t born here. They’re the ones who, according to that writer (a NYC emigrant himself), give the city its “passion.” At least that’s what they’d like you to think. But really, what does a recent college graduate who moved here in 2008 have to do with the Fitzgeraldian NYC of the 1920s? Why not try to come up with your own definition of who you are, and what sorts of things appeal to you?

My point is that New Yorkers seem to be more willing than those living elsewhere to tell you how important they are, and how perfectly their lives fit in whatever New York narrative they are compelled by at the moment. There are lots of interesting people here, for sure. But to me, the most interesting people are those who don’t forcefully insert themselves in a historical narrative that they had nothing to do with.

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.