I am a Philadelphia sports fan. That is to say, when it comes to sports,
metaphorically, I have spent the last 30-some years smacking myself in the
thumb with a hammer and saying, “Gee, that hurt. Let me get a series of increasingly heavier
hammers and do that again for the rest of my life.” I have sat by and watched a Phillies closer
give up the home run that gave the Toronto Blue Jays (yes, that’s a real
baseball team, apparently) a second straight World Series. I have watched, helpless, while the Eagles
forgot they were in the Super Bowl and let a very winnable game go into the
mincing clutches of the insufferable Tom Brady.
Oh, and the three years before that, they lost the blessed NFC title
game that would have put them in said Super Bowl. I have watched my beloved Phillies roll over
and let the horror that is the San Francisco Giants sail through the playoffs to a spectacularly undeserved Series title
and watched the unholy New York Damn Yankees take a winnable World Series from
us.
And that’s only when our teams actually manage to make the
playoffs. Most of a Philadelphia sports
fan’s life consists of the low, steady whine of mediocrity. The Phillies were the first 10,000-loss
franchise in professional sports history.
The Eagles have a bad habit of making the Cowboys look good. The Flyers have let two Stanley Cups slide
away since I was in high school. Most of
the time, if you want to see a Philadelphia team in first place, you have to
read your newspaper upside down. I’ve
spent the last three NFL seasons head-desking over Michael Vick-related
drama. My city lived through 100
professional sports seasons between its last two major championships.
And through it all, we are there. Philadelphia fans have a nasty reputation as
“boo birds” because we often let our teams hear it when they aren’t working—but
we let them hear it because we are there
unlike some other cities I could mention ATLANTA. We are loyal.
We commit for better or worse and we live up to it. If I didn’t leave the Phillies over a bad
decade, I won’t leave a friend over a bad fight.
And occasionally the hammer misses my thumb and hits its
target. The day the Eagles won the NFC
title game that took them to that ill-fated Super Bowl was a thing of pure,
shining joy. The Phillies beating the
Braves in the 1993 NLCS is one of the dearest memories of my childhood (even if
the next week’s World Series brought some of the worst). When Lidge struck out Hinske and the
Philadelphia Phillies became the “2008 World Champions of baseball,” I could
have died happy. For better or for worse
does sometimes mean for better, and I am a Philadelphia sports fan for better, for
worse, forever.
