A Philadelphia fan's lament

If you read this blog, you probably know I am a fan of pretty much all things Philadelphia sports. For this I blame my father. Taking a impressionable kid to Phillies and Eagles playoff games tends to have a lasting effect. Especially when the teams lose.


So, yeah, I am die-hard for the Phils and Birds, and have been since the early '90s. This is problematic, because I hate the typical Philadelphia fan. Call it self-loathing, call it elitist, call it masochism, I don't know. I have gotten into the agony of the Philadelphia sport scene before, but that was a self-centered look at my own fandom. I didn't consider how much I resent my association with general louts.

In case you are unaware of the Philly fan mythology, let me clue you in -- we booed santa claus, repeatedly ran all-star players out of town, hate prima donnas and cowboys, and have little to no tolerance for athletes who make it look easy. Also, the vocal majority are a bunch of clowns. Morons if you will. Take the whole "booing McNabb" thing for instance. I have heard defenses that we are booing "the organization" or whatever, but that is fucking dogshit. The man has been pure class for a team with a less than glorious history, and he gets no slack at all? Grow the fuck up.

And now it begins again with the whole Real Sports interview where Donovan says black quarterbacks are held to a different standard than their white counterparts. Fans are going to call him a baby, a whiner, and maybe even a prima donna. Guess what losers racists, you are just proving him right. If his hometown fans don't even support him after a crazy-fast comeback from knee surgery, four NFC championship games and one Super Bowl appearance, what do you think rival fans are gonna do? Look at San Francisco in its support for Barry Bonds. The man is clearly an asshole and a steroid user, but they cheer him anyway. After all, he's their asshole steroid user.


And don't get me started on the ridiculous number of fairweather douchebags that have come out of the woodwork during the Eagles recent run of success and since the opening of the Phillies beautiful new stadium. I'm not sure which I detest more, the number of times I hear "bro" at Citizen's Bank Park or the shrieking of the low-hanging fruit that is female eagle fans. You fucks are goddamn frontrunners and you know it. Remember the Ray Rhodes era? How bout Gregg Jefferies? My fellow fans disgust me.

As I said before, this is a problem. I have tried to reconcile my feelings toward my fellow fans. They don't know any better, I tell myself. Just because they didn't suffer through the late-90s dark ages of Philly fandom, that doesn't make them bad people. But it does make them bad fans. They weren't there when Doug Petersen was starting quarterback in the first year of Andy Reids tenure. They weren' t there when Doug fucking Glanville was the Phillies best offensive threat. Sure most were aware of the fact that the local team kinda sucks, but they didn't feel it. They didn't scare the family dog by screaming at Ty Detmer to throw the fucking ball more than 10 yards.

OK, maybe I am overreaching a bit here. I'm sure there are other Philly sports fans that are far more die-hard than myself. And others (maybe) that treat those on the field with some modicum of respect, or at least don't boo all-pros. But sweet merciful jebus why can't we just support our team in a healthy way? Not too harp on the whole McNabb thing, but do we really think its helpful to boo him? Nevermind the fact that he is the best QB in the history of this dirty-ass city -- it can't be good for the man's psyche. A psyche on which the success of our team likely rests.


Well I'm about ranted out at this point. I would like to mention that I have been trying to adopt a more freedarko-style "enlightened fandom" point of view -- rooting for a style of play or whatever, its all kind of vague. But that is near impossible when you have such ingrained loyalties in certain sports. It works sort of with NBA, ie the Warriors last year, but that's just because I have never lived and died by a sixers score. The run to the finals in 2001 was nice, but they have never been a very likeable team in the past 20 years, AI and Sir Charles notwithstanding.