The first in a sporadic series of articles about my sports town, Philadelphia. I tried to find a tennis connection, I really did. I'll be back Monday to talk Indy and Stanford.
For now, check this clip out for a laugh (does Nadal say, "Sorry sir?")
As you’ve likely heard, the Philadelphia Phillies recently became the first pro sports franchise in the known universe to lose 10,000 games. The Phils are comfortably in the lead (the Atlanta Braves are next with 9,600 or so) because of their unmatched combination of longevity—the club began as the Philly Quakers in 1883—and ineptitude.
Is anyone surprised by this news? Philadelphia: home of losers? I refuse to believe it! No, no, it makes sense, perfect sense. The famous boos from the Philly bleachers are a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s psychology 101: treat someone like a bum and he won’t disappoint you. The city’s old American league franchise, the A’s, were also perennial stiffs. The losingest team in NBA history? That would be the current Golden State Warriors, who began their existence in, you guessed it, the City of Brotherly Love. Smarty Jones: remember him? The horse that was caught at the wire to lose the Triple Crown a couple years ago? From Philly.
I’ve been to Citizen's Bank Park to see one Phillies game this year. That night their murderer’s row lineup, which includes last season's NL MVP, Ryan Howard, powered the team to a typically high-scoring win. The highlight, though, came on a routine foul ball down the left-field line, where I was sitting. It bounced out into fair territory and a blonde ball girl skipped out to get it. A group of, for lack of a better term, young cretins began to holler for her to throw the ball up to them. She smiled in their direction a little warily and handed the ball to an overjoyed boy in the front row. The cretins, and soon most of the section, booed her lustily.
Mob mentality runs thick around Philadelphia sports arenas, and it’s infectious. As a 10-year-old, I attended a game inside that famous field of pain, Veteran’s Stadium, where a terrifying shower of boos rained down on Greg “the Bull” Luzinski whenever he popped his head out of the dugout. By the middle of the game, I was righteously booing right along with them. It was an awesome display of mass ugliness.
Phillies’ fans even tortured the best player in the team’s history, Mike Schmidt, to the point where he once walked on the field “disguised” in a long red wig. If anything, the mobs get worse when the Eagles, the city’s truly beloved team, take over. In the 90s, Eagle fans almost killed Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson with huge snowballs packed with ice; after that, the Vet installed a courthouse underneath the stadium to level fines immediately. Most famously, at a 1968 Eagles game, the fans pelted Santa Claus with snowballs. (Detroit Lions GM Matt Millen, a Philly native who was at that game, says he deserved it for being so lame.) I can remember going to a Sixers-Celtics game in the era of Bird and Dr. J and seeing multiple people pulled out of their seats and dragged up the aisle by cops who had their nightsticks around the fans’ necks.
Philly teams aren’t lovable losers, though, like the Cubs or Red Sox. If they lose, the fans boo, then they stop coming. Philly people love sports to the point where they only respect absolute, borderline-reckless effort. The town's all-time favorites are Pete Rose, a man who sprinted to first after drawing a walk and always slid head-first; Allen Iverson, the little man who flung his body in between the trees around him; and, of course, Dr. J, because, well, he was Dr. J. The icon of Philly sports is Chuck Bednarik, a Hall of Fame Eagle who played offense and defense, knocked golden boy Frank Gifford of the Giants unconscious, and saved the team’s last NFL championship in 1960 with an open-field tackle on the final play. The ultimate “Philly team” may have been the 1993 Phillies, the original “Idiots” that included Nails Dykstra, Krukker, Wild Thing Mitch Williams, and a cult figure named Pete Incaviglia. They eventually lost the World Series on Williams’ gopher ball to Joe Carter. (Wild Thing, of course, received death threats from Philly fans afterwards.) Just speculating, but was there a whiff of performance-enhancement about that team? If there was, I have to say I wouldn’t care; in fact, I’d find it hilarious, like everything else about those guys. In Philly, the sports heroes are family.
There’s a style to live up to, in other words, and it has to be done in an intense atmosphere. Unlike other large urban areas like New York, Chicago, and L.A., which have multiple baseball and even football teams, Philly fans can focus their attention—i.e., rage—on one team per sport.
This season, despite the 10,000th loss, I’ve enjoyed watching the Phillies more than I have in years. It’s not easy to keep up when you live in a different city, but I finally forked over the money for the MLB cable package so I can watch most of the games. The only thing missing is that, for some contractual reason, none of these games feature the Philly announcers. Which means I don’t get to hear the Voice: Harry Kalas, who has been in the booth for 40 years (you may know him as the narrator for NFL Films).
But I have had a chance to see another figure who may become equally legendary: the Phillies' young second baseman Chase Utley, one of the few men you can almost guarantee will never be booed in Philadephia (never say never, of course). You haven't heard of him? He’s the Derek Jeter of the National League, smooth, all-business, with quick hands and a born leader’s style. He’s in the running for MVP and is the biggest reason the Phillies, despite disastrous relief pitching, remain in the race in their division.
Watching Utley is like watching Roger Federer: Look kid, that’s how it’s done. In the dugout, he never takes his eyes off the action or the opposing pitcher; he works like hell on his defense; he has a smart, short swing; he almost never indulges in any kind of smile, even after a big hit. The sense you get watching him is that there’s always more work to be done.
And there is. The Phils have fallen just short of the playoffs in recent years. There’s a sense of doom, as always, about their chances over the next couple months. “They’ll blow it,” is the common refrain, and I have to say I can’t disagree. But they’ve been playing well of late, winning with massive offense and staying within shouting distance of the division-leading Mets.
Yesterday, though, doom really did return to Philadelphia. Utley was hit by a pitch and broke his hand (nobody’s sure how long he’ll be out). He didn’t show much visible pain, of course, and even stayed in the game! Fate may be against the team and the city forever—summer’s pretty much useless now, as far as I’m concerned—but if Philly fans can’t love Chase Utley, then they’ve finally gone too far.