The man who started it all!
1,635 posts
It's more like ****** ownership. They Phillies have notoriously spent like a small market team. The list of players who were traded for next to nothing and went on to become stars elsewhere (Schilling, Roland, Polanco, etc) is endless. The only team that has historically spent whatever it took to win has been the Flyers, and -- last years awful team aside -- they are also the one team that is usually right in the thick of it, though they too haven't won a championship in many years. The current Eagles ownership is also not bad, though they are also far too quick to get rid of players over 30 who still have some good years left in them. Still, compared with the previous owner who basically lost his fortune gambling, Lurie at least is willing to spend money.
Philly fans fill up their stadiums. Just try to get Eagles tickets. Every game is sold out. Eagles fans are rabid, devoted maniacs (and I am one of them). And they have sold out Citizens Bank Park 5 games in a row now despite having the worst ERA in baseball. Nobody outside of Canada watches hockey in the fall, but once winter rolls around the Flyers games are always packed. The only team that has trouble selling tickets is the Sixers, and that's because college basketball in Philly is so good that the basketball fans in town split their time between college and pros.
Sure we boo, but we've generally put our good money down to watch awful teams year after year, so the least we can get is the ability to boo the product they keep giving us. Try starting out every sports season for every team just knowing that no matter how good they look on paper, they will somehow find a way to blow it and lose in the end, and then watching it happen over and over again. Then see if you don't start to get a little bitter as well.
We've had 92 championship chances pass now without a single championship. People have been born, graduated from college and got married and had kids and still not seen a winner. I wasn't even born yet, and I still know that the '63 Phillies managed to blow a 7 game lead with 12 games to go. It's passed down generation to generation here. How many Super Bowls has Boston won in that time? How many NBA Championships in Chicago? Every city with a so called losing team has another team that wins now and then other than Philly (well except Cleveland, and those poor bastards have to live in Cleveland too). If Philadelphia ever wins a championship I think the entire city might just implode.
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