O Brother

Something wonderful, or terrible, is taking place in Philadelphia. The city's sports fans, whose only consistent love has been for an inanimate object--the statue of Rocky--are becoming warm and fuzzy.

Sort of. Kind of. Well, about as nice as they are ever going to get in Philly, where fans have made their national mark with nastiness, boos, and a perverse fondness for losing. But now the city is confronted with a success story greater than any since the signing of the Constitution (which wasn't so pretty, either). It's the Philadelphia Phillies, of course. By winning the World Series last year and defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series (NLCS) this year, the team has the opportunity to become the first National League team to win back-to-back World Series since the Cincinnati Reds did it in 1975 and 1976.

But finding comfort and peace in that, as most cities instantaneously would, is not so easy here. Philadelphians, particularly the hard-core indigenous ones living near Pat's Steaks in the south end of town and traversing such onomatopoetic avenues as Passyunk, actually enjoy wearing a chip on their shoulder. They like venting and feeling lousy and fatalistic, life a Sisyphean struggle. It was no accident that one of the Three Stooges, Larry Fine, was born in a South Philly rowhouse in 1902. Subsequent to Fine's death in 1975, an avid Three Stooges memorabilia collector and grocery-shelver named Frank E. Reighter assisted in fund-raising efforts to honor Larry with a mural. "He is a perfect typical type of Philadelphian," said Reighter, "always fighting the next level of people above him."

The World Series is symbolic of that, the Phillies against the New York Yankees. Ever since the Erie Canal opened in 1825 and the flow of trade shifted north to the Hudson River, Philadelphia has been knocked senseless into inferiority by New York. Residents there barely concede that Philadelphia exists, except as some vague bog somewhere along the East Coast. They think that Frank Rizzo, probably the most racist Northern politician of the past 50 years and the originator of such bon mots as "I'm gonna make Attila the Hun look like a faggot," is still our mayor. They think the city still has blue laws. If they visit at all, it's a hurried trip to the Museum of Art and then a hurried trip back, as if the city is riddled with an epidemic of swine flu. Similarly, the baseball version of the rivalry has been no rivalry at all in the eyes of New Yorkers. The last time the two teams met in the World Series was 1950. The Phillies carried the wonderful moniker of the “Whiz Kids,” and the result was still a four-game sweep by the Yankees. Depending on how this year's version goes, the newfound calm of Philadelphia fans could quickly evaporate. History is not on the side of the doves.

The list of offenses that Philadelphia sports fans have committed over the years is endless, some funny, some just petulant, some shocking. The loyalists can literally drive people out of town, as was the case with Phillies' manager Eddie Sawyer in 1960. The team had finished last the year before, and Sawyer quit one game into the season on the grounds that "I'm forty-nine years old, and I'd like to live to be fifty."

No city reacted worse to the Brooklyn Dodgers' Jackie Robinson in his debut season of 1947 than Philadelphia. According to historian William Kashatus, pitchers aimed for his head. Runners went out of their way to spike him. And, in one instance, players stood at the top of the dugout aiming their bats at him while making the sounds of gunshots. Even before Robinson came, the Phillies' front office phoned Dodgers' general manager Branch Rickey and warned him "not to bring that nigger here." The Phillies were the last team in the National League to integrate, in 1957, and had segregated spring-training facilities through 1961.

Mike Schmidt was arguably the best third baseman ever to play in the major leagues. But his Hall of Fame career did not stop Philadelphia fans from mercilessly booing him at times. He exuded to fans an unpardonable sin--arrogance. Unable to take it, Schmidt publicly struck back. He told a newspaper reporter that the fans here were "beyond help" and "uncontrollable," setting himself up for even more evisceration, until he showed up at the next game wearing a wig and sunglasses (it may have gotten him the loudest ovation of his career).