Philadelphia Fans: Do We "Care Too Much?"

Being a Philadelphian and a sports fan has proven to be, for me, an interesting phenomenon.  Indeed, Philadelphia fans are infamous throughout the country, their sins forever magnified because some legitimately frustrated fans of the "Joe Must Go" Eagles pelted a replacement Santa with snowballs on 15 December 1968.  To be sure, the intersection of Philadelphians' (in)famous "addytood" and the vicissitudes of its four major professional sports franchises inherently creates a volatile situation, one which periodically erupts in episodes of fan hostility.  It is in the athletes' reactions to this hostility that their true measure is gauged.


Yesterday, Kyle Scott over at Crossing Broad posted a piece detailing Flyers' $51 million dollar goalie Ilya Bryzgalov's bitter attitude toward the fans in the city where he is paid so handsomely:

You know, I think it’s an easy life when you can blame one guy…’it’s a bad goalie, it’s the goalie’s mistake.’ It’s easy to find a scapegoat. You point to one guy and say we’re always losing because we have a bad goalie, but I think it’s the wrong philosophy. I know I was frustrated in my game today and I know I have to be better and I will continue to work on this, but….I will try to find peace in my soul to play in this city.

Considering the fact that three of the goals he allowed in Saturday's 6-4 loss to the Penguins would have thrilled Mr. Whipple in the old Charmin ads, one could say the fans' predictable reaction (boos, as Robert Johnson might have said, falling down like hail) was justified, and hence that he was trying to absolve himself from the inexcusable (a fig leaf designed to cover his unacceptable .900 save percentage this season).   Even worse, however, is what he said to a fan at Sunday's Flyers Wives Carnival. In the words of the fan in question:

I said, “Hey Bryz, this is a great city to play in. If the fans didn’t care, you wouldn’t hear from anybody. But good luck the rest of the year, man.” And he looked at me, kind of crinkled his lips, put his head back and to the side and said, “I think you (the city) care too much.”

This is an old complaint from disgruntled Philly players chafing under perceived underappreciation.  Think of Mike Schmidt, complaining that Philadelphia was a city where "you can experience the thrill of victory one night and experience the agony of reading about it the next day." Or consider current Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins who, back in August of 2008, whined thus:

There are times, like, it's one of those cities ... I might catch some flack for saying this, but, you know, they're front-runners. When you're doing good, they're on your side. When you're doing bad, they're completely against you.

"Poor J-Roll," I initially thought, "he not only fails to come to grips with why the fans were booing him (showing up late to games, not running out ground balls), he doesn't know what a frontrunner is."  Indeed, America is rife with frontrunner cities—think of Miami and Los Angeles, for instance—and Philadelphia is emphatically not one of them (except, perhaps, with regard to the Sixers).  Every game the Eagles, Phillies, and Flyers play is sold out no matter what the team's record is. I attended a Phillies-Orioles game in Baltimore back in 2002, smack in the middle of a 14-year stretch in which the team failed to reach the playoffs, and more than half of the fans in attendance were wearing Phillies red.  Bryzgalov is right to this extent: despite their faults—implicit racism at times, an over-zealotry that makes them the American equivalent of Liverpool supporters—Philadelphia fans care.

Perhaps he is right that we care too much. Sports are, after all, mere games, designed as leisure-time distractions from the rough-and-tumble of real life.  But that, I might suggest, gets to the heart of the issue.  Bryzgalov, with his generous contract, might not have noticed, but times are hard.  Millions of people are hurting despite their hard work which, as often as not, goes underappreciated.  Fans in Philadelphia want, more than anything else, an acknowledgement by their athletes of how extraordinarily fortunate they are to be in their position, and an effort on the field, court, or ice commensurate with their good fortune.

One of Philadelphia's greatest civic characteristics is its intolerance for superficiality and glitz.  It is this that lies at the root of their distaste for teams from cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, and (for some) New York.  It is also what lies behind their hostility toward home-grown (and, to them, traitorous) superstar Kobe Bryant. 

Philadelphia fans prefer to cheer for grind-it-out, blue collar players like Bobby Clarke, Wilbert Montgomery, Pete Rose, Moses Malone, John Kruk, Brian Dawkins, and Chase Utley.  Players who appear to get by on natural talent alone (Schmidt), who don't live up to hype (Eric Lindros), or who shrink under pressure (Donovan McNabb) tend not to be accorded the same respect.  The rare athlete manages to walk the tightrope and achieve popularity while maintaining flamboyance (Julius Erving comes to mind).  Others, like Schmidt, manage to win the fans over via achievement (I attended his 1995 Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown with 28,000 other red-clad fans, all quite proud and teary-eyed that he had played for their team).  Nevertheless, the recipe for winning over fans in Philly is a simple one: effort + success.

Maybe that's not fair to athletes, but I don't think so.  What baffles me is the attitude that expects adoring support when performance would suggest theft, or at best waste, of the fans' hard-earned money.  Do people like Bryzgalov understand the financial sacrifice it takes for an average working stiff even to attend one game?  Perhaps, but I think it more likely that he—and he is not alone—never bothers to give it a thought.  That is the real problem.  Perhaps he would rather play in a frontrunner city like Phoenix, where the civic microscope isn't nearly as powerful as it is in Philly.  If so, he is all the poorer for it and, were he to leave, I would chime in, "Good riddance!"

The great, fat, and adored John Kruk—who famously claimed "I'm not an athlete, lady," but managed nevertheless to retire with a .300 career batting average—said it best: "You hear players, media people, say that it's tough to play in Philly in front of these fans, to those people I say: 'you didn't have the guts to succeed here!'"

The Wary Approach of a Philadelphian to the 2012 Baseball Season

1964 Topps Baseball Card of the First Philadelphia Team to Break My Heart

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting article by Frank Fitzpatrick, in which he articulates the unease he, as a baby-boomer Philadelphian, has when looking ahead to the upcoming baseball season. Could the Phillies' forthcoming "heading south" to Clearwater for Spring Training be a metaphor describing the fortunes that the coming season will have in store for the club? Fitzpatrick, ever the "realist," knows that the good times will inevitably end. Might they not end sooner rather than later? And would that be a bad thing, seeing as how such could jump-start a future renaissance? Fitzpatrick writes thus:

Sorry, that's just how I'm built. I'm a Baby Boom Philadelphian, incapable of enjoying sustained success. Even on the sunniest days, I'm scanning the horizon for storm clouds. 

I've seen too many landmarks and late-season leads disappear, observed the dismantling of too many preseason dreams and urban-renewal fantasies, watched too many sports heroes and jobs leave town. 

So for me, with the 2012 Phillies on the brink of spring training, I don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. 

If, like me, your 32-ounce Wawa cup is always half-empty, it's not hard to envision a perfect storm of calamities impacting this Phillies season. 

Ryan Howard's Achilles. Chase Utley's decline. Placido Polanco's back. Joe Blanton's elbow. Cole Hamels' contract. Vance Worley's sophomore season. Jonathan Papelbon's fly ball penchant. The holes in John Mayberry Jr.'s swing. And, maybe most significantly, the team's age. 

Plenty of clouds on that Doppler radar in my head. 

I realize that not everyone here shares my inherent pessimism. Five straight NL East titles, two pennants and a World Series trophy have created a new breed of upbeat Phillies fan. 

That's just not me.

As a fellow baby-boomer Philadelphian, I have noticed a curious phenomenon over the past few years. Today's Philadelphia sports fans, particularly those under the age of 30, are most definitely not your daddy's Philadelphia fans. After all, the Phillies haven't had a losing season in a decade, have won five straight division titles, two pennants, and a World Series. Andy Reid's Eagles, despite never having taken home the Lombardi trophy, have nevertheless been fairly regular playoff participants and, at one point, captured five straight division titles. Optimism appears to run rampant in southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey.

I, however, have a different history. The first season I followed baseball in earnest was 1964, the year Gene Mauch's Phils managed to blow a 6.5 game lead with 12 to play by losing ten straight. When they finally managed to put together a great team in the mid-70s, they managed to get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs two straight years despite winning 101 games each season. By the time the team finally won their first World Series (in their 97th year as a franchise), I was already grown and pursuing graduate studies in Dallas. The Eagles of my youth were so bad that they managed to lose five consecutive games to the hated Cowboys by the scores of 38-17, 45-13, 34-14, 38-7, and 49-14. Yet in 1968 they managed, despite losing their first 11 games, to win two in a row to fall out of the O.J. Simpson sweepstakes ("Joe must go" indeed).

The Phillies once traded future Hall-of-Famer Ferguson Jenkins for Bob Buhl and Dick Ellsworth. Even worse, they traded Larry Bowa and future Hall-of-Famer Ryne Sandberg for Ivan DeJesus. The Eagles traded future Hall-of-Famer Sonny Jurgenson for Norm Snead. Classic Sixers trades included the following: Wilt Chamberlain for Archie Clark, Moses Malone for Jeff Ruland, and Charles Barkley for Jeff Hornacek.

Philadelphia sports fans' infamous cynicism and negativity, you see, are entirely explicable by their shared history—a history that goes back a century to the days of Connie Mack, who dismantled, not one, but two Philadelphia Athletics dynasties (1910-14, 1929-31) for cash in order to enhance his profit margins. This history, and the often bitter disappointments it engendered, is part and parcel of the worldview I developed in my youth. Rare triumphs (the '67 Sixers, the '74-'75 Flyers, the '80 Phillies) were to be cherished, but in the back of my mind was the always-nagging feeling that disaster was already afoot on the horizon.

This brings me to the present. I at times fancy myself to be one who can look at matters as "objectively" as possible. Thus I can look at the Phillies' recent history and acknowledge that they still should be viewed as the division favorite and contender for the National League pennant. The primary reason for this is the celebrated mound trio of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels, who by themselves should guarantee a season of 90+ wins.

But I am a Philadelphian of a certain age, and worldviews are difficult to dislodge. The glass, as always, is half empty from my vantage point. I see the threat from the resurgent Marlins, the Braves, and even the Nationals. These clubs may not be the Phils' equals now, but they are closer now than they have been for some time. I see the consistent erosion of Chase Utley's abilities due to apparently irreversible injuries, which has now progressed to the point where I regretfully must consider him to be this generation's Don Mattingly. Jimmy Rollins is nowhere close to the player he used to be, and always seems to be just a 90-foot sprint away from the disabled list because of hamstring issues. Ryan Howard, even before his Achilles injury, had regressed considerably from the days where he was the game's most feared power hitter. When will he return to the lineup? And, when he does, will he be able to plant that left foot sufficiently to drive the ball as in the past? Shane Victorino, despite his massive talent, has always been too undisciplined to be included among the game's elite players. What scares me most is the creeping age of the team's two transcendent mound aces, Halladay and Lee, now 35 and 34 years old, respectively. How long can we count on them to pitch as if they were Koufax and Drysdale?

My head still tells me to relax, that the likelihood remains that the Phils are the class of the division at least in the short term. The Philadelphian in my heart warns me, however, to be afraid, very afraid indeed. Critical realist though I am, I have not yet been able to extricate myself from the horror story that has indelibly left its imprint on my personal narrative. That being said, it's only 16 days till pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater. May that day arrive swiftly!

The Curtis Institute's Lenfest Hall: An Assessment

One happy result of needing to convalesce from a particularly bad case of pneumonia is the chance to catch up on reading that one has either missed or would normally have ignored due to more pressing concerns. Case in point: This morning I happened upon a highly interesting and, I think, spot-on critique of The Curtis Institute's spanking new rehearsal hall/dormitory in the architecture blog, Philly Bricks. This is a building I have twice seen in person, last October and again in December. My initial, vague sense of disappointment was unfortunately confirmed by my second observation.

The Curtis Institute, as all music lovers know, is one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, boasting such notable alumni as Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Joseph Alessi, Cecile Licad, and, more recently, Hilary Hahn. No one—least of all yours truly—would begrudge them the need to construct new spaces to house and train their students, who will have the important and ever-more-difficult task of preserving and promoting the great musical heritage of Western Civilization.

A little context: Lenfest Hall is located in the 1600 block of Locust Street in Center City Philadelphia. This is one of my favorite blocks in my favorite city. Across from the Hall, on the north side of the block, lies John Notman's magnificent St. Mark's (Episcopal) Church, built in 1847-49. The south side of the block consists largely of imposing and stylistically diverse 19th-century townhomes. Lenfest Hall lies in the middle of the block on its south side.

The first thing to say is that Curtis could have done much worse. In particular, they chose to lessen the visual impact of the full 119-foot height of the building by setting back the tower after the first four stories. This not only preserves the scale of the street wall but, as Inga Saffron noted, allows sunshine to warm and enliven the delightful gardens of St. Mark's Church across the street.

Not only that, but they also flanked the new construction by restoring the original facades of two classic 19th century  brownstones, The Wilson Brothers' 1897 John Converse House at 1610 Locust, and Wilson Eyre's 1888 renovation of Notman's Henry Dallett House at 1618 Locust.

Initial stage of preserving and renovating the facade of the John Converse House.

Note Ritter & Shay's great Drake rising in the background.

Therein lies the problem, however. For their painstaking, immaculate restoration of the facades of the two venerable brownstones throws into stark relief the strangely soulless quality of postmodern architectural contextualization.

Example of restoration of the original facade of the John Converse House, replacing what had been

a plate-glass storefront (photo courtesy of the author, 3 October 2011)

It could, I said, have been worse. The new construction could have been glass-plated, angular, and totally out of context. In that sense we can be thankful that Curtis chose the firm of Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates. Venturi, famous as he is, was certainly capable of constructing hideous monstrosities such as the Guild House (1960-63) at 7th and Spring Garden and the ISI Building (1978-79) at 35th and Market, both of which still scar the city's streetscape. Yet he also was capable of much finer work, such as the famous Sainsbury Wing of London's National Gallery (1990) and Franklin Court (1976) on the 300 block of Market Street.

Venturi was an effective critic of banal modernism in architecture, but much of his work, it seems to me, amounts to little more than affected, Pop Art interpretations of classic architectural styles of the past. In such a context, "allusions" to traditional architectural elements, no matter how out-of-proportion or devoid of detail, count for more than the real thing. Sometimes this is effective. More often, it seems to me, it isn't.

Lenfest Hall is the work of Venturi and Scott Brown's "Associates," Daniel McCoubrey and Nancy Trainer. In it they show themselves capable of carrying on the tradition of the firm's founders. And, it must be admitted, they may have done as well as could possibly be expected in the current cultural context. After all, they used actual blocks of brownstone rather than the thin, brittle stone used in most of today's masonry construction. Yet certain elements, such as the overabundance of square glass plates and unfortunate lack of adornment and detail, disappoint. Dullness may not offend the same way ugliness does, but it still leaves the observer with longing for architects who work to design buildings that are both creative and beautiful.

Wistful Reminiscences of a Philadelphia Sports Fan

Sitting on Seats from Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium at

the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY, 2001

A voice says,"Cry!"
     And I said, "What shall I cry?"
All flesh is grass
    and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
     when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
     surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
     but the word of our God will stand forever.
~Isaiah 40:6-8 (ESV)

Turning 55 has a way of focusing the mind on the important and permanent things in life, the "unseen" things that St. Paul characterizes as "eternal" that will contribute to the "eternal weight of glory" in comparison to which all our "momentary" afflictions pale to insignificance (2 Cor 4:17-18). The flip side of this impulse is to reminisce about all the other things that, however formative and existentially defining, have been lost to the passage of time.

The wistful sense of loss reared its ugly head last week with the announcement by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia that the venerable Monsignor Bonner High School in Upper Darby—alma mater of Jets' Super Bowl safety Al Atkinson, St. Joe Hawk standout Mike Hauer, and Heisman Trophy winner John Cappelletti—would be shuttered in June. Then, yesterday, I took a second hit when columnist Frank Fitzpatrick published a piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled "Fading Philadelphia sports memories." 

Philadelphians of a certain age, like myself, remember when their greatest sports heroes were players from the past, like Robin Roberts and Richie Ashburn of the 1950 "Whiz Kid" Phillies (who managed to get swept in the World Series!), or Chuck Bednarik, Norm Van Brocklin, and Tom Brookshier of the 1960 Eagles, who remain the city's last NFL champions. The reason, of course, is that their childhoods were dominated by such ignominious failures as the 1964 Phillies, who blew a 61/2 game lead with 12 to play by losing 10 straight games, or the "Joe Must Go" Eagles of 1968, who started 0-11 but managed to win two straight to lose out in the O. J. Simpson sweepstakes.

Yet thrilling memories remain—Dick Allen and Johnny Callison smashing homers at old Connie Mack Stadium in North Philly, Philly's own Wilt Chamberlain and the all-time great 1967 Sixers championship team playing at Convention Hall, the Broad Street Bully Flyers, the for-a-while unfulfilled potential of the Julius Erving-George McGinnis Sixers, the glory days of the Big 5 and doubleheaders at the venerable Palestra, Dick Vermeil's plucky Eagles, and especially the great Phillies teams of 1976-83 plying their trade on the unnatural green turf of South Philly's antiseptic Vet Stadium.

All these memories I cherish. They remain fixed in an eternal present tense for a man who still remembers the obscure statistics on the back of mid-'60s-era Topps cards more clearly than the literature, Latin, and calculus he ostensibly studied in his high school years. These are memories unavailable to younger fans who, in a fit of generational hubris, cannot imagine the truth of what I know first-hand, namely, that Chamberlain remains the most dominant force the game of basketball has ever witnessed.

Reminiscing like this, however, inevitably brings with it an overwhelming sense of melancholy. For, you see, memory underscores the ugly fact of impermanence. Connie Mack Stadium at 21st and Lehigh—gone now for more than 30 years, replaced by a large church campus (the row of houses on 20th Street remain, overlooking the church, but I can't drive past them without imagining the old photo of the houses sporting rooftop bleachers for the 1929 World Series). Johnny Callison, Wes Covington, and Chris Short of the '64 Phils—all dead. The great trio of Phillies announcers whose radio broadcasts graced every summer evening for years in the 1970s: By Saam, Rich Ashburn and Harry Kalas—all dead. Big 5 stars Ken Durrett of LaSalle and Howard Porter of Villanova, whose titanic battles from '69-'71 remain etched in my memory—both dead, the latter the victim of murder on a lonely Minneapolis street. The Vet—imploded seven years ago. Even the seemingly indestructible Chamberlain and Reggie White—both dead prematurely.

"All flesh," the prophet declared, "is like grass"—impermanent, susceptible to the decay that is the lot of all created things. It doesn't matter whether you are the King of Babylon (the intended target in Isaiah), a baseball Hall-of-Famer, a current NFL star, a college professor, or a humble factory worker. All share the same fate. And this alone should be sufficient to focus the mind on what is of lasting and eternal value.

The Apostle Peter quotes Isaiah 40:6-8 at length to apply the final clause ("the word of the Lord abides forever") to the message about Christ (kyriou is clearly an objective genitive in context, pace J. R. Michaels) embodied in the gospel message (cf. Isa 40:9) that, because it is "living and abiding," serves as the implanted "seed" bringing about the effective regeneration of his readers (1 Pet 1:22-25). What matters ultimately is what is permanent. And nothing is more permanent than the unilateral covenant promises of God. In Isaiah 40-55, the "good news" is the message of God's faithfulness to his promises in bringing Israel and Judah back from exile in a second Exodus. The New Testament authors, Peter included, believed this "gospel" came to fruition in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. It is this message, when proclaimed or read, that serves as the means by which God in his mercy brings people to faith and gives them the new birth because of which they will never die in the ultimate sense.

My own personal narrative is permeated by references to the sporting events and heroes who have delivered so much pleasure and, yes, pain down through the years. If that is all I had, however, mine would be a very melancholy, pitiful life indeed. Thanks to God for regenerating me through the gospel message, which alone provides coherence to my narrative and makes that life worth living. Soli Deo Gloria!

John Wanamaker Building - 100th Anniversary

Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the old John Wanamaker's department store in center city Philadelphia. This massive (1.9 million square feet) Renaissance Palazzo, designed by D. H. Burnham, presents a restrained, dignified face to the world, contrasting nicely with the flamboyant Second Empire stylings of MacArthur's adjacent City Hall. But its true glory lies within, where a marble-columned (with gold-plated capitals), five-storey atrium rises to an ornate, vaulted ceiling. It is often said, "They can't make them like this any more." Well, they certainly DON'T make them like this, as any visitor to one of America's tawdry, cookie-cutter malls knows.

It is said that such buildings are too expensive to make. Well, America, and the owners of businesses like this, are far more wealthy than they were 100 years ago. What it really speaks to is a difference in philosophy. Building such a building would hurt the bottom line of people who see their only responsibility to lie in their (and their shareholders') pocketbooks. Building something of lasting beauty for the public good simply is no concern of theirs ... and we are all the poorer for it.

One matter Christians, many of whom worship the regnant system that has led to the demise of such architecture, should keep in mind is the fundamental matter of humanity's creation as the imago dei. We were put here to reflect and mediate God's rule here on earth. Compare the Wanamaker Building (now a Macy's) with the Macy's at King of Prussia Mall. Which do you suppose better reflects God's design for humankind?