From the notebook: Eagles Fantatics and Hope

If you're any sort of a casual reader of this blog, you by now know of my man crush on Joe Posnanski.* Although I first became familiar with him as a sportswriter, he's gained the distinction of my favorite writer du jour partly because of his work outside the realm of sports. On his blog, for example, he has a running series of posts called "From the notebook", for which he posts previously written, non-sports-related pieces. They're quite possibly some of his best work, and his recent Lolo post is absolutely no exception. In fact, outside of his post on Tiger Woods -- as far as I'm concerned, that's his gold standard -- I think it might be the best thing I've read by him.

*Judging from this picture, I'd like to think it's pretty clear that I love him for his mind, and his mind only.

So please read the Lolo post. You will be enlightened. And then, in my own homage to Joe, and because this is easier than writing completely new material, but mostly because the city of Philadelphia is as few as nine rain-delayed outs away from capturing their first championship in any major sport since 1983,* have a look at my own "From the notebook" post below, which is a piece on Eagles fans -- and to some degree, Philly fans in general -- that I wrote for my Penn web page in my last year of college, waaaaayyyy back in January 2003.

*And for this comment, I have irrevocably jinxed them.

A forewarning: Please, please, please note that I picked up the below exactly as originally written and have not edited it in any way, shape or form. This is for the worst. I apologize in advance.

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Eagles Fanatics and Hope

For those of you who somehow made it through my previous ramblings on the coaches of the NFL, you'll probably note that I mentioned a few times in there that I thought the Eagles were going to take it all this year.

Two days after a seriously crushing defeat to the Bucs, I'm here to admit I could not have been more wrong. The Bucs showed up to a freezing Philly (believe me, I should know -- I worked outside in that cold for seven hours on Sunday) and made the Eagles their bitches. That gives them a two game winning streak in games under 40 degrees! Quite impressive, at least for them.

Of course, I'm not letting it go that easily. I'm not going to talk about the actual game here and how the Eagles lost the game more so than the Bucs won it. Instead, I want to talk about the fans here in Philly.

Before I start, my heartfelt sympathy goes out to every one of you. I've lived here for only 4 years and even to me, that was a crushing defeat. Considering my hometown of LA is NFL football-less, I've taken somewhat of a liking to the Birds and have suffered, to a lesser extent than most of you, the knife in the back that this town has endured time and time again for the last few decades. I can only imagine the gut wrenching pain that some of the Philly lifers are going through right now.

In case you've never been to Philly, the fans here are completely rabid about the Eagles. This entire past week, it was nothing but Eagles, Eagles, Eagles. You would walk around the street and people were chanting, "E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!!!" in passing cars. There were "Go Eagles!" signs EVERYWHERE. People had those little flags they attach to their cars. I also saw several interesting new paint jobs or additions to cars and vans.

Then, on Friday, it was if the city went absolutely crazy. I turned on the local news at 12, and I swear to you, the ENTIRE hour of news was devoted to Eagles-mania. (There may have been some story on a rape in like the 47th minute.) At the program's end, they officially began the 50-hour countdown to kickoff time. The coverage was practically round the clock. Probably the funniest moment was the coverage of the Bucs' plane landing at the airport. The entire segment was devoted to just the Bucs' plane. Not the Bucs walking off of it. Not the Bucs giving interviews. Just the plane. The correspondent had nothing to say. He was like, "We think this is the plane. They should be on it right now." And the entire shot on the screen was a plane several hundred yards away taxiing to its gate.

By Saturday, I think the local news just took over all programming on television. NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox were all devoted to Eagles stories. That night, I attended a banquet and talked to a Philly lifer who admitted quite frankly that he hadn't been able to get the game out of his head all week. His wife, who had already gotten quite drunk and somewhat belligerent, began accosting every person that passed by and asking them where they were from. If the answer wasn't Philly, she'd go crazy on you. Considering LA doesn't have a football team, you'd think she wouldn't mind me so much. Nope. The fists came flying out. Of course, the poor sap from New York had some serious answering to do. (And rightfully so.) The guy that was born in friggin' Moscow seemed to get by okay though.

By game day on Sunday, the city came to a standstill. The local news at 8 am was already at the Vet, interviewing fans that were ALREADY tailgating. They were getting drunk… at eight in the morning!! In fact, the earliest fans had arrived at 4:30. Whose idea was it to show up for a game almost 12 hours before it began???? As I parked car after car at my valet job, I listened to a pregame radio show that had started at something like 7 am (game time was 3 pm) and was broadcasted from the Vet. By 10, it was pretty apparent from the noise in the radio show's background that everyone at the Vet parking lot was wasted. By 11, I watched as the Bucs began to leave their hotel (they were staying right near where I work) to a crowd of Eagles fans heckling them. There were also maybe 3 Bucs fans who were stupid enough to wear Bucs clothing. Back at the Vet, they were stabbing Chucky dolls (who look very similar to the Bucs' coach, Jon Gruden) with knives, pins, and then ripping their heads off. If only Ozzy was there to bite off the head of Gruden himself. By 2 or so, most of the crowd I could hear over the radio show had screamed themselves right into laryngitis.

Being from LA and all, this whole diehard fan thing is rather new to me. Remember, I'm from a town where baseball games are four innings long (we come in the 4th and leave in the 7th), public apathy drove out two football teams in a two year span, and basketball championships are pretty much taken as a given. Has there been even close to this much public or media hysteria during the Lakers' current championship run? Not even close. Us fans just get pumped up when we really have to, such as Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals or anytime we play the Queens. We expect victory. (Of course, I'm not complaining about LA. Victory is oh so sweet, especially when you can go to the beach for a little nightcap after watching a Lakers victory in January. Want more proof that LA -- and the rest of Cali -- rocks? Just read up on Jim Caple's recent ESPN.com column. Of course, all of this overwhelming evidence that Cali rules once again proves the old point that I'm an idiot for going to school on the east coast.)

That's pretty much the typical, lazy LA fan. What about Eagles (or more generally, Philly) fans? They really, really, really want it. But they sure as hell can't expect it. They just let their hopes fly up to a crescendo and then crash and burn.

So by the time the game started at 3, the city had officially stopped. The only people who were still outside were those who were working (like myself) or had no clue at all. For instance, when I asked a woman if she knew what the score was, she surprisingly responded with a knowledgeable, "7-0," which was correct at the time. But when I asked her how the Eagles had scored, looking for a response such as "Staley ran it in" or "McNabb hooked up with Thrash," she said, "The Eagles did a touchdown." Those were her exact words. They DID a touchdown.

I made it home by the second quarter to watch most of the game, and the outcome is all history. And now, Philly is mourning. The loss was difficult enough for me to take. I feel so bad for some of the people I know. One of the guys I work with said that a friend of his literally burst into tears, "as if his mother had just died." No lie. And, of course, there was some anger. I talked to one guy who said that Philly fans were some of the sorest losers he'd ever seen. From what I've seen, I think that's a little bit of an exception, but it certainly is true in some cases. A sports reporter for a radio station here absolutely ripped into the Eagles yesterday, calling much of the team, especially Reid and McNabb, some rather distasteful names. And you know he was practically on his knees praising those guys last week.

Even though Philly right now is acting as if Revelations is unfolding, I know there's one diehard Eagles fan out there who isn't surprised at all. About six weeks ago, when everyone was realizing that the Eagles could win even without McNabb, this guy I had met at work, who had lived in Philly his entire life, told me that he wasn't getting excited about the Eagles. He said he had learned his lesson with them. He really wanted to see them win, but he was not going to get his hopes up. He'd been disappointed too many times by them. I couldn't believe a Philadelphian would utter such words. But you know what? He was dead on. The Eagles choked, once again.

Although this guy probably isn't too disappointed today, you have to think that no one more than him deserves to see his team win. He's essentially lost hope, and that's too bad. (Cue the sappy music.) Unless you're a Clippers fan, a Bengals fan, or a Red Sox fan, there's always a glimmer of hope that your team can win. That's what makes sports so damned exciting. (I mean, look at the World Cup or the NCAA Final Four. You watch those tournaments, and even if you know nothing about the teams that are playing, you're still on the edge of your seat because you know how badly everyone wants it. And you also know there's enough parity so that either team could end up victorious. In many ways, that's what makes Major League Baseball so damned boring sometimes, because there's not nearly as much equality in that league. I'm looking at you, Steinbrenner.) All of this heartache and sorrow only means one thing: the Eagles will win the Super Bowl next year. Mark my words on this. The fans, as rowdy and crazy and obnoxious as they can sometimes be, deserve to see that happen. Their time has clearly come, and my man who has apparently lost all hope needs to get it back.

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So. That exercise was... interesting. Mentions of the Vet? (RIP, baby.) Implying that the Red Sox have no hope of ever winning?? Guaranteeing an Eagles Super Bowl victory in 2004???!? Yeah, maybe we won't do this again.

But the thesis of piece still stands, and for the sake of my man who has lost all hope, I hope the Phils can see this thing through, whether it be in Game 5, or back in Tampa.