City of Brotherly Love?
From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
A sports figure has never really reached superstar status until he’s been booed by the sports fans of Philadelphia. They are equal opportunity in Philly when it comes to making their voices heard. Great players are often targeted more than the not so good.
I mean come on, these guys booed and threw snowballs at Santa Claus.
Folks in the Midwest have often asked me if the reputation of the Philadelphia sports fans was true. Were they really a group that would boo anybody at any time, and were they the most unruly spectators in the country?
My answer has always been yes, and yes.
Over the years, I saw a lot of games at Veterans Stadium and the Spectrum. Baseball, football, hockey, a few college basketball games were spent in south Philly and always something would happen. Fights and drunken brawls were not considered anything out of the ordinary.
I can remember a Phillies-Pirates game where every fan in a half-filled section in the upper deck were all involved in a melee. Security personnel arrived and hauled a couple guys off and it wasn’t a half-inning later that another fight broke out in the same section. There was an Eagles game where I swear to God, the fans booed a couple kids who took part in a Punt, Pass & Kick competition at half-time.
While it’s not always a nice experience for fans of the visiting team who want to go and show their colors, I’ve seen more fights at Philly sporting events between people who knew each other than strangers. Sometimes a pre-game argument in a tavern or tailgate gets finished in the stands.
I was not there the night at a Phillies game where some knucklehead shot a flare from the first-base stands to the third-base stands. I was not there the night an inebriated fan in the 700 Level grabbed a large container of mustard and poured it over his head. I wasn’t there the night Phillies first-baseman Richie Allen drew the word “Boo” into the infield dirt with his shoe.
The Eagles fans have always been the loudest, meanest and most inclined to behavior that would require a posse to handle. In the late ’90s at the Vet, the city of Philadelphia set up a courtroom in the bowels of the stadium and processed those arrested immediately and then hauled them off to serve their sentence. As far as I know it’s the only stadium in sports history that had its own working judge.
The legendary story about Philadelphia fans involves Santa Claus. This happened at Franklin Field, where the Eagles played before moving to south Philly and a new stadium. It was late in a dismal 1968 Eagles season and it was the final game. A heavy snow had blanketed the city starting the night before, and those fans still interested in the 2-11 Eagles had to clean snow and slush off their seats.
At half-time the Eagles had a Christmas program planned. When the Santa hired to work that day did not show up, team officials sought help from the stands. A 20-year old fan named Frank Olivo had worn a red corduroy Santa suit and a fake beard to the game. Eagles officials gave him a large sack and told him to weave his way down the field between two lines of cheerleaders as the band played “Here Comes Santa Claus.”
Several years ago, Olivo described the moment for a Philadelphia TV station:
“When the booing started, at first I was scared because it was so loud. But then I figured hey, it was just good natured teasing. I’m a Philadelphia fan, I knew what was what. I thought it was funny.”
“When I hit the end zone and the snowballs started, I was waving my finger at the crowd saying ‘you’re not getting anything for Christmas.’ Oh, I got pelted. It was dozens of snow balls. I didn’t mind. I started kibitzing with some of the people throwing the snowballs.”
I’m anxious to see how the new Lincoln Financial Field has affected the Eagles fans. One of the NFL’s newer stadiums, it does not yet have the grit and grime of Franklin Field and the Vet. I can’t imagine the crowd has turned into a bunch of wine & cheese types, but you never know.
The Chiefs will get booed on Sunday. But they’ll know they are in the game if the crowd is booing the Eagles.
That’s just the way it is in the City of Brotherly Love.
Brotherly love…like a big does to his weaker little, so shall the Eagles:
PHIL 38 – chiefs 13
- – - – -
Now, something different
Rin found this snippet from Bob G’s own book “Hail To The Chiefs”, pages 118-119, subject being the turnover between end of the 1992 season and the start the ’93 same.
Quoting –
[ “19 new faces on the Chiefs 53-man roster for the regular season. That is a 36% rate of change from the previous season. There were new starters at nine positions, compared to the final game of the 1992 regular season, which was a 41% change.”
“Part of the turnover obviously was due to the new offense. Part could be explained by the NFL’s new free agency plan. And part was the normal rhythm of the NFL, where the average career is less than four seasons.”
“All the changes with the Chiefs sounded more like a team that had finished at the bottom of the standings, rather than one coming off a season in the playoffs.” ]
Indeed, coming off a 9-7 record, 2nd place finish AFC West & a playoff berth (a loss by Marty Schottenheimer naturally, this one a shutout by the Chargers), those Chiefs teams like the 2009 one saw much turnover…point being that the 2009 changes seem minuscule when the circumstances as well similarities & differences each era’s teams are compared.
The 2009 Chiefs retain & remain 59% Herm’s Chiefs, and 64% of all starting positions remain Edwards men, so that the vocal uproar from the small minority chiefsfandumb about the massive turnover being an indication a ‘new era’ by way a ‘new sheriff in town’, he being somehow unique is proven erroneous/false & made moot as well relegated mute.
1993: 36% rate of change from the season before (1992), or 19 players, 9 of them starters.
2009: 40% rate of change from the season before (2008), or 21 players, (only) 9 of them starters.
Upshot: almost identical the two off-seasons. Results however will not be, likely.
The 1993 team went on to the AFL Championship Game (with the expected outcome another Marty S loss.)
Will the 2009 team make it to the AFC Title Game? Win the AFC West perhaps? OK, how about just a simple playoff berth? Alright then – a winning record? .500? 6 wins? 4? 2? Zero as in 0 for ’09?
Even small-minded chiefsfandumb who revile Herm Edwards are unable to change the fact Herm led the Chiefs into the playoffs in his very first year in KC – the only Head Coach in franchise history to do so – this after a two year hiatus nee failure to do so both 2004 & 2005 under Dick Vermeil and all his offensive weaponry – if Vermeil couldn’t do it with all his soldiers in tow, how was Herm able to? The better coach.
Fate operates with as much force in 2004 & 2005 as it did in 2006 and will in 2009 – fate per se had nothing to do with any of it then nor will it now or no more than what a Branch Rickey and Marty S used to often say regards ‘success’ nee ‘winning’: “luck is the residue of design” and “preparation meeting opportunity.” Herm did just that in 2006, and his Chiefs team won their way into the playoffs– had they not won all the other teams W’s or L’s become moot.
Outside a jaded bias the envious others, winners never back into anything – they enter standing off their own merits/efforts & on their own two feet.
Either Herm did it his way on his terms with his men, or did it with Vermeil’s – in either case he did what Vermeil could not do as referenced – get to the playoffs.
Whether
does it with Herm’s men or via ‘check’s own way, the question is: can/will he be able to get to the playoffs in year one this, his?
Rin’s answer as anyone’s stoic be a resounding
ah, ah, ah-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!
NO
So much for the impact
& 
have made via their abilities/changes any … still un$pent cap $pace KC groans under the weight it’s static stance & the formers not so moot testimony a duo or a troika three with Jr. as to their failure to do everything they could to ‘win now’ as they claim they are trying to do… 0-6 now and growing suggests they are parts Pinocchio/others in over their collective heads as they themself ( 
“a rookie mistake” his one example ) affirm…
Rin as much as I would rather not acknowledge you I’ll bite. I myself liked Herm but to say he led KC to the playoffs yes they had to win but if you remember two teams including the Donkeys had to loose for the Chiefs to get in. They did not do it on there own accord other teams had to loose. Then once in had the ever lovin crap kicked out of them by yes the Superbowl Champs but they didn’t play at all respectable. It might have been better to not play that game at all. Herm and staff did not have them prepared for that game at all. Also I will agree he received a team that was old very old and no up and coming talent behind it and was charged the first two years to try and make something with a bunch of players on the retirement list. Then in the third year coaches what is basically a college fantasy team and not surprisingly looses all but 2 games. I for one think Herm got a raw deal but he knew what was here when he came. With all that said he is gone and I like what Pioli and Haley are doing and think the Chiefs have upgraded there Management and Coaches.
Ha! We fell ass backwards into the playoffs Herm’s first year, only to get humiliated in Indy. After that it was two miserable seasons of 4-12, 2-14. The Herminator is a decent enough fellow I suppose, but he’s no leader of men. Under his tutelage the Chiefs got fat and lost all sense of discipline. Thank God he’s gone, Carl too.
How many days/months/years must Herm be gone before you take your lips off his ass, Rin? He’s gone. You don’t have to like it, but you seriously need to get the hell over it and shut the hell up about it. Nobody cares about Herm anymore. Its old news.
And the silence be deafening as no one is able to refute Rin & His fact based proffer…as expected.
No one addressed said, nor the affirmation of Rin via the gist BG’s undeniable assist.
Herm is STILL The Man!
heh heh heh!
looking forward to hearing the hometown team getting booed after they lose: Chiefs 27 – Eagles 17. bank it.
Looking forward to hearing ‘Chiefsfandumb’ as Rin calls them whine tomorrow after the game and loss: Eagles 52 Kansas City 0. Count on it.
your posts are filled with lies – i don’t have time to list them all, but within the first paragraph your claim that 64% of the starters are herm’s chiefs is simply not true.
geez liar, what’s your problem
IT’S TWO GAMES INTO HIS FREAKING FIRST SEASON AS A HEAD COACH!
get off this bs ride haleys ass shtick, it’s tired. Herm had three years. THREE YEARS. IT’S BEEN TWO GAMES.
TWO FREAKING GAMES>
week three of his FIRST SEASON EVER as a head coach. we were 2 and freakin 14 last year. 2-14!!!!!!
GIVE THE GUY A BREAK. STOP CRYING LIKE WHITLOCK.
change is a part of life, deal with it. move on.
show some class.
calm the f*ck down with the fear mongering
“I can take any – ANY – 22 guys from off the street and… go 0-6, then 0-7 aft today’s shellacking in Philly followed by 0-8 aft next Sunday’s in Kaycee evisceration courtesy the Giants.” –
heh heh heh!
so ge said something s little harsh – your hero carl peterson cost us John Tait when he told him to “sit the f*ck down and shut the f*ck up” but you don’t go around repeating that everyday of your life, all day long do you? Talk about a double standard….
TWO FREAKING GAMES!
two.
Quit Crying.
“but you don’t go around repeating that everyday of your life, all day long do you?”
- well if you’re not certain…
heh heh heh!