Green and A New Understanding of Bandwagon-Jumping Scum

I was not looking forward to this past weekend by any means. In fact, Friday felt like any other work day as my wife had me scheduled to assist in the painting of our living room. She had finally grown weary of the plain white walls and the spackle and scuff marks left behind by the previous owners. We started almost as soon as we got the baby to bed. The first step was re-painting the ceiling, which had some uber-annoying spots that we never dealt with upon moving in. We were going to stop there and start the walls on Saturday morning but we had some momentum going so we got started on the first wall coat, finally running out of gas around 12:30am. The original plan called for getting up early and getting the walls done sometime in the early afternoon. This plan was destroyed when I did not get out of bed until close to 10am on Saturday. Long story short, we finally got the second coat done around 6:15pm, and while I had no desire to take on this project over the weekend, I was really impressed by how much better our living room looked when we were through. I begrudgingly accepted Kim's suggestion (I use the term very loosely) that we go with green. It wasn't until I got home from playing cards Saturday night, with everything back where it was supposed to go, that I realized that she has a very good eye for color. We still have some ceiling touch-ups to do, but the room looks incredible. So, kudos to my wife for making me get off my fat butt and paint.

I cannot for the life of me remember a more frustrating time to be a Philadelphia sports fan. This sequence of events would be affecting me more if I were still the bleeding-heart Philly sports maniac I was as a youth and young adult. I still follow the teams, but I don't live and die with them as I once did. I thought it was this more-mature approach to fandom that had me feeling somewhat detached of late, but it is becoming more apparent that it is the sports landscape in general that has me put-off. I am beginning to believe that I may never again see a Philadelphia championship parade down Broad Street...

The Eagles are entering a crossroads season - one that I am actually looking forward to since no one seems to know what to expect out of them this year (versus the Super Bowl-Or-Die expectations of the last 4 years or so). The 76ers are a team that I thought could make some noise entering last season, but they play less defense than the 1940's French. Their General Manager has given out some of the worst contracts in the NBA - and it looks as though it may be years before the team can improve as it languishes in salary cap hell. The only player on the team with trade value also happens to be the heart and soul of the Philadelphia sports scene over the last handful of years. History dictates that the 76ers will not get anything near equal value in a trade for Allen Iverson - yet the entire city awaits the details of what looks to be the inevitable trade of the best player the team has had in over a decade. The Flyers try hard. They really do. They are a franchise that visibly works towards its goal of a Stanley Cup. GM Bobby Clarke has taken heat for some of the free agent signings heading into last season, but I laud him for his efforts. There was no way for him to know that the NHL was actually going to enforce its rules aimed at opening up play - when the League had made numerous rules changes over the past decade and enforced exactly none of them. That being said, the Flyers have taken on some players that are not suited for the "new" NHL. It will probably take them a couple years to contend. This brings us to the worst offenders in all of Philadelphia sports: The Philadelphia Phillies.

When I was a kid, I liked a lot of sports, but I LOVED baseball. I could recite the statistics of players from the Phillies and from all over the league. I collected baseball cards, sticker books and 7-11 Slurpee baseball player coins. I dreamt of being able to afford my own Phillies cap and just knew that I would be a season-ticket holder once I was of age...

This is where I need to expound on a matter that makes my blood boil - I hate bandwagon-jumpers. An example: growing up, there was a small pocket of ultra-annoying Cowboys fans in my old neighborhood. None of them were from Texas. None of them had ever seen a game in the Cowboys' home stadium. None of them had any clue what time zone Dallas was in. Yet here were these total chaches prancing around the neighborhood with their #11 Danny White jerseys. It made me sick. There are still a ton of these fughezi Cowboys fans running around Philadelphia. They are worse than rats. Now there is a NEW bandwagon-jumping fad that has manifested itself over the past 3 years - and it is called "Red Sox Nation". Give me a break! Here is one of the few franchises (prior to 2004) that has suffered worse than ANY Philly team. Fans of the Red Sox have been loyal to that team forever, through thick and thin, through decades of losing... Real fans of the Sox probably can't help from feeling infected by the scores of non-New Englander fans that have glonged on to their team like some sort of globulous tumor.

The Red Sox were in town to play the Phillies from May 19th through the 21st and the majority of fans in the park for all three games seemed to be Red Sox fans. This is disturbing and annoying, but true fans will follow their teams to cities that are not fully supporting theirs. What was truly disturbing to me was the local newscasts. Just about every network figured that it would be a good idea to interview segments of Red Sox Nation - and I noticed something peculiar. Almost none of them had New England accents. In fact, a lot of them spoke with the same Philly dialect as Frankie from Frankford. The more interviews I watched, the more it became apparent - the same bandwagon-jumping phenomenon that turned Eagles fans into Cowboys fans in the 70s and 80s has made the leap to baseball, where Phillies fans are breaking their necks to jump on the Red Sox bandwagon. At first I was filled with ire, but after thinking about it for awhile I wondered if there might be a valid reason to explain these traitorous louts after all.

Anyone paying attention to the news over the past few weeks knows about the mess that is the Philadelphia Phillies. Not even a new ballpark can cover up the stench brought upon this city by an ownership unwilling to take the steps necessary to win, and the mostly-heartless team they have put on the field. The Phillies are stocked with talented, under-achieving players who (according to at least one ex-manager and one high-profile ex-teammate) bristle at the hint of criticism and lay down like dogs when the pressure to win is felt. The Phillies have some nice young talent to build on, but some rebuilding needs to be done before whatever heart-ailment suffered by many on this roster becomes contagious.

Not only have the Phillies put a mediocre under-achieving product on the field, but their ownership is apparently operating under the belief that all true Philadelphia sports fans "love" the Phillies, and any dissatisfaction with the franchise is overrepresented by the local sports talk radio shows and the "crazies" that call in to the stations. This and other nonsensical meanderings from Never-Never-Land can be found in last week's (7/10) interview of Bill Giles by the Philadelphia Inquirer. This interview may have been the last straw for me. The franchise's laughable handling of the Brett Myers alleged wife-beating incident was bad, but this interview had me incensed when I first read it. I do not think its possible for someone to be more out-of-touch with their customer base. I am very close to pulling my support of the Phillies - at least until there is an ownership change (alas, this is discussed in the above-described interview and does not look to be likely anytime soon). One thing I will not do is throw my support behind another MLB franchise. I will not sell out like that.

After giving the bandwagon-jumping issue some thought, part of me says I can't blame people for eschewing their local teams and prostituting themselves to franchises from other cities - even though most of these people have no clue about the teams' histories, etc. I will continue to look down on these poseur "fans". And, should the Philly teams ever get their collective acts together (you will forgive me for not commencing breath-holding), I will be happy - and I will celebrate as a true fan. If and when that day comes, I don't want any of the phughezies back.

[Currently Listening: Weezer - "In the Garage"]