In the late summer of 2003, I went down to Bmore to take in some baseball at Camden Yards. Totally coincidentally, the Phillies were playing in an interleague tilt (I usually don’t go to interleague games, I don’t “believe” in them). Our seats were in the left field bleachers, right behind Pat Burrell, who was hitting somewhere in the neighborhood of .200 at the time. Dude had just inked a $50 million contract. A large contingent of Youseguys sat in left field, having coughed up for tickets, gas and tolls to get to Bmore and let Pat know how his low ratio of hits to $600 Rittenhouse benders reflected on his performance (“you’re a faggot” is the short version). About a half dozen Phillies fans got thrown out of my section, five for using the word “fuck” really loudly around children and one for pouring a beer on a lady who didn’t want the word “fuck” used around her children. It was one of the proudest/saddest moments in my Philadelphia lifetime.

Fast forward to present day, with Jim Thome and Bobby Abreu gone, Pat Burrell is the Phillies highest paid player… and he is hitting so badly this year that he has endured stretches on the bench. Sounds familiar. I’m here to talk about Project Pat because watching a Philly athlete get exposed to a whithering barrage of real and rhetorical double As presents a great chance to peer a little bit into the psyche of Philadelphia.

Everybody hurts.

It’s easy to say that everybody hates Burrell because he’s overpaid and underperforming (i.e. a faggot?), but this is too simple. Perhaps the reason is that he’s an overpaid Rittenhouse broseph who seldomly manages to make it home from Bar Noir without bodily fluids all over his Armani or allegedly (allegedly!) giving out herpes like candy. If there’s anything Philadelphians don’t like, it’s entitled assholes (and New York). Burrell seems to fit the bill pretty well. The fact that it cost your $30 to see him strike out four times is just a convenient excuse.

“Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free-eee/At night, I lock the doors so no one else can see-eeee”

Maybe it has nothing to do with Burrell himself, and everything to do with the fact that Burrell is merely enabling Philadelphians to do what they love to do most: Call people “faggots” and say “fuck” in front of children (while drinking). [Ed.: He's right. It's what this very website was built on.] He’s the shittiest ballplayer on the scene now, so by default, he’s the strawman for all of Philadelphia’s grease-driven angst. But he’s not just any shitty ballplayer; he’s the perfect target. So everybody, when you boo, don’t boo too lustily, he might leave town and take his drunken antics with him. But if you do try to run him out of town, be careful, because just when you think you’ve run him off, he might stick around and “take care of business.”

You never know.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 2:15 pm.