There have been some recent, major happenings in the development of Philadelphia’s mercurial sense of civic esteem. Here are three pieces of recent documentary evidence to back up the words I associated with Philadelphia via its sporting culture.

After the jump, Michael Fichman talks about what we talk about when we (and they) talk about Philly sports. The news is not entirely bad.

There have been some recent, major happenings in the development of Philadelphia’s mercurial sense of civic esteem. When Mike Nutter got up and did a surprising and unstilted version of “Rapper’s Delight” at his inaugural ball, we all felt that the city was showing it had turned some sort of corner. “Hey New York! Look at us, we put our pants on forwards 5 days this week, not just 3 anymore! We’re savvy and sensible! Mike Bloomberg listens to J. Geils Band, so Fuck You!” The New York Times turned around and published an article about Fishtown being high cholesterol Williamsburg circa 1995, which basically means that if you’re reading this article, your rent is fucked, even though there’s a recession on. Advantage (still): New York. [Ed.: Nothing makes us smile more warmly than when one of our own contributors still acts, in 2008, like New York doesn't suck more now than it ever has. But do go on...]

It’s well understood that cities invest wasteful public dollars in their sports teams because these teams are important national civic representatives. So when sports teams run cities through the wringer for publically funded stadiums, infrastructural improvements like parking, and highways and tax abatements, cities usually acquiesce because they’re paying for national visibility and relevance. The stadiums seldom, if ever, pay for themselves, but it’s hard to quantify the intangible benefits associated with projecting your image via sports. However, we can infer a lot about certain cities from what we know about their teams.

A little word-association:
Los Angeles Lakers: Flashy, Egotistical, Jack Nicholson
Green Bay Packers: Traditional, Hardy, Jolly
Boston Red Sox: Privileged, Snotty, Scorned
Pittsburgh Steelers: Championships, Respected, Judeo-Christian Deity “Yahweh”

So what about Philly? Here are three pieces of recent documentary evidence to back up the words I associated with Philadelphia via its sporting culture:

Absurd

Above is a recent video of Stephen “Screamin’” A. Smith debating Pat Buchanan (yeah, that Pat Buchanan) on MSNBC about presidential politics. How exactly Stephen A. Smith was asked to debate anybody about anything at any time is beyond me (EVERYTHING I SAY IS IMPORTANT!!!). Smith is a guy that everybody around the country associates with Philadelphia because of his long-time position as “Columnist — Philadelphia Inquirer.” The guy got stripped of his Inquirer column mainly because there’s no “volume” dial in the newspaper and prefacing opinions with “QUITE FRANKLY…” doesn’t make the opinions any more factual. Scour the above commentary for “facts.” I will say that pitting him against Pat Buchanan in Conjecture-Fest ‘08 does imply a sort of farcical undertone here, but Chris Matthews plays a crap straight man.

So, to briefly review — famous Philadelphia sports personality, former columnist Stephen A. Smith of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who has no qualifications at all for commenting on anything besides sports, and was actually fired from most of his jobs commenting on sports anyway, is called to debate a former presidential candidate who served as a senior advisor to Presidents Nixon and Reagan (and is also batshit crazy). WTF?

(If you want to watch a YouTube video of a sock puppet heckling and subsequently impersonating Stephen A. Smith at the NBA draft, check it out here.)

Vindictive

Here, an Eagles fan projectile vomits on a Dallas fan’s car while his friends laugh drunkenly. As they say in the Eurovision song contest, “nul point.” Not really much else to say here. [Hat tip to TheBigLead]

Passionate

Finally, a positive adjective. You didn’t think there was gonna be one, did you? As you may recall, I advocated for a Major League Soccer team in Philadelphia on the grounds that Philadelphians are capable of the kind of violent hooliganry befitting hard-core soccer rooters. Well, as it turns out, the SOB (Sons of Ben) fan club headed down I-95 to Baltimore a few days ago and lobbied at the MLS draft for a franchise in the Philadelphia area. Two SOB representatives are seen in the above interview, stating Philadelphia’s case for a franchise. Despite the more crass elements of the Philadelphia sporting (and civic) personality, nobody accuses Philly of being anything short of passionate about being a bunch of of vulgar, heckling drunks. At least we’re the best at something.

According to AOL Fanhouse (who also supplied the above video), St. Louis and Philly are the two remaining candidates for an MLS franchise, and the league should render a decision within about 45 days. I sure hope Philly gets it, and the gentlemen in the video make a convincing case: We are a substantially larger media market than St. Louis, and we also love engaging our rivals up and down the east coast. So if anybody from MLS is reading this column, grant Philly the new MLS franchise, and we’ll do to the English Premier League what we did to the English Empire — make it irrelevant through righteous will and violence.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm.