Who Says Philly Can’t Have Nice Things?

There was no parade in Kansas City this year.  In fact they don’t even bring up the one they had last year because of the mass shooting that left one person dead and 22 others injured.  I guess they can’t have nice things in Kansas City any more.  For that matter its getting to the point where nobody can have nice things any more.  Its not a rip on Kansas City people.  They may tend to be annoying but there are lots of fine folks out in the Midwest. Its more of an indictment on the recklessness and senselessness that goes on in our country seemingly every few weeks.   

On a much lower level of idiocy, Philly fans have certainly garnered a reputation over the years for behaving badly.  I’m not one to judge other’s behavior. Heck, my epitaph is going to read “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”  So I’m not about to come down on the actions of Philly fans, Eagles Nation in particular, especially considering I’m probably related to most of the Italian ones.  They’re my paisons and the rest are a melting pot of fellow cult members that follow the actions, beliefs and the wins and losses of the same winged prophet.  We are a family and while we may not always evolve in an expeditious manner, for the most part we do mean well.  We might come off as a tough crowd but we really only care about effort.  

If you show more regard for the logo on the front versus the name on the back of your jersey you’ll be beloved.  If you wreck your face tracking down a fly ball at the wall at Citizens Bank Park you’re in.  Just ask former Phillie Aaron Rowand.  But if you alligator arm a pass over the middle in your very first game as an Eagle, and then ask afterwards, “For who? For what?”, well let’s just say it might take you a little longer to endear yourself to the home faithful.

If the fans give you a standing ovation for making a routine throw to first after committing two of your three errors in a game and then you say to your second baseman, “I hate this f#$king place” that gets picked up by the game cameras for all to lip-read then you better damn well turn into a cornerstone of the infield going forward.

Let’s face it. Some bring it on themselves and others are just the victims of a long time frustrated fan base with a hair-trigger temper anxiously awaiting for a reason to pounce. But at the end of the day the common denominator always comes back to effort.

Batteries, Beers and Snowballs

But can you really blame us though?  We like what we like.  Former phenom J.D. Drew was drafted by the Phillies but wanted a lot more money than the Phillies were willing to pay.  So Drew sat out a year and went back into the following’s year’s draft.  He was taken by the St Louis Cardinals and in his first game in Philadelphia, fans pelted him with batteries.  Drew played 14 seasons in the majors and was a good player but fell way short of his potential.  His Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa agreed.  

“A lot of young players fall into this trap where it’s uncomfortable to push yourself on a daily basis,” La Russa said once upon a time. “In the case of J.D., if you have the chance to be a twelve-million-to-fifteen-million-dollar-a-year player, you settle for 75 percent of that.” (See effort)

But that wasn’t the first battery throwing incident.  Phillies fans decided to give Hall of Fame first baseman Dick Allen the battery treatment as well a couple of decades earlier.  Can you really blame them?  Where did Dick Allen get off being African American? And by all accounts he did nothing to change the color of his skin either.  Some people have no self-awareness. (see effort)

Since we tend to succumb to recency bias most fans might not even remember the third battery throwing incident in the epic trilogy.   Before Doug Pederson became the first head coach in Eagles history to win a Super Bowl he had been a starting quarterback for the Birds, and a bad one at that.  He started nine hard-to-watch games in 1999 holding down the position until Andy Reid thought it the right time to insert his first pick and second overall selection in the previous April’s draft, Donovan McNabb.  Eagles fans let Pederson know what they thought of his quarterbacking skills with spit-streams of beer and a battery brigade, the D size, not the triple A kind.

As for the Santa Claus incident I’m pretty sure I’ve been clear on my position.  If you want to show up at half-time of a game, when your team is in the midst of winning two of their last three games, thus kissing their chances of drafting O.J. Simpson goodbye, looking like you just smoked a dime bag of reindeer nip, carrying a sack of wet towels over your shoulder in an outfit you might as well have borrowed from Oliver Twist,  you’re pretty much asking for a pelting.  

There haven’t been a whole lot of them in my lifetime but when Philly throws a parade everything seems to be right in the world.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, they’re not without their “only in Philly” memorable moments but most are laughed off because it would take a Herculean effort to remove the euphoria that’s still fresh from an epic Super Bowl Championship that will undoubtedly linger for the foreseeable future.  And if everybody that goes to a championship parade goes home alive these days I’d say “that’s a heck of a day.” to steal a line from the late, great, Jimmy V.

The parade was held last Friday, starting at the stadium complex and ending at the Art Museum stairs, you know, the ones that Rocky made famous by climbing them with a slew of elementary kids, ages 5-12 running behind him. (Initially they used teenagers but they ran too fast and made Sylvester Stallone look slow so the teenagers ended up being replaced with 800 school children essentially).

Along the way fans were (allowed?) to throw full beer cans to their favorite Eagles who were standing on top of the buses.  One video showed a beer can intended for Saquon Barkley, who I guess was the hot read, but wasn’t really paying attention, that sailed on the thrower and drilled the lady next to him in the back.  She sloughed it off nicely though, protected by the pelts of her fur coat.

Unfortunately, Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman wasn’t as lucky.  He took one square in the forehead that caused a four inch gash that might have required stitches had it happened elsewhere.  But it worked for Howie as he later said in his speech “I bleed for this city.”  Of course a few seconds later his words might have landed him in concussion protocol as he shouted “Go Eagles.” before he left the podium. Um, Howie, it’s “Go Birds!”  and the blue tent is that way bra.

Then there was the Mayor of Philadelphia, Cherelle Parker, who came up with a new Eagles chant all by herself a couple of weeks ago, “E-L-G-S-E-S!”  Only in Philly.

  But then she outdid herself at the parade emphasizing that “Nothing is possible when we work together.” (3:33 mark below)

Hmmmm.  Just wondering how many commencement speeches she booked when she trotted out that little pearl of inspiration.

Wide receiver A.J. Brown went Sly:

Left tackle Jordan Mailata led the crowd in a non-Christmas song:

And then of course the Super Bowl MVP, Jalen Hurts took to the mic amidst chants of M-V-P, M-V-P, M-V-P!!!

The league’s leading rusher was doing the Saquon thing proving time and again that he’s an even better human than he is a teammate and that’s saying a lot.  Here he recognizes one of the Eagles’ ball boys and pulls him out of the crowd to walk with him.  

Then later he grabs one of the survivors of the New Orleans attack a few weeks ago, Ryan Quigley a Montgomery County native, and hangs out with him the rest of the day, even bringing him to the podium to address Eagles Nation.

The Philadelphia P.D. actually got in on the act with their version of the Tush Push.  Can’t make it up.  Only in Philly.

All in all indeed it was “a heck of a day” on the Ben Franklin Parkway with memories and moments to last a lifetime.  Kind of like the season that just was.   The Birds gave their fans lots of nice things to cherish and celebrate this year and for the most part the City of Brotherly Love, at least this one day, Valentine’s Day, proved that they truly deserved it.

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