The old joke about one time going to a hockey game and a boxing match broke out has taken on a new spin in Philadelphia media recently. It goes something like this: I went to cover a baseball game and great success of the Phillies and an Eagles’ bashing column appeared instead.
The last time I looked the Phillies are on the brink of doing something no other Phillies team had done before and that’s appear in the World Series for consecutive years. That prompts my next question: What does the success of the baseball team have to do with the lack of success by the football team?
We’re talking apples and oranges here, aren’t we?
But it is the vogue thing to do these days, rip the Eagles while the Phillies repeatedly make miracles happen, and have created an amazingly joyous, festive ambiance in and around Citizens Bank Park. But hey, some people just like smacking around the Eagles. What can I say. It’s the in-thing, right?
“Joe, you don’t understand, the Eagles have been bragging and saying that they’re this gold standard for 11 years now and have nothing to show for it, while the guys across the street have been the gold standard and don’t say a peep about it,” one prominent sports columnist told me recently.
But what does one have to do with the other? Is it just a rhetorical argument, thrown out for the sake of filling up space and getting fan’s negative juices flowing? Why not laud the glory of one team, instead of broach the ineptitude of the other?
Why?
“What can I say, the Eagles just tend to piss people off,” the columnist continued. “We love to hate the Eagles. Sometimes they ask for it, sometimes they don’t.”
In my opinion, this is one of those times. Granted, the 13-9 mess last Sunday against Oakland served as fodder enough for a media gang bang slam festival. But any mention of the Phillies and Eagles together right now makes no sense. At least it doesn’t to me.
The Phillies deserve everything they’re receiving. They’ve garnered the praise of the national media, with some even believing they can beat the mighty New York Yankees. There is a respect there for a team that is never out of a game, and continues to constantly amaze us all with one clutch performance after another.
That merits attention. That deserves praise.
As for the Eagles, they carried whatever hopes this city had of winning a world championship for 10 years. And they did by themselves. Some forget that. They were the gold standard, however tarnished and chipped, of this city while the others had their winning and losing spells. Some forget that, too. They were, and are, the model of a consistently winning franchise.
That has to count for something.
Joseph Santoliquito is an Emmy Award-nominated writer based in the Philadelphia area who can be contacted at Jsantoliquito@yahoo.com.
