April 24, 2015
I feel like David Murphy was talking directly to me when he wrote today’s column in the Daily News. The “woe is us, our sports teams are awful” angle has been beaten into the ground recently, but he found a way to raise some new and interesting points that as a 24-year-old Philadelphia sports fan, I hadn’t fully realized.
The main one being that from the turn of the century (let’s designate Keith Primeau’s goal in the wee hours of a Pittsburgh morning as the starting point) until the end of 2013 (Brandon Boykin picking off Kyle Orton), we had some pretty darn good times around these parts. Only one championship, as the curmudgeons will be quick to point out, but the ride was always consistently fun. Here’s part of what Murphy wrote:
For over a decade, we had to keep our anger and cynicism under wraps while you little turds got to enjoy one of the greatest eras in Philadelphia sports history. Thirty-two playoff berths. Thirteen league or conference finals. A Super Bowl, an NBA Finals, a Stanley Cup finals, and two World Series. A parade. All in a span of 12 years. You watched the greatest quarterback, safety, first baseman, second baseman, shortstop and shooting guard in city history play their respective positions. You never watched Rich Kotite coach a football game.
That’s a lot of good stuff! We saw two of the most dominant multi-year runs ever in this city with the 2001-2004 Eagles and 2007-2011 Phillies, teams that continuously churned out fun, quality regular seasons and made more than a few deep playoff runs. The Flyers made four “Final Fours,” one finals appearance, and gave us the Greatest First Round Series Ever (yes, that ’12 matchup with the Penguins deserves to be capitalized), while never failing to be interesting. As for the Sixers, at least Allen Iverson gave us one memorable playoff run.
Maybe the sustained success for over half of my life is why I don’t find the current sad state of Philly sports so depressing. It’s not as if I’m embracing things like the Phillies’ abysmal recent draft record or Flyers’ penchant to overpay third pairing defensemen (if you can, by all means go ahead), but I’m also not reacting to a small dry spell like a Westerosi winter is on the horizon.
There’s plenty to hold our interest for the time being. The Eagles are the only local team that has the opportunity to contend next year, and even then, Sam Bradford at quarterback doesn’t inspire much confidence. Still, Chip Kelly will always be a major national story for his unconventional methods and the zero amount of you-know-what’s he gives. Even if the Eagles flame out, are you not entertained?
Speaking of unconventional methods, the Sixers are the most interesting 18-win team in the history of the National Basketball Association. There are no guarantees with the rebuild, but they’ve already done the dirty work of what is required (for their strategy, anyway) to become a contender. And when you become good in that sport, you generally stay that way for at least a little while.
The Flyers just experienced a disappointing season, but they finally seem to have stumbled on a good goaltender to pair with a couple of ELITE (and not in the Joe Flacco way, either) top-line forwards. Their huge weakness on the blue line could very well become an area of strength if the likes of Sanheim, Gostisbehere, and Morin eventually pan out, too.
As for the Phillies, well, maybe just take a couple of trips to Reading this summer to watch Roman Quinn, Aaron Nola, and hopefully J.P. Crawford.
Yes, Philly sports are in a bad place, but that doesn’t mean things will stay that way for a long time. This is the point of the post where I could quote Andy’s letter to Red about hope, but I imagine you get the point. Even though it does seem like watching Rich Kotite coach your professional football team is the sports equivalent of being stuck in Shawshank. Woof, that sounds awful.
