By FRANK WARD
DailyPhiladelphian.com Editor
I’ve had it. The Chicago columnists, radio hosts, newspapers and a smattering of their fans have presented me with the proverbial final straw. I’m sick of people constantly bringing up how bad and horrible Philly’s sports fans are for the most minute incidents. No other sports fans ever cross the line of good taste. They’ve never poured beer on players during a game. They’ve never thrown snowballs on the field. They’ve never beaten up athletes or coaches on the field.
Nope. Never. Only in Philly.
If you listen to the national media, that’s a fact. Only, it’s far from one. And, now, it’s time to do something to change the perception of our fine city.
The Daily Philadelphian is launching The Moronic Fan Watch. We will keep tabs on fans throughout the United States and their moronic behavior. The goal is to show that Philly fans are not, indeed, the low class morons the national media have made us out to be throughout the years.
To be clear, we’ve had a few jackasses in the City of Brotherly Love. But, we’re far from the only city to house the village idiots.
What really got us motivated and fired up to start tracking fan behavior across the United States was coverage of the recent Stanley Cup Finals. First, Dan McNeil hacked his way through a column in which he described the Flyers fans as low rent because some women were fat and some used profanity. OK, I guess that’s worse than throwing beer on an opposing player during a game.
McNeil is not the first, nor last, to do so. TJ Simers ripped Philly fans during the 2001 NBA Finals. Then, during the 2009 NLCS, he dug up and ran the same column again.
The bottom line is from this point on — June 13, 2010 to be exact — we’ll break down which fans are doing what. Each negative action will be worth a point. Then, we can see who has the moronic fans. Links to stories will be posted.
Since we obviously can’t keep track of everything, we’ll need your help. If you see or read about a moronic fan action in the United States, e-mail us at MoronicFans@gmail.com.
Thanks for your help. Together, we can paint a new image for Philly’s sports fans!
Yeah it’s just a super simple “article” to write for an out of town “journalist” to fill an entire page on the “evil Philly fan” cliche. Like the Flyers vs Blackhawk series, you had dozens of “reporters” who never thought of covering the Hawks till May of this year. So what do you write when you aren’t a fan of a sport? You take the easy road and go with the rag articles. Why write about how good your team is and how it could be a new potential dynasty, when you can write about an idiot, who happened to be at a Phillies game that made himself vomit on a little girl. Of course they’ll never write about the rest of the Philly fans who were outraged and were going to beat the vomiting idiot to a bloody pulp if it wasn’t for the Security and Police.
The worst part is, you’ll never read articles about Philly fans offering up their rinkside seats to Blackhawk fans to enjoy the celebration. You’ll never read about the Philly fans giving Mario Lemieux a standing ovation for coming back from Hodgekins disease (sp?) and the 5 minute ovation he got when playing his final shift ever after the Flyers eliminated his team from the playoffs before he retired. You’ll never hear about the thousands of fans who contacted the Montreal writer who had his car vandalized to apologize for the idiot, offer to buy him a cheesesteak next time he was in town, and one fan who owned a auto repair business offering to fix the $1,000 damage if he brought the car to him.
Nope, we’ll only hear about us booing Santa Claus from a hundred years ago.
I am down with the cause, however as a city we have a healthy share of moron sports fans. If we intend to change our fan’s perception we have to somehow reach out to these guys and explain proper public behavior. This alone could easily become an impossible mission, some people just don’t get it. These fans seem to embrace our negative perception and go above and beyond to keep it alive with their antics. After all, I do believe that we are the only MLB club to have had a fan murdered in the parking lot. How does someone become so enraged, over spilled beer of all things, that it becomes a good idea to beat down some stranger to the point that the guy dies from head trauma? The actions themselves were bad enough but just think how many kids and families witnessed the assault . It’s a baseball game guys, not your corner sh*thole bar, people bring their sons and daughters out to enjoy the game and spend quality time together doing something that they enjoy. These fans take a great experience away from thousands of people and this is supposed to be a family atmosphere, where at the very least they expect common decency, respect, excitement and fun. Not to mention that games aren’t exactly cheap these days. Sadly, these degenerate fans can’t stop drinking and acting like children long enough to consider anyone else, the young fans or game itself. Worst part is it never fails, every time you go their everywhere. I cancelled my season tickets for the Phils, and no longer attend Eagle games due to these uneducated, ungrateful, pathetic excuses of “fans”. All cities and teams have thier “bad” fans but murder? Have to draw the line at violent felony night at Citizens Bank. Here in Philly the drunken mass is in a class of it’s own. Good luck I hope it makes a difference. Either way I commend you. Please realize though the media is only half the problem and any real change has to start with these alcoholic degenerates.
Jim Mechionna proved how low Flyers fans can go during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Jim Melchionna waved a severed Native American head {impaled on a knife} as a trophy. This action could not have been done to another “RACE”. Do you notice I said Race? So a Cowboy is not a race, a leprechaun is not a race, A Viking is an occupation not a race. No team could ever be named the Washington BlackSkins. Just saying this to offset some comments I have heard before from racist who try and defend their ignorance.
What is with the headline below the Daily Philadelphian? “Thanks Phillies pitchers for late inning fireworks display in Pittsburgh” what fireworks display? I don’t believe it’s a good idea to continue running that after the Phillies lost 3 out of 4, one game in which they were shutout (yea to the Pirates) and another in which they blew a fairly big lead and got spanked.
It’s sarcasm….