Everyone gets on the Philadelphia fans when they get mad. Look at how angry and aggressive they are! Please, give me a break. But, on the flipside, the media tries to keep them from being happy. Look no further than Craig Calcaterra. Who? Exactly. Calcaterra is the “Blogger-in-Chief” at Hardballtalk.com which is part of NBC Sports. Calcaterra tweeted last weekend that Philadelphia is “the most insecure fan base on the planet.”
Listen here Craig; let me explain something to you: one championship in 28 years in any sport. Two World Series titles in 128 years of Phillies baseball. We, as a fan base, have every right to be insecure. Have you ever heard of 1964? The MVP for the Cardinals’ World Series Championship team should be the entire 1964 Phillies team for blowing a 6.5 game lead with 12 games to play down the stretch. That alone gives us the right to be insecure. So before you criticize us, how about you spend 10 seconds in our shoes.
There you have it. I shall now walk a mile -- or at least ten seconds -- in the shoes of Philly fans before I say anything bad about them again. Or maybe not. These shoes feel so ... so ... insecure.
Seriously, though, the saddest thing about all of this is that the Philly fan commenters here are almost all pretty great. As are most of the Philly bloggers and stuff with whom I interact on Twitter. They appreciate the good run their team is on and are, with a few occasional exceptions, pretty realistic and gracious about life.
I don’t for a second think that guys like this one are representative of the fan base at large. But at the same time, I never see examples of this kind of thing from the fan bases of other teams. It’s just nuts.
