Eagles, Phillies and Union lost titles in 99-day span. Wasn’t it wonderful?
A scene from 15 weeks ago: Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022. Minute Maid Park in Houston. Game 6 of the World Series between the Phillies and the Astros, first pitch still a couple of hours away.
Among the ballplayers, coaches and media members lingering on the field during batting practice, two Philly TV guys set a laptop on a stool near one of the dugouts, found a feed for the MLS championship match — between the Union and Los Angeles FC — and tried to keep their eyes on the computer without having a foul ball shatter either the screen or their skulls.
So much was still possible for the three Philadelphia sports franchises that were holding most people’s attention then. As a cluster of reporters hovered around the laptop, the Union took a lead in the match when Jack Elliott scored during stoppage time at the end of extra time.
The Phillies, despite trailing in the Series, were still two victories away from a championship, with Zack Wheeler starting that night. Oh, and the Eagles had beaten the Houston Texans less than 48 hours earlier. They were 8-0, on course for where they eventually ended up: Super Bowl LVII.
Was the city really going to celebrate three championships in a 99-day span?
No, it was not.
Fatalism and optimism
There’s a word people sometimes use to describe Philadelphia sports fans: fatalistic.
Now some people probably say, “Philadelphia sports fans are fatalistic” when what they really mean to say is, “Philadelphia sports fans are so negative and terrible they even booed the Walter Payton Award winner at
the Super Bowl just because he plays for the Cowboys.”
Still, the word applies.
A huge segment of the fan base surely believes that no matter how good one of the local teams might be and enchanted its season might have been, that team is destined to fall short of a championship, and it will fall short in the most excruciating manner imaginable: a James Bradberry penalty, a Ronde Barber interception, a Joe Carter homer.
To many Philly fans, such heartbreaking moments are inevitable. The only mystery is what form those moments will take.
But as Robert De Niro said in “Heat” while sitting in a diner, there’s a flip side to that coin. For any team that has even the slightest chance of winning a championship, many Philadelphia fans approach the run-up to the regular season and the season itself with an almost pollyannaish optimism.
Take the 76ers, for instance. It’s only recently, within the last year or two, that a bit of “process fatigue” has set in among those who championed Sam Hinkie’s approach way back when, and even the drudgery of suspecting the Sixers aren’t quite good enough to win a title has been tempered by Tyrese Maxey’s development and James Harden’s arrival.
Or consider the Flyers, back when they were worthy of consideration and capable of competing for a Stanley Cup. They were always one goaltender, one defenseman, one coaching change away, and once training camp began their fans always found reason to believe, even if the organization was planning to go with Jeff Hackett between the pipes.
Because of those two contradictory forces — the fatalism and the optimism — there was a time when having three local teams lose in the championship game or round in a span of less than 3 ½ months could have caused all of the region’s sports fans to lapse into misery. Some would have been angry; some would have fallen into a collective state of depressive catatonia.
Rest assured, though, they all would have been miserable.
The difference these days
Here’s the thing, though: Maybe it’s there and I’m not seeing it, but I haven’t picked up on much anger or misery or hopelessness over the last few months, or even the last few days. That is, there isn’t much compared with the aftermaths of, say, the Detroit Red Wings’ sweep of the Flyers in the 1997 Stanley Cup Final, the Eagles’ loss to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX or the Phillies’ truncated postseasons from 2009-11.
Why? One factor is pretty obvious: The Eagles’ win in Super Bowl LII remains relatively fresh in people’s minds and likely softened the blow of Sunday’s outcome.
But there’s another factor that gets to the heart of fandom itself. The Phillies’ run through the playoffs (in their first postseason appearance since 2011) was a pleasant surprise; so was the Eagles’ rise into the NFL’s best team (as was their quarterback’s rise to stardom). The Union had never reached the MLS Cup before.
It’s the ride. More than anything, sports fans love and cherish the ride.
By that standard, it has been a hell of a hundred days around here.