Somehow, I found myself in Philadelphia two weeks ago Monday.
I was just passing through, really. I was in the middle of a road trip that took me from Atlantic City to Philly to Baltimore before my flight back to school, and I ended up in the City of Brotherly Love for a late lunch on Jan. 12 as I headed south. I was with a friend at some cinderblock hole in the wall, a cheesesteak place with the possessive form of some vaguely Italian-sounding man's name, like Rico's or Sal's or something equally forgettable.
So like I said, I was just passing through. But I think my brief stay in Philadelphia taught me everything I need to know.
I was in town at the perfect moment -- it was the morning after the Eagles' last win of the postseason, their sound 23-11 victory over the Giants that put Donovan McNabb in the NFC title game for the fifth time. I was there just in time to capture exactly what it means to be a Philadelphia sports fan.
When you listen to the morons on Philly's talk radio stations babble endlessly about their teams, when you read the cheap rags piled up on the newsstands, when you catch a few words muttered by the passersby in the delis, you can piece it all together.
The Eagles' divisional-round win two weeks ago Monday told the story. It was a game of redemption for McNabb, who could never, ever, ever win the big one but was still being given another chance. For Andy Reid, who was on his way out the door a month prior but slowly earned back the right to keep his job. For Kevin Curtis, who had four huge catches in the second half after dropping a pass that had hit him -- literally -- directly in the face.
This is what it means to root for the Eagles. Success is defined only by how it relates to past failures. There is no winning for winning's sake. That would be too easy, too convenient, too ... happy.
What would sports in Philadelphia be without misery? We're talking about an Eagles team that's won zero out of 43 Super Bowls. The Sixers have won two of 59 NBA Championships. The Phillies are the proud defending champions of baseball's World Series, which sounds pretty exciting until you realize it's their second title out of 104.
Philadelphia has the kind of inferiority complex you can only get from having teams in football's NFC, basketball's Eastern Conference, and baseball's National League. When you spend your life rooting for underdog teams in underdog leagues, it's hard not to be a bit bitter.
Anyway, that's what was going through my mind a week later as the Cardinals overcame the Eagles in the fourth quarter, winning 32-25 and putting Arizona in the Super Bowl as more than just a host site for the first time. Not the comeback story of Kurt Warner, still going strong at 37. Not the fact that Larry Fitzgerald, who caught all three of the Cardinals' first-half touchdowns, is a freak of nature. No, I was just dwelling on how pitiful it must be to be a sports fan in Philadelphia.
As for the Super Bowl itself? I'm not even sure if I should bother watching. Maybe watching Fitzgerald take on Troy Polamalu will be epic; maybe watching Ben Roethlisberger pick apart the Cardinals' pathetic defense will be entertaining. But something about Pittsburgh-Arizona just doesn't scream "must-watch" for me.
As long as I see the Boss's halftime show and YouTube the good commercials later, I'll be all set. As for the rest of my night, maybe I'll just spend it pitying Philadelphia.
By the way, the cheesesteak sucked too.
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Evans Clinchy is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at Evans.Clinchy@tufts.edu.
