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Wed. Jan 08, 2003

City of Brotherly Love, Part Two

City of Brotherly Love, Part Two – In the runup to this weekend’s Falcons-Eagles playoff game, regional prejudices rear their ugly head, like the banner at the top of this page that reads, “We won the Civil War – so shut your redneck face,” as if William Tecumsah Sherman will be dug up and placed in an Eagles uniform Saturday night.

Then there’s the article in the Philadelphia Daily News: “Don Russell of the Philadelphia Daily News claims the Journal-Constitution’s ’barely literate readers’ are a bunch of ’Southern yahoos’ who believe targeting Eagles QB Donovan McNabb’s sore ankle is fair game. They’ve asked their readers to send in ideas for their ’special We Hate Atlanta Blitz Package.’ ”

Somewhere in America, there’s an office pool not on the outcome of this game, but on how many Philly fans will be arrested during it. This is the legacy of the Philadelphia fan. They not only have their own jail in the stadium, they’ve got their own Sunday judge, just for the games, with their own “Eagles Court”: “But with about six minutes left to go in the 4th quarter, police stopped making arrests, according to Event One security guards who worked the stadium. ’We had a couple of fights right at the end,’ said one guard, who asked not to be identified. ’But the cops said, ’We’re done.’ They were told not to make any more arrests. So they just evicted them.’ [...] But the news did not please [Judge] McCaffery, who has volunteered his time every Sunday during football season for the last three years to adjudicate trouble at the Vet [the Eagles stadium].”

“The innovative Eagles Court has been highly successful and helped send a message that the team and the city are serious about cracking down on the rowdy and lewd behavior that has given Philly fans a black eye around the league.”

Too bad the message hasn’t gotten through, despite their own jail, despite their own judge.