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Thu. Jan 09, 2003

More Tales of Brotherly Love

More Tales of Brotherly Love – We’re back at Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia: “Don’t mistake the 700 level for the 700 Club. If the Oakland Raiders have their ’Black Hole,’ Philly has the 700 level, whose denizens are the kind of souls televangelist Pat Robertson hopes to save.”

“’I don’t think anyone from Atlanta wants to come here for a game,’ said Christina Gallagher, sipping a beer at T.A. Flannery’s Saloon. ’I don’t think anybody from any city wants to come here for a game in section 725.’ [...] In the 700 level, a fan once fired a flare gun across the field into a sea of empty seats. During a 1989 Eagles-Dallas game, fans fired snowballs at the Cowboys, referees, Eagles cheerleaders and, of course, the rigidly coiffed hair of then-Dallas coach Jimmy Johnson.”

“At the Phillies’ 1999 home opener, Matthew Scott, the first person in the U.S. to undergo a successful hand transplant, was invited to throw out the first pitch. When the pitch, delivered with Scott’s transplanted hand, bounced across the plate, the fans booed.”

And that Eagles Court and jail I mentioned yesterday? “It was instituted in 1997 after a particularly rowdy Eagles-49ers Monday night game in which McCaffrey estimated there were 650 fistfights. And one flare gun firing.”

AJC sports columnist Jeff Schultz makes some additional points: “Atlanta and Philadelphia don’t ring as natural geographic enemies, but you wouldn’t know that this week [...] It occurred to me sometime after receiving the 37th misspelled e-mail from Philadelphia—a feat seldom achieved outside of the Alabama state border—that maybe we’ve been missing something these past years.”

“The biggest surprise isn’t that Philly is known for having such extraordinarily obnoxious sports fans [...] Excluding organized crime hits and carefully orchestrated police beatings—followed by carefully orchestrated coverups in the mayor’s office—no professional outfits in Philadelphia have accomplished anything in the last 20 years.”

“Twenty years since a title! That’s beyond bad. That’s worse than us [...] Despite the threats, several Atlantans plan to venture into the Veterans Stadium and Sewage Pit Saturday. Nobody feels threatened. We have the immortal words of the late Frank Rizzo, Philadelphia’s former police chief, mayor and city CEO (’C’ standing for corruption), to comfort us.”

“Quoth Rizzo, ’The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It’s only the people who make them unsafe.’ ”