Michelle Dubert | Phillies deserve real fans

In light of two recent sports events that have, for better or worse, disrupted my life, I've been forced to reassess the state of athletics and their followers in this city. The events which I refer to are the Yankees' untimely demise in their Fall Classic bid, and the other being Terrell Owens' much-publicized return to Philadelphia. They were, in different ways, equally traumatizing.

I'm just going to put this out there. Cards on the table:

I hate the Eagles with a fiery, burning passion. I'm from North Jersey, and I live and bleed Yankees and Jets. I've watched Vinny Testaverde snap his Achilles in the 1999 season opener, and I've witnessed Chad Pennington's arm turn to rubber in the span of three years.

Don't talk to me about heartache.

The media fanfare surrounding Owens' reappearance at Lincoln Financial Field demonstrated how deeply passionate - at the precipice of radical - Philadelphians are about football.

The game itself seemed to disappear inside the saucier story of Philadelphia's quest to own T.O. Year after year, the Eagles are the apple of everyone's eye, leaving the Phillies to wallow in neglect - chiefly because they choke every season.

The relationship between a team and a fan is like a marriage. There are emotional ups and downs, disappointments, thrills, and sometimes even doubt. But in the end, you are bound by love. In sickness and in health. Till death do us part.

This unbreakable bond is quite visibly displayed elsewhere in the northeast like New York and Boston, but Philly is an anomaly, leaving intruders like me to question just how hardcore these fans truly are. They are unquestionably emotional, euphoric with wins and virtually suicidal with tough losses. But loyal, I'm not so sure.

In many ways, the Phillies are the black sheep of a creamy white flock. They haven't appeared in the postseason since 1993 (Mitch Williams, anyone?) and have played sour seasons when the Eagles, Sixers and Flyers have put together competitive teams with playoff potential.

"The Philadelphia Phillies are the losingest franchise in professional sports. They've sucked forever," College senior and Philadelphia native Ben Tracy said. "There hasn't been much of a baseball tradition in Philadelphia. . We don't have the tradition that cities like New York and Boston have."

The culture of winning, Tracy argued, is the keystone of a loyal fan base. In that vein, "The Eagles are the only possible bandwagon team in Philadelphia," he said. "Nobody gets on the Phillies bandwagon." In other words, Philadelphia could be a true baseball city if the team made the playoffs at least once every 13 years.

"It's a good baseball town - I just think the fans are kind of beaten down," said Philadelphia Inquirer sports writer Paul Hagen, who has covered the Phillies and Major League Baseball for the last 20 years. "There is a legacy of failure certainly that's reflected in the fans," he said. "No professional team in the history of American sports has lost as many games as the Phillies."

Hagen also points to a deeper problem than schizophrenic fans, relegating part of the blame to management. As the focus on team payroll sharpens, many fans consider the Phillies a losing proposition. "If management doesn't put a compelling product on the field, why should fans invest money and emotions on a team who isn't trying to do whatever it can to win?" he said. Bottom line: "They want a parade."

While these points are valid, they act more as excuses than palpable explanations. According to the orthodoxy under which I was raised, abandoning one's team on account of sucking is just plain unacceptable. This ideology is at work in other cities around the country, too; Chicago Cubs fans, for example, have crafted their ballclub's perennially unexceptional seasons into a kind of martyr's brigade. The Cubs' 98-year World Series dry spell has turned them into America's most celebrated underdogs.

The gap in championships is a cause for disenchantment, or even despair, but not for desertion. The climate in Philadelphia for the past several years would indicate that one can't effectively be a Phillies fan and an Eagles fan if their winning percentages don't measure up - as if rooting for a loser will poison the winner.

Maybe the Phils would stop choking if they had real fans.

Michelle Dubert is a College senior from Closter, N.J. Her e-mail address is dubert@dailypennsylvanian.com. Department of Strategery appears on Thursdays.

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