Brawling Phillies Fans Live Up To Philadelphia Sports Stereotypes On Opening Day
It may be time to bring back “Eagles Court” to mete out punishment in the City of Brotherly Love.
One of the sports world’s most well worn cliches is the supposed derangement of the Philadelphia sports fan. Those who’ve thrown in their lot with the Phillies, Sixers, Eagles and Flyers, any hacky sports writer will tell you, are Santa-booing, battery-throwing miscreants.
But some of us can see through the stereotype. We can see past the decades-old stories of drunken misbehavior. We can evaluate the team on more recent happenings and when we do, we’re left with one depressing thought: Philly sports fans are pretty nuts. So nuts, that we’re proposing the return of “Eagles Court,” the underground courtroom in the bowels of old Veterans Stadium, where punishment was meted out to unruly Eagles fans.
How else to deal with fools like this?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEFTvbTLhVm
That’s video from Monday’s Phillies home opener. And as much as Philly sports fans roll their eyes at their reputation, they keep producing videos like this. Is it a coincidence that the first drunken brawl of the new MLB season took place at Citizens Bank Park, the same place where a fan once intentionally puked on a family because they ratted out his drunk, obnoxious buddy? Or is it confirmation of the reputation?
We could ask the same question about last week’s horse-punching celebrations after Villanova won the NCAA title. Or the 2015-2016 season from Eagles fans, which saw flying cheesesteaks, violent road trips and the brutal KO of an obnoxious dude in a Giants jersey.
Coincidences? All of them? Or examples of a truth revealing itself over and over again?
Look, even with all this idiocy, I’m not willing to paint all Philly sports fans with the same brush. Most of them seem like loyal, impassioned fans who do good things like mock Greg Hardy by raising money for a women’s shelter in Dallas, find humor in their team’s ineptitude and put aside petty differences to when tragedy strikes. So here’s a suggestion: Maybe it’s not that Philly sports fans, as a whole, are any worse than those in other cities. Maybe the worst of the worst in Philly are just worse than the worst other places.
Why? I’ve got a theory for that too. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Moronic fans show up at Phillies, Eagles, Flyers and Sixers games subconsciously aware of all the times their drunken fathers, uncles and grandpas had to visit Eagles Court. Then they act as they’re believe their supposed to. How to stem the tide? Bring disgraced, porn-loving judge Seamus McCaffery out of retirement so he can once again show unruly fans in Philly how to behave.