By Peter Gleason
Remember when Sports Illustrated ruled the roost in sports journalism?
Writers like Dan Jenkins and Frank Deford and Curry Kirkpatrick and Bill Nack used to make you sit up and take notice every week.
You couldn’t wait for your subscription to come in the mail, and as your turned the pages, you said:
Holy shit!
Those days are long gone, as ESPN the Magazine very often beats SI to the punch on stories and photos even though ESPN comes out every two weeks.
Now all you get is the same old Conventional Wisdom you get everywhere — but not in FASTPHILLYSPORTS.COM!
SI posted a piece today rating the worst things about the NFL, and don’t you know the bubbleheads at SI have picked Eagles fans as the:
Most hated fan base
It all started in December 1968, when those disenchanted fans of the Eagles sitting at Franklin Field decided that the best way to unleash their invective was to hurl snowballs at Frank Olivo, a 19-year-old man who stepped onto the field in a Santa Claus suit. The fans were disgusted because the then-lame franchise was winning too much at the end of the season—winning their way right out of the derby for USC’s O.J. Simpson, who went to Buffalo as the first pick in the 1969 draft. Philadelphia took defensive back Leroy Keyes (who?) with the third pick, leaving Joe Greene on the board for the Steelers with the next selection.
In 1998, the team installed a jail in the bowels of Veterans Stadium and hired a judge, the delightfully-named Seamus McCaffery, to preside over the rowdiest of an infamous bunch. And in 1999, several of Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin’s teammates were understandably distressed when they thought Eagles fans were booing the future Hall-of-Famer as he lay on the field with the neck injury that ended his career. In truth, the fans were booing Deion Sanders, but the fact that they cheered as Irvin lay on the field motionless tells you all you need to know. Every fan base is unfortunately defined by the minority who do stupid stuff like this, but it seems that Eagles fans are more defined than any other group.
Really?
Is this same old crap all you got?
No wonder Sports Illustrated is starting to resemble what Jenkins used to call it:
The Four-Color Scrapbook for the Two-Yacht Family!
