Welcome to the City of brotherly love, which has love for nobody other than it’s own. Philly is a rough town and a town that prides itself on being a piece of shit, so in that respect, I guess it has something in common with New Orleans.
1) The fans. Not only did they boo Santa Claus, not only did a daughter throw back a foul ball that her father so callously caught for her, not only did they throw snowballs and batteries at opposing players, not only did a drunk fan gag himself and intentionally puke on an off duty police officer and his 11 year old daughter, not only did a fan attack perennial badass Tie Domi while in the penalty box, but fan behavior was so abhorrent that they felt the need to install a courtroom inside old Veterans Stadium and inside what is now Lincoln Financial Field, although that courtroom has since been closed.
2) City Wage Tax. If you live in Philadelphia, you must pay a 3.9102% rate of your earnings for having the audacity to live in Philadelphia while having a job whether or not that job is located in the city itself. If you work in Philadelphia but don’t live in the city, you must pay a rate of 3.4828%. How the fuck they came up with those percentages, I haven’t got the slightest clue. They don’t even seem to fall into any fraction that has a factor of under 64.
3) Sports. Few major sports cities have been so cursed in the Championship department as much as Philly for cities that are home to all 4 major sports in America. The Eagles haven’t won an NFL Championship since 1960, and only 3 in their existence the Phillies have been around since 1883, and have won the World Series only twice, the Flyers have won only 2 Stanley Cups, and none since 1975, the 76ers have 3 titles, the first in 1955 when they were the Syracuse Nationals, the 2nd in 1967, where they broke the Celtics reign of 8 straight titles and the most recent in 1983. To break that down, that is nearly 350 years of professional sports and a grand total of 10 Championships. Furthermore, on July 15, 2007, with a 10-2 loss to the St Louis Cardinals, the Philadelphia Phillies became the first team in professional sports with 10,000 losses.
4) Hey fuckhead, it’s Italian Ice, not Water Ice, or as you call it “Wooter Ice” it’s South St, not Sow St. It’s you guys, not youse guys.
5) While we’re at it, it’s a Sub not a fucking Hoagie. Got it dickbreath.
6) Even the website “Philly Sucks” sucks.
7) While Cheesesteaks are delicious, I prefer a food that doesn’t require me to order it “Wiz, with” To be honest, everybody knows about Geno’s or Pat’s Steaks. The best ones from my experience are in South Philly though. That said, if you go to Philly, try the sandwich locals rave about, not the tourists. Get yourself a Roast Pork Sandwich. You will thank me, and most everywhere that serves cheesesteaks will serve these.
8) Citizens Bank Ballpark was voted the #1 Vegetarian Ballpark in MLB by Food Network. Hey fuckface! Veggies have no place at a baseball game other than to be used as a topping on an encased meat. Capice!
9) If the first thing you mention about your town is it’s localized convenient store, something is seriously wrong with your town. And oh yeah. Wawa ain’t shit!
10) Rocky. Not to say Rocky wasn’t a great movie or series of movies, but Philadelphia is one of the great American cities out there. It seems beneath it to have a statue of a fictional movie character. That is something mid-sized cities do, like Milwaukee, putting up a statue of the Fonz.
One thing I love about Philly though, if you know anything about college basketball, you probably have heard about “The Big Five” which is a made up conference of Philly colleges that includes Penn, Temple, St Joe’s (opponents will often chant “Nova rejects” at this team while on the court), LaSalle and Villanova (which technically isn’t inside Philly’s borders). All five of these schools play each other out of their real conferences every season. The creed of the Big Five reads “They say there is no trophy for winning the Big Five. They must not be from Philadelphia.” There have been movements to include Drexel in it, but to no avail. As of 2015, at least one Big Five School has made it to the NCAA basketball tournament for 38 straight years. The series was suspended in 1991, but revived again in 1999. The games used to be all held at the Palestra (home to Penn and the first Final Four) but now the games are held at the host teams arena.
Next week, we dodge city rats on our local subway platform as we travel to New York City which, if commercials from my youth are any indication, you don’t want your salsa being made there. That will finish up the NFC as we have already done Washington and Dallas. I will make an announcement where I will go after that. We have already done the AFC West, so the options include the North, South or East.