The Wide World of Fandumb

I’ve always lived in a little cocoon. I’d root for every team in New England, listen to The Score, and read the ProJo. Occasionally, a Yankee fan or Packer fan (in the mid-nineties) or Laker fan would interlope into my world. Those brief encounters would never affect me in any way. It was almost always good-natured and the back-and-forth barbs never operated as anything more than guy banter.

My world was absolutely rocked when I got down to Philly. I thought that I loved the Sox a lot, but these folks take it to a different level. Eagles fans are like religious or political zealots. This love flirts dangerously with what CS Lewis would call obsessive love. They are also highly attuned to the way that other fans and analysts talk about their Birds; slights are found lurking in the shadows of every Inside the NFL.

It’s also not enough that they love their team. They’re obsessed with the “passion” of the city. Almost every commercial pimps this notion that they are the most passionate fans in the world. The callers to the local, sports-talk shows scream to the hosts about how much they love their team and how “embarrassed” they are when the Eagles lose. It’s like the Crusades, except with more blood and a deep-seated hatred for Michael Irvin.

If I had more time, I’d love to travel to all different cities and experience fandom there (it’d make a great book). I wonder what Packer fans are like and how is it that Dodger fans can come late and leave early. Are there other zealots out there or is Philadelphia truly unique? Do Cleveland fans feel the same way about the Browns and Cavs that Boston fans felt about the Pats and Sox? Keeping in mind that John Elway and Michael Jordan both got their reps for being clutch against C-land the same way that Dan Marino and Derek Jeter have ripped the hearts out of Bostonians.

I've wondered about these differences for a while. More recently, they were brought to life in a post on the The Axis of Right in a Yankees-are-the-bomb-because-they-have-more-rings post, which is a unique attitude held by Yankee fans (unless Canadiens fans are the same in hockey). I find this interesting because it never would have occurred to me that Philly and the Boston-area would have such different cultures, especially since the cities are topically so similar, and I wonder just how different different it can get.