Young Didinger would ride a bus with that crew from the bar to Franklin Field each Sunday. Wretched as those Eagles were, no one from the bar booed. Didinger once asked his father how reviled quarterback Norm Snead could be so lousy. Today, the boo is a birthright for most Philly fans. Sports psychology research suggests that razzing the home team can have a negative impact on its performance. The effect seems to differ from sport to sport and skill to skill; one study found that basketball players shooting free throws were immune to booing, while other hoops research saw an increase in turnovers and fouls when fans applied pressure.
Booing can increase player aggressiveness, which may lead to mistakes think: pitchers trying to strike out a batter by overthrowing, or a linebacker making a big hit instead of a secure tackle. None of those studies examined the millennial athlete, and anecdote suggests younger players are even more sensitive.
There is no one in the Philly sports universe — or maybe any other — with a more Zen outlook on life than Bernie Parent. The two-time Stanley Cup-winning Flyers goaltender is a devotee of mid-aughts best-selling self-help book The Secret, which reduces the complexity of life to this message: The positivity you send out into the world comes back to you. On the matter of booing, I figured Parent would encourage fans to focus on the positive — to lift their teams up instead of tearing them a new one.
Instead, he has a message for his fraternity of fellow players. They escape from the real world and whatever problems it can create. Those Flyers teams wined and dined with the common folk in South Jersey and Center City; they were relatable guys, real human beings.
Most athletes today live in an alternate reality. I competed against myself. I tell young players: Learn to communicate with people. Money, of course, is what separates sports from family. Athletes know they can be traded or cut, and fans understand their heroes may skip town for a big payday elsewhere. Philly, like New York and Boston, is a tough-love town. The pastime reached new heights at the Linc three weeks after that Tampa Bay game, when officials upheld a critical interception by the Buffalo Bills.
On replay, the pick looked similar to an earlier catch by Eagles receiver Riley Cooper that was reviewed and called incomplete. Rodriguez received more boos the next day, and eventually apologized for his word choice. The rest of his tenure with the Phils was largely unremarkable, which means he'll be remembered for the "entitled" jab.
Another recent example, and perhaps more fodder for the off-base portion of basketball fans who believe younger players are to borrow a word from Sean Rodriguez entitled or soft: Embiid's teammate, Ben Simmons, got into it with booing fans early in the Sixers' playoff run. After a Game 1 home loss to the Nets in the first round, during which the Sixers were booed for a bafflingly poor effort, Simmons said he hopes fans who booed "stay on that side" when the team comes back around.
It was a fair take from Simmons, though he sort of forgot the support he and the team received all year long leading up to the postseason. In Game 2, Simmons cajoled the crowd with a "I can't hear you"-style motion, and it became clear he was leaning into the boos. The Sixers eventually turned things around, topping the Nets in the series, before losing to the Raptors in seven, and things have been smooth between Simmons and the fans since.
The fiery closer, who signed a sizable contract with the Phillies in and reached an All-Star Game in his first year, wasn't necessarily having a bad season, but it wasn't up to par with his year, and Phillies fans were restless in September, so they booed Papelbon after he blew a save. It happens. Papelbon's response, however, was far more unique: as he approached the dugout, he grabbed his crotch, a gesture that certainly seemed directed at Phillies fans' boos.
He later apologized and said he didn't mean to offend fans, but the damage was done. The Phillies traded Papelbon a year later, and his name is uttered only in disgusted tones. Though he was mainly a fan favorite known for making clutch catches on third downs, Jason Avant sparred with Eagles fans who booed the Birds during an uninspired start to the season. Avant said the Eagles started treating home games like away games that year because of the treatment they received from the home fans.
But now, it's just becoming flat-out annoying. We don't kill people. Our fans don't bring weapons to the stadium. We didn't injure Michael Irvin. We just cheered his injury. We didn't throw rocks. We threw snowballs. We just won a championship, and we didn't destroy the city like Detroit did after the Pistons win several years ago. I was in Philly the night we won, and it wasn't about causing vandalism or starting fires. It was about celebrating. That's all it was. So why do people only focus on the fact that Philadelphia fans are rowdy and we boo a lot?
If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone mention that we booed Santa Claus, I would be a multi-millionaire. I'm tired of hearing about how Philly doesn't care about its players. Why don't we receive credit for the enormous amount of fans we attract, even to away games?
A Monday night game in Miami had 20, Philadelphia jerseys in the stadium. That's absolutely unbelievable. And this was back when the Miami Dolphins were really good! We watch our teams. By comparison, 27 percent of Tampa Bay fans watched. I don't care if your team is down three games to one and facing elimination. You're in the World Series, so watch your team!
We support our teams. We know the statistics, the history. And we are there for our teams, both in good times and in bad. Yeah, we boo.
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