A few thoughts came to me the other night while watching the World Series. Folks across the rest of the country don’t like Philadelphia. Especially when it comes to sports. Not that I blame them. Philly sports fans have a rather nasty reputation – throwing corroded batteries at opposing team fans, hurling insults about outfielders’ mothers, even throwing snowballs at Santa Claus – yeah, we’re a unique bunch. And the rest of the country hates us.
This fact becomes most apparent when watching nationally televised sports events. Ever watch “Monday Night Football” when the Eagles are playing? Never a positive thing said about the team. Even the sportscasters are rooting for the other team. At the World Series games played this week in Philadelphia, the Fox network cameras focused more on Yankees fans in the stands than the 90% of Phillies fans on hand.
It gets so bad that many Philly sports fans will have the TV on mute and listen to local announcers on the radio to at least get a semi-fair accounting of the game. This is something I’ve done for years, and it occurs to me that with the graphics on screen these days – do we really need announcers at all anymore?
Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn are much missed local announcers for the Phillies but if folks remember they knew when to be quiet. Today’s announcers have the obnoxious habit of filling every empty second with some obscure fact or just pointless babble. It’s not needed. Sometimes announcer quiet and the sound of the crowd is all that is needed. Just my opinion.
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