What If Santa Deserved It?

Forty years ago today, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder had hits atop the Billboard charts, LBJ was a lame duck waiting for Dick Nixon to takeover as Commander in Chief, and Santa Claus was enemy number one in the City of Brotherly Love. Okay, so Saint Nick wasn't really the prime target of the Franklin Field faithful's fury but more a casualty of being a second rate mall stand in at a game when the Eagles... well, they stunk. (the infamous Joe Kuharich era: "Joe Must Go!)

Today, the story has become the crutch of every out of town sports reporter and newspaper writer who needs to paint a negative picture of rabid Philly fans. We've heard the same uncreative Santa lines trotted out season after season and year after year. They've been beating the same dead horse for 40 years.

So what actually happened on that wet, icy day in December of 1968?

Don't look at me. I don't even think my parents were of legal drinking age in 1968. So how can we get to the bottom of this storied Christmas tale?

I like to turn to Glen Macnow and Anthony Gargano's Great Philadelphia Fan Book which documents the story quite well.

So my Christmas wish is this: for that lazy out of town writer who is going to make the same Santa joke for the 322nd time to go read this well researched account of the event with first hand sources.

And then, next time they're going to write about Philadelphia and its sports fans, come up with something new for Chris Kringle's sake.

Comments

[PotsnPans]

Stu Scott made a reference to this last night on SportsCenter(then he probably called some play "sicknutty"). I'm just tired of the media using this one event as a way to sum up Philly fans.

I never had heard the full story before, thanks for the link.

[Jonn]

I for one love it. I WANT that perspective. We're the fans that booed Santa Clause. Philly's a tough town, especially to outsiders. Growing up here though, I just thought it was normal.

So the rest of the country really isn't like us??? Hmm... I gotta tell my mother she did an awful job raising me.

[Lehigh Chris]

That book has some great stories in it.

Now maybe I can get that as a Christmas present along with whatever I win for posting this comment.

[JayDashDog]

Who cares what other cities think of us? I want visiting teams to come in here thinking that, even though it probably won't be, a D cell battery could be coming towards their head at any moment. There are very few other places where the fans are such a part of the sucess of the teams. I don't go to games because I want to make friends with a visiting Giants fan or somebody in a Mets jersey, I go because I want to be a part of scaring the living s*** out of the away team and thei fans.

[Dave]

Is anyone else unable to view pages 36 and 37?

[Estebomb]

I was watching Sportscenter at the gym today and they naturally did a story on this as well. However, in their tease for the story, they advertised it as the day the cheers turned to boos at the Vet...

...so many wrong things there I don't even know where to start. You fail yet again ESPN.