It's All About Smarty Jones

When my son was little, he used to always ask me, "Dad, why are you so down on our teams?" I would try to explain to him the long painful history of being a Philadelphia sports teams fan. Going back to my very young years of the Phillies blowing the pennant in 1964, watching the sorrowful Eagles through the late 60s and through most of the 70s. The Phillies spend most of their years in the basement. The Sixers trading away their best players or constantly losing to the Celtics or Lakers. 

Then there was the 1977 National League Championship Series against the LA Dodgers when in game three (Black Friday), when in the second inning when Garvey appeared to miss home plate and followed by a Steve Yeager single to score Dusty Baker (2-0). The fans then got to Burt Hooten who proceeded to walk four batters in a row. Then with a 5-3 lead going into the ninth inning watching the Phillies fall apart. Game 4 literally washed away any hopes of winning. After a two-hour delay after the first inning and constant drizzle and rain for the remainder of the game finally ended in defeat. A game that should have been stopped due to the weather continued and lead to the Dodgers going to the World Series.

An offsides call was missed by the ref, Stickle to cost the Flyers a Stanley Cup in 1980. 

The 1980 Eagles completely dominated the Cowboys in the NFC Conference Championship only to go down easily against the Raiders in the Super Bowl. 

Back to the Phillies and 1993. What a year! Macho Row! They came out smoking and never looked back. That is until game six and Joe Carter's three-run homer off of Mitch Williams the Wild Thing.

Of course who could forget the last Eagles game at the Vet. It was the NFC Championship game in 2003. What a way we were going to end at the Vet. The Bucs had never won a playoff game on the road and to top it off they had never won a game below 32 degrees! Brian Mitchell started off the game with a 70-yard kickoff return followed by a 20-yard Duce Staley touchdown. This was going to be a slaughter!!! The Bucs went on to outscore the Eagles 27-3. 

These were just a few memories that would come to mind every time my son would ask me that question, "why are you down on our teams".  I could have spent hours, days, weeks, months, years retelling the day in and day out heartache of being a Philly fan. He just couldn't understand it until June 4, 2004. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I had turned my son into an avid sports fan like myself. That year like other years it was a tradition to watch the Triple Crown races. This year in particular since Smarty Jones was a local horse and we felt like we were rooting for the home team. There we were ready to see history in the making, a Triple Crown winner. As the race began, we were out of our seats cheering on Smarty Jones. Coming up to the top of the stretch, Smarty had a four-length lead. As he came around the stretch, he still had the lead. And then came Birdstone to take the lead and crush our dream of a local horse winning the triple crown. No sooner did the race end, my son turned to me and said, "Dad, now I know what you mean about the Philly teams."

Since this time whenever we have any glimpse of hope, knowing in the back of our mind what lies ahead, we only need to say two words to each other, Smarty Jones.