When I was born in 1980, the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series.\u00a0 Throughout my childhood I had a red baseball bat signed by each member of that championship team resting in the corner of my bedroom.\u00a0 In 1983, the Philadelphia 76ers won the NBA championship.\u00a0 In 1985, Villanova won the NCAA basketball championship in one of the greatest underdog wins in sports history.\u00a0 Little did I know that, at just five years of age, my best Philadelphia sports memories were already behind me.\u00a0 Particularly sad for me is that I have no memory whatsoever of these victories.<\/p>\n
What I do know quite well, unfortunately, is pain.\u00a0 Disappointment.\u00a0 Heartbreak.\u00a0 Frustration.\u00a0 Anger.\u00a0 These are the emotions of a Philadelphia sports fan.<\/p>\n
I remember attending Game 6 of the Phillies National League Championship Series in 1993, when they clinched the title and advanced to the World Series.\u00a0 I also remember watching Joe Carter gallop excitedly around the bases after blasting the game-winning home run for the Toronto Blue Jays in that World Series.<\/p>\n
I remember the Flyers advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1997 only to be swept in four games by the Detroit Red Wings.<\/p>\n
I remember the 76ers advancing to the NBA Finals in 2001 and being demolished in 5 games by the Los Angeles Lakers, whose star player, Kobe Bryant, is from Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the Eagles\u2026 oh, the Eagles, Philadelphi\u2019a most beloved team of all.\u00a0 Where to start?\u00a0 They advanced to the conference championship game 3 years in a row- in 2001, 2002,\u00a0and 2003-\u00a0only to lose each time.\u00a0 Then they broke through in the following year and advanced to the Super Bowl\u2026 and lost that game as well.\u00a0 Should I mention Terrell Owens?\u00a0 No- that\u2019s another disaster in itself.<\/p>\n
The situation became so bleak that Philadelphia fans adopted local college St. Joseph\u2019s University\u2019s basketball team as its own and became passionate about them as they earned a number 1 seed in the NCAA tournament in 2004 following an undefeated regular season.\u00a0 Predictably the team lost, in heartbreaking fashion, to Oklahoma State University in the regional finals.<\/p>\n
Similarly, later in 2004 the town pinned its hopes on local race horse Smarty Jones, which won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, putting it on the brink of capturing horseracing\u2019s most coveted prize, the Triple Crown.\u00a0 Of course, the horse faded in the final stretch and was overtaken by a 36-to-1 longshot, Birdstone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The cumulative suffering these events have caused has led me to conclude that the city is cursed- perhaps Villanova\u2019s unbelievable run in 1985 used up a generation\u2019s worth of luck.\u00a0 Don\u2019t believe me?\u00a0 More to come\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was born in 1980, the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series.\u00a0 Throughout my childhood I had a red baseball bat signed by each member of that championship team resting in the corner of my bedroom.\u00a0 In 1983, the Philadelphia 76ers won the NBA championship.\u00a0 In 1985, Villanova won the NCAA basketball championship in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}