Welcome.......

My first official blog entry will give you an overview on who I am, where I'm coming from and where I hope to go. After reading it you should be able to figure out pretty quickly as to whether or not you enjoy my material.

First off, I'm a 32 year old die hard Philadelphia sports fan who has grown sick and tired of his hometown teams not being good enough. As you all know, its been almost 25 years since this town has won a major sports champhionship and frankly, that's embarassing considering we're the 6th largest city in the United States (we were 4th for most of this futility). What makes it even sadder is that we have a team in all 4 major sports while cities like St. Louis (Rams/Cardinals), Baltimore (Orioles/Ravens) Tampa Bay (Bucs/Lightning, and Anaheim (Angles/Ducks) have not only won championships in that time frame, they did it in Multiple sports! But ontop of all that, we have city rivals such as NY and Boston winning championships like its second nature. I mean it wasn't that long ago that I actually felt sorry for the city of Boston and now look at them....why can't that be Philly? WHY!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually there many reasons why it hasn't been us and a lot of it starts with the ownership, especially for the Phillies and their unwillingness to spend money. But lets focus in on something that has been bugging me for years....bad timing.

The Fly Guys
Since the Sixers won the NBA Championship in 1983, the Flyers have appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals 3 teams. In both '85 and '87 they lost to one of the greatest Dynasties in hockey history, the Edmonton Oilers. Edmonton advanced to the finals and won every year between '84 and '88, with '86 being the exception. Of course that year the Canadians represented the Eastern Confernce instead of the Flyers who did the year before and after. Then in '97 the Flyers made it back to the finals only to be swept by the mighty Detroit Red Wings who went on to win again '98, they were definitely a dynasty at the time. It's now been a painful 10 years since the Flyers have even appeared in the finals and a dreadful 33 years since they have actually won a championship.

Bird Seed
Talk about championship futility and you have to look no further than our beloved Eagles. While they have managed to win 3 championships in their storied history, none have come since 1960 and they have never won a Super Bowl. Since '83 they have made just one appearance in the Super Bowl and once again a Philly team was matched up against a dynasty. The Eagles faced the now hated Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX (39 for you non Romans) and narrowly lost 24-21. Of course there are many areas to discuss here, but why the lost the game is not the point right now. Its once again the timing. By defeating the Eagles the Patriots won back-to-back Super Bowls and their 3rd in 4 years.

Phillies Phodder
With the distinction of losing more games than any other team in the history of baseball, atleast this team has won a championship in my lifetime which is more than I can say for the Eagles and Flyers (I was born 3 weeks after their '75 finals series ended). But that's not saying much since I was merely 5 yrs old in October of 1980 when Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson giving the Phillies their ONLY championship in their 124 year history. Yeah you read that right, 1 in 124 years. Anyway, the Phils have made one appearance in the World Series since '83 and that was in 1993 against the Toronot Blue Jays. While the Phils sported a very likeable team they too were going up against a dynasty. The Blue Jays won the World Series in '92 and took back to back titles in beating the Phillies. The best team the Phillies had fielded in years (and probably since til maybe '07) and they happen to run into a team like the Blue Jays.

Six Shots
The franchise started off in 1939 as the Syracuse Nationals and did win one title in 1955. In 1963 they officially became the Philadelphia 76ers and since then have won just 2 titles, '67n and '83. Since winning that NBA Championship in 1983 (which by the way recognized as one of the greatest teams in NBA history) the Sixers have fallen on hard times. They finally got their act together in the 2000-01 season under Allen Iverson and Larry Brown. On a personal level that was a great season for me as I had season tickets and attended every home playoff game. With exciting victories over the Paces, Raptors and Bucks the Sixers reached the NBA Finals, only to face a Laker team with Shaq and Kobe (coached by Phil Jackson) who were in the middle of winning 3 straight NBA titles....yes, ANOTHER dynasty. While the Sixers did manage to win game 1 of the finals, the Lakers won the next 4 and set a winning percentage record for a playoff season going 15-1.

So there you have it.....every team a Philly Sports franchise has lost to in a final since 1983 has been to a team in the middle of winning atleast back to back titles. Unfortunate, bad timing, bad luck, sour grapes...whatever you want to call it, those are the facts and no matter how you twist them around, we're still winless since '83.