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Face it -- Philly's a football town

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

The Phillies are moving to the brink of the Broad Street parade that the city has thirsted so desperately for with increasing intensity over 25 years, while the Eagles are becoming the picture of mediocrity, watching their Super Bowl title dreams of this decade slip from their grasp at the bottom of the NFL's toughest division. If Philadelphia was ever a baseball town, it would be today.

Indeed, check out this poll on Philly.com and you'll see that baseball is trouncing football, and Daily News sportswriter Paul Hagen has published an ode to the national pastime here in Philly:

Look, this isn't complicated. There's a deep pool of passion for both baseball and football here. The pendulum will swing toward whichever side is experiencing the most success at the moment.
These days, being a baseball guy in Philadelphia is a pretty frantic existence. There's been a building boom on main streets and construction cranes still dot the skyline. The population has exploded.
These days, Philadelphia is a bright-red baseball town.

Really? Then how do you explain the fact more that thousands more Philadelphians  viewed a depressing Eagles loss on Sunday than watched the most important Phillies' victory in 15 years:

Anyway, I've got the overnight ratings here in my hand, and it's pretty surprising. I expected the Eagles to win, but according to these numbers they dominated. Keep in mind that the Eagles game was broadcast on Fox, while the Phillies game was on TBS, so the Cable/Broadcast factor has to be considered.
That said, the Eagles drew a 22.7 rating, while the Phillies drew a 13.8.

Agreed, the baseball broadcasts on TBS are a huge problem (the NLCS will be on Fox) but the reality is that Philadelphia is a football town. Look, I'm a baseball guy myself, but that doesn't bother me. It is what it is. But why? You could probably write a 10,000 word essay on that, but here's a couple of quick thoughts.

First, baseball is a routine, while football is a ritual -- and Philadelphia is a city that is in love with rituals. Look at the instincts that caused this city to create the Mummers parade over 100 years ago, and you'll see them reflected in your hardcore Eagles' fan today -- the wearing of the jersey, the obsessions with tailgating and food and the daylong party, and the week-long buildup. It all traces back to Philadelphia's history as a factory town -- six days of back-breaking work leading up to the emotional release of Sundays and holidays; the work patterns have changed for the most part but old habits die hard.

And let's face it: Another factor is race -- Major League Baseball, and the Phillies in particular, have done a horrible job in marketing their sport to blacks and Latinos here, and that's a big part of what you see in those TV ratings. We learned that first hand this week at the Daily News -- on Sunday we sent reporters to bars in predominantly black and Hispanic sections of the city to get Phillies' reaction stories, and found that baseball fans were lonelier than the Maytag repairman. (Likewise, the reason that baseball is winning the Philly.com poll could be that Internet use is skewed somewhat to the more affluent and to whites).

Check out our story from West Philly:

In this economically depressed neighborhood, folks say they look forward all week to the Eagles game.
"The Phillies are on all the time, it feels like," said Jason Anderson, standing outside the lounge in a Brian Westbrook jersey. "The Eagles are the only thing most folks around here look forward to. You might as well block those three hours off."
Nicholas said he thinks the inner city has a deeper connection with football than with baseball.
"You look around here, there's a number of Pop Warner football leagues and summer camps for kids," Nicholas said. "There aren't many baseball camps in the 'hood for kids to get at. And kids nowadays don't want to

Like I said before, it is what it is -- and given the fact that the Phillies are setting all-time attendance records, they probably don't feel an urgent need to increase their marketing in minority neighborhoods. Ultimately, the fans pay a price, though, because the number of African-American baseball players has already been on a long decline. How many would-be Jimmy Rollins or Ryan Howards of the 2010s aren't even picking up a ball and bat?