Frank Fitzpatrick of the Inquirer is being killed in town for this and a couple of other columns he's written lately, which is a good indication that he's 100 percent right:
No, no, Nanette, it's not really those nattering New Yorkers we despise.I've said this many times but it bears repeating: By constantly booing and bitching about their teams, and by attempting to push every superstar player out of town, Philly's fans are making it harder, not easier, for their teams to win a championship.Nor those hidebound Bostonians, either.
It's ourselves, stupid.
We're Philadelphia sports fans. We hate us more than them.
Why?
Well, for a start, 25 years - that's 100 seasons - of title-less anger, frustration, hurt, and civic jealousy can generate a lot of self-loathing.
We fool ourselves into believing we vent all that animosity in those big, bellowing boos that are our collective (name-)calling cards or in all the mean-spirited griping that is the coin of the "rip it" realm on talk radio WIP (We're Insufferable Philadelphians).