The last team I really loved was the 2000 Philadelphia 76ers. This is the type of love that most people can only muster a few times in their lives, where every game and even every possession is life and death. Where every loss hurts, even if they're only few and far between, and every game can be won, even if you're down 3-1 to the Lakers.
I watched that Sixers team rise through the regular season and run through the playoffs. Watched Vince Carter's three-ball rattle off the rim. Watched Allen Iverson bleed and pound his chest in the riotous arena that he and his backup band built that spring. I skipped homework, skipped parties and skipped work. When Allen Iverson stepped over Tyronn Lue in L.A. I was screaming in my best friend's house because it was going to happen. Just like Bono told us at the U2 concert the week before the finals started, Philadelphia was going to get lucky.
Then I watched them lose and watched them fall apart. Watched the trades and squabbles and the legal trouble. The love will always be there, but it can never be the same.
I've just spent the night sitting in a Manchester sports bar watching the Eagles dink-and-dunk their way out of the Super Bowl. Watched a man who once started a season with an onsides kick castrate his offense. And again, I watched it all melt away. In Philadelphia, my generation was born, schooled, came to fruition and is now staring at the real world having never known a title. Who's to say whether we'd parade or riot? We are a generation that knows only failure.
What we've learned is to find other ways to count victories besides banners. When Curt Schilling got 300 strikeouts. When Charles Barkley won his MVP title. When the Eagles stopped Emmitt Smith on fourth-and-1. Twice.
We grew to love hating -- hating the Braves and the Blue Jays and the Devils and the Rangers and the Lakers and Giants and the Cowboys. We even grew to love hating our own. But that didn't mean we couldn't hope. After Ray Rhodes cursed his way through the 1995 season and the Birds flattened the Lions at the Vet in the first round of the playoffs, everyone could see the titles. Except they never came.
I was sitting in centerfield for Game 6 of the 1993 NLCS when the Phillies beat the Braves to go to the World Series.
It was going to happen because the energy demanded it and it felt like you could will this club right down Broad Street. But things like this take more than will.
And that something extra has been missing for as long as I've known. It's a hard proposition to really be a fan and not just settle for good efforts or exciting contests. This thing we supposedly do for leisure, watching simple games, can suddenly become emotionally taxing. Whole hours or whole days get lost in a mismatch that's going unexploited or an overly generous strike zone. You become irritable, short-tempered, and prone to profanity. Occasionally things get broken. But that's the deal you make, because sports are passion. And just like Joe Strummer once said, punk rock is important because it reminds us that being alive is more fun than being dead, simple games let us know there is more than what's in front of us.
So even if it just means getting crushed we can't turn away. Even if you've never known what it's like to scream out loud from winning.
I'm sitting in a small dorm bedroom in Northern England listening to Springsteen through propped-up discman headphones. I spent last night dancing to a live band at the greatest club I've ever been to. I spent the afternoon in Liverpool. There's a book for teaching myself French next to my bottle of Spanish wine. And still, the only thing I can think about is why the Eagles couldn't score another 10 points.
And I love it still.
