Mets vs. Phillies 8/14-18: Introduction

With all due respect to Chicago and Boston, Philadelphia is the most enthusiastic and hostile sports town in the U.S.

Philly hasn't won a title since 1980. When they do, and the emotional dam breaks, the corresponding celebration/destruction will be a serious study in the violence of the collective. We'll blow up buildings. We'll kill cops. We may even attempt to take City Hall and establish mob rule.

Philly fans are so hungry for a title that they 1) care about the NHL 2) act all incredulous when you tell them that Philly fans are the only people that care about the NHL 3) care about the NHL anyway. The NHL, for those of you who don't live in Southeastern PA, is the National Hockey League. Hockey is a game played on ice with sticks.

I'm a Mets fan, and the Mets are 6th on the "most hated teams" list. 1) Cowboys, 2) Giants, 3)Devils, 4) Redskins, and 5) Rangers. Most cities don't have the requisite negative energy to hate 6 teams. In Philly, there's enough and more to spare.

Correspondingly, I hate the fucking Phillies. I smiled when they traded Schilling. I cheered when Joe Carter went yard. I popped the bub when John Kruk was diagnosed with testicular cancer (JOKING). I've been surrounded by all these hoagie eating, vowel swallowing, SEPTA riding fucks for the past 15 years of my life, and if I hear one more person pronounce water "woodur", I'm gonna vomit my cheesesteak with fried onions and saltpepperketchup (which happens to be one word in Philly, just like LMNO is actually one letter) all over my newly purchased Jose Reyes teeshirt/jersey.

However, my hatred of the Phillies pre-dates the great migration of '89 (from North Jersey to Pottstown PA). I hated the Phillies BEFORE I encountered the seemingly endless animosity of the Philly fan base. Not suprisingly, this hatred stems from one of the various phobiae that I developed as a young child. Other such phobiae include but are not limited to:

1) Cows: I would have nightmares about cows, from which I would wake up screaming, "COW! COW!"

2) Gremlins: "Oh, don't worry Nicky, it's not a scary movie. It's a comedy." A comedy. So fucking funny that I slept with my lights on until I was twelve.

3) Elephants: The fucking lunatic children that actually said "yes" when the creepy-looking clown asked if anyone wanted to ride on the elephant obviously had enough trust in oddly attired adults to override the primitive fear of getting too close to animal that could kill you if it stepped on you. Not me.

4) The Cat in the Hat: A talking cat breaks into your house while your parents are away, messes everything up, and then attones for the several hours of panic and stress by cleaning and disappearing right before mom comes home. Otherwise known as a) trespassing b) breaking and entering c) interference with use/enjoyment of a chattel and d) intentional infliction of emotional distress.

and then...

5) The Philly Phanatic. The Philly Phanatic is big, green, unnatural, and aggressive. When I went to see the Mets vs. the Phillies at the old Vet in 1988, he terrified the shit out of me.

That fear, however, quickly turned to hatred (as it often does) as soon as he/it started to taunt my beloved Mets. Dragging an effigy of Doc Gooden from the back of his ATV, the Phanatic drove around in front of the Mets' dugout, pointing and sticking out his tongue. This offended my burgeoning sense of justice long before I could explain to you exactly how, if the Phanatic were an Iliadic hero, this act of blatant hubris would set the machinery of cosmic justice into motion, punishing the Phanatic for acting out of his place (I'll spare you all).

I remember asking my dad: "Why doesn't Gooden come out of the dugout with a baseball and hit the Phanatic in the head?" He replied with something about 1st degree murder.

With all this in mind, I decided to go to every game of the four game set between the Mets and the Phillies from August 14-18. Let's Go Mets.