Philly Fans Have A Lot Not To Care About

July 17, 2006 | By Marc Lombardi | Discuss

While there are many things that Philadelphia sports fans care about, there are even more things of which we don't.

We don't care about World Cup Soccer. Not anything like the rest of the world, at any rate. We don't care that the United States team sucks or that its coach is now gone. With the exception of the sixteen guys from South Philly who paraded for two blocks on Broad Street , we definitely don't care that Italy beat France on penalty kicks. Do you know why the most important game in the tournament came down to a series of overtime, tie-breaking penalty kicks? Because the final match followed the same boring format of every other soccer match. Similar to what nerds experience on prom night, there's no scoring in soccer. When the U.S. team scores as many goals in the tournament as the number of runs the Phillies usually give up in the first inning of a home game, you can plan on a heaping serving of "we don't care." Soccer may be fun to play, but it's boring to watch. Sure, the participation of millions of children and teenagers means the sport's popularity in the U.S. is gaining in recent years. But millions of people also like to play darts, volleyball and bowling and we could care less when they're televised. (If you have ESPN2 you know all of them are indeed aired on TV). The only soccer related news we do care about is when Zinedine Zidane, Zinedine ZidaneZinedine ZidaneZinedine Zidanethe top player on France's team, got ejected for head-butting an Italian opponent in response to insults against his mother and sister. That's because not only was it just plain funny, but it was nice to see France actually take action against an enemy for once instead of cowering long enough for the U.S. to help.

We don't care about Barbaro. Not like we did a month and a half ago, at least. We feel sorry for this champion of a horse being at death's door, but I think that if you were to randomly approach people on the street and ask them their opinion – eight out of ten wouldn't care. I mentioned to one woman in my office that a friend of mine was upset that Barbaro wasn't doing very well. She asked me if Barbaro was my friend's wife. People around here have moved on, much like they have in the rest of the country, regardless of what the local media thinks. Yes, it is tragic what happened and it is another in the line of local sports stories that don't finish as well as expected. But this horse is getting taken care of far better than any single person who was injured by Hurricane Katrina, so it's hard to feel too much empathy for him or his millionaire owners. Also, much like horse racing's Triple Crown, our concern as sports fans only lasted about one month and then we were more interested in Eagles' mini-camp. We prefer "athletes" who don't sleep standing up or get an apple for doing well at the end of a race (with the exception of Lance Armstrong). And speaking of Lance Armstrong…

We don't care about the Tour de France. Actually, there may be fewer than a dozen people in the entire country who still care about it and aren't on the U.S. Postal Service or Saturn racing teams, so this is not just a Philadelphia phenomenon. Lance Armstrong retired and, as a result, we don't care about the race any more. In fact, even when Armstrong was still active we hardly cared. The only yellow shirt most people worry about now is the pit-stained one that the kid in McDonalds is wearing while he's cooking their Quarter Pounders. By the way, I used to ride a bike and thought it was excellent. Then I turned 15. Also, there's that pesky France again. If I wanted to watch a sport that took place in France I'd be much more impressed with seeing Female Armpit Hair Tractor Pulls or Professional Mustache Trimming. The French Open is only tolerable because we at least get to hear women grunt and get covered in red clay. I'll pass on the 'Tour de Lanceless.'

We don't care about Terrell Owens' faith in God, as mentioned in his new self-titled ego-masturbating autobiography, "T.O." We're fairly certain that the only God he is humbled by at the moment is the one mentioned on every piece of cash in his wallet. Frankly, we don't care about anything in T.O .'s book except for what he says about the Eagles. And even then it's only like one of those illegal football pools everyone has seen (read: played) at one point in their lives: For amusement purposes only. The fact that T.O. wrote the book with Jason Rosenhaus, the brother of Owens' slimy agent (Drew Rosenhaus) makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It's the equivalent of Eva Braun writing a book with Adolf Hitler's propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Except Eva Braun wouldn't have been dumb enough to say she was misquoted in her own autobiography. Yes, even T.O. can't get T.O. straight sometimes. You know what they say? If it looks like a jackass and sounds like a jackass…

We don't care who Bobby Abreu plays for…as long as it's not the Phillies once the trading deadline passes. Whether it's the Mets, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the White Sox or the Angels, we just want him gone. Do us a favor, and please take Pat Burrell while you're at it. We also want decent value in return, not some has-beens or other high-priced underachievers. Just because we don't like a player or his style of play doesn't mean we don't realize their worth. The Phillies could very simply ship either one of these defensive liabilities to an American League team in need of a DH. Remember what the return to the AL did to Jim Thome? That's right; he saved a lot of money on his purchases of Ben Gay and kept his power stroke at the same time. All while opening the door for the Phillies to start up the Ryan Howard bandwagon.

We don't care what Billy Wagner thinks about his former team. We didn't really care what he thought when he was on the Phillies, and we certainly don't care what he thinks about the Phils now that he's a Met. As a matter of fact, Billy Wagner should really concentrate more on his own job as there have been rumors that the Mets have asked the Phillies about the availability of Tom Gordon. You know what that means, Billy? You may be getting replaced by Flash Gordon twice in one year.

We don't care about the Philadelphia Soul. As much as I wish we did, we don't. Maybe it's Bon Jovi's involvement in the team's ownership that brings some form of de facto corniness. It also could be that 'Jon Bon' is a diehard Giants fan and that doesn't fly with a football crowd more devoted to the Eagles than they are to the United States. We just don't care about the Soul, otherwise some of the 80,000 faithful who crowd into 'the Linc' 5 months out of the year would at least trickle into the Wachovia Center for a game or two. That hasn't happened. Arena Football is schoolyard ball but with pads. Sure, the scoring is incredibly high and some of the plays are exciting, but I've also seen some of those same plays at Marconi Park on Broad and Oregon in South Philly.

We don't care about the fact that the Flyers drafted Claude Giroux, a speedy young winger who is so memorable that Bobby Clarke forgot his name when he got to the podium, in the NHL entry draft. That's because we're more interested in the two guys who were drafted just before and just after the Flyers' pick. With the 21st selection in the first round, the New York Rangers selected South Jersey's own Bobby Sanguinetti, a defenseman who is going to be very well suited for the new NHL. Two picks later was the highpoint of the event. The Washington Capitals selected goaltender Semen Varmalov. Yes, his name is Semen. Yes, he is going to be playing is Washington, D.C. Yes, you can all write your own punch-line involving a blue dress. And that's why we care about nothing else having to do with the NHL draft aside from the player with the worst first name in professional sports.

We don't care about supporting losing teams with deadbeat ownerships and clueless general managers who are either too afraid to spend the money where it's needed most or too likely to spend the money on where it's needed the least. Do you hear that Dave Montgomery? Do you hear that Billy King? Do you hear that Bobby Clarke? We don't care. And if you continue to screw us over (as fans) we are the ones who will be calling for your departures en masse. No one will protect you from our wrath. Unless you are referring to the same form of protection that Bill Giles thought Brett Myers was giving his wife in Boston a few weeks back.

We don't care how much weight Andy Reid lost, because we're too busy worrying about the other losses the Eagles had last season. We're particularly concerned with the ones that kept the Eagles from reaching the playoffs -- all ten of them. We also don't care how many more players' cousins, BYU grads or former Olympians the Eagles bring in. If they don't shore up what appears to be glaring weaknesses to the depth at running back and wide receiver, we're going to be calling for a new head of player personnel decisions for next season. Personally, while I'm proud of his accomplishment, I liked Andy Reid better when he was able to play on a seesaw with Corey Simon.

Want to know what else we don't care about?

We don't care about Michelle Wie. I hear there's a professional golf tour for women. Maybe she should go play there sometime. We don't care much about Billy King's difficulty in finding a new address for Allen Iverson. No matter what happens with A.I., the team is still going to be stuck with Chris Webber and they won't be going anywhere for at least the next five years. We don't care about the casinos closing down in Atlantic City for a few days. A.C. is just a second class version of Las Vegas anyway. And at least you can bet on sports in Las Vegas. Even better, we can still play poker online and find a game with a five dollar ante at that. At least until Congress has its way and screws that up.

Finally, we don't care about any excuse that former St. Joe's Prep and current Minnesota Timberwolves player Eddie Griffin had for crashing his car while allegedly drinking and masturbating to a porno while driving. Nothing – not even hockey players named after man-juice – can top that for sheer amusement. And nothing Griffin could ever say would clear his name or his record on something like that. And even if there was…

…we wouldn't care.

Marc Lombardi can be reached by email at mlombardi@phillypurge.com