PROLOGUE
“Just one time – one time! - in my lifetime,” he said, shaking his head. The years of pain and suffering were apparent as he described his wish that the Eagles would one day win the Super Bowl. I know I’ve uttered the same thought, sometimes aloud, but many times in my dreams. My father too, although it didn’t work out for him. This time, the long-suffering fan was not my Dad or me. It was one of my five year old twin boys, Kevin.
My Dad and I used to talk about the Eagles often. Many of the conversations included the word “suck,” “sucks” or “sucked.” I remember detailed conversations about Jaworski, Randall and Donovan McNabb. It’s one of the things I miss the most. My Dad and I always talked Philly sports.
Although we later discussed many, many games, the last game my Dad and I actually watched together was in 1995, so long ago that the Detroit Lions were actually in the playoffs. This was the “Rodney Peete” game where the Eagles scored 31 in the second quarter and won 58 to 37 … the highest scoring game in NFL playoff history. And it wasn’t even that close. Don Majkowski threw three second half touchdown passes to close the gap, but the game was over mid-second quarter. This was a game where many of my favorite players starred, including “Arkansas” Fred Barnett and Charlie Garner. Rickey Watters also had a big game and someone named Rob Carpenter caught a Hail Mary bomb from Peete to end the first half. The Eagles picked off six passes and returned two for touchdowns. It all ended the next week at Dallas, but this was a great one.
I remember looking over at my Dad at some point during the game, maybe halftime, and he was smiling. The smile may have been about the game or may have been because he was watching it with me. But, as he sat on his smoke-stained, sort of white leather reclining chair, he was happy. The chair had a deep, brownish indentation on its right arm, Dad’s remote control hand. It looked sort of ashy even when there were no real ashes on it, which wasn’t often. Nobody else really sat on it and not because it was uncomfortable. Towards the end of the game, I remember saying to him, “I’ll always remember watching this with you,” and I do.
I remember looking over at my Dad at some point during the game, maybe halftime, and he was smiling. The smile may have been about the game or may have been because he was watching it with me. But, as he sat on his smoke-stained, sort of white leather reclining chair, he was happy. The chair had a deep, brownish indentation on its right arm, Dad’s remote control hand. It looked sort of ashy even when there were no real ashes on it, which wasn’t often. Nobody else really sat on it and not because it was uncomfortable. Towards the end of the game, I remember saying to him, “I’ll always remember watching this with you,” and I do.
About a decade and many quarterbacks and heart-breaking losses later, my kid, no taller than my waist and no heavier than a half dozen footballs, was shaking his head just like my father had shaken his, and I had shaken mine, through the years. How did we get here? How did I get this way? After all, I moved to South Florida when I was eight. More importantly, though, how did “this” infect Kevin and his twin brother, Zach, and was “this” a good thing or a bad thing? How did my five year old become a long-suffering Philadelphia sports fan?
CHAPTER ONE – Broad Street
Thirty plus years later and I can still hear Gene Hart … “Thirteen seconds left in the game … ten seconds … Orr shoots it down the ice, Parent makes the save! Ladies and gentleman, the Flyers are going to win the Stanley Cup! The Flyers win the Stanley Cup, the Flyers win the Stanley Cup, the Flyers have won the Stanley Cup!” I was nine at the time and I must have listened to my cousins’ “God Bless the Flyers” album, and cassette tape they made for me, a hundred times. The album went almost game-by-game through the Flyers’ first championship season. I recently purchased a copy despite the fact that I don’t have anything to play it on. Growing up, it was either Springsteen, Jackson Browne (“looking into their eyes, I see them running too”), a little later, or Gene Hart.
For me, this is where it all came together. It began a few years before at the Vet, watching bad Phillies’ teams in the early ‘70s with my Dad, Uncle Jerry and cousins, Marc and Scott. I loved Willie Montanez – the first favorite player I ever had. He had a huge rookie year in 1971, but I suspect he had a big hit in one of the games we attended or maybe it was just the nickname, Willie the Phillie (I later liked “Downtown” Ollie Brown, for what it’s worth). I loved the Phillies, my father’s passion, but it all fell into place with the Broad Street Bullies. It was in my blood in ‘74.
Although my family had just moved to South Florida, someone – don’t remember who – gave me some black and white lithographs of certain Flyers’ players. Flett, Saleski, the Watsons, I had a bunch of them. The lithographs, created by Charles Linnett, came in packs of three and can still be found on eBay from time-to-time. I also had all of the ‘73-74 Flyers Topps (never O-Pee-Chee) cards. These were the ones with the different colored borders. I remember getting the Islanders’ defenseman Bert Marshall – blue border – in every pack I ever opened. Hated that guy.
I used to separate the cards into teams and, using a marble, play hockey games with them. “Mint condition” didn’t mean anything to me. During the games, nothing got by Bernie Parent. Nothing. It got to the point where I had to play without him because the results were otherwise pre-ordained. I loved the card, though – yellow border with the maskless Parent wearing his leather pads, glove and number 30 (not 1) jersey.
Like Gene Hart, I’d provide the play-by-play: “Dupont [red border, way-too-close head shot] slides it over to Barber [yellow border, head shot, goofy smile]. Barber to Clarke [rare, to me, green border, action shot, NHL West All Star]. Shot. Scores!” Dave Schultz [yellow border, face shot, menacing smile, great ‘stache] would “fight” the other cards, usually, the Bruins’ Orr or Esposito. I’d play for hours, keeping score on many, many pieces of paper.
Thirty years later, our white (Stephanie says beige) –tiled, palatial, imitation living room is filled with Matchbox cars. The cars are generally grouped by color, five of each, and placed in sort of neat rows in a space between the television and “Swarovski” cabinet. Next to these rows is a large stack of paper and a yellow poster board. At times, four of the color groups remain in the corner, while the other two are laid out in rows of three, two and one, with the one located right in front of a miniature hockey goal. In between the car teams is one of those plastic discs with a silver marble inside; one of the best inventions of all time. Unlike a lone marble, which can roll forever and under everything, the marble discs, either blue or red, roll just enough and at a perfect speed.
When Kevin is in car hockey mode, the living room is no longer a safe, quiet place. His game is not only louder than mine, it’s better. Kevin plays a full season, along with playoffs. He also uses a timer, stopping the clock when someone scores, the puck is lost, Mom calls or Zach accidentally gets in the way. His game also includes a playoff bracket on a large poster board, which displays a hand-drawn Stanley Cup. There is constant movement across the much larger rink, but the same, consistent play-by-play. As Kevin slides across the ice, he talks nonstop about the movements of the nameless, faceless, cars. Although each set of cars has a team name, you won’t find the Flyers. Kevin recognized early on that he couldn’t allow the Flyers to lose, so he pulled them from the league. Sometimes, Zach coaches one of the car teams, although that often leads to fights, and not between the cars.
For many years, Lauren Hart, Gene’s kid, has sung “God Bless America” before each Flyers’ home game. Recently, and throughout the Flyers’ 2010 playoff run, Hart was accompanied by a video version of the song performed by Kate Smith. Smith’s version, of course, has been played, off and on, before Flyers’ games since the late ‘60s, but famously in the mid-70s. On several memorable occasions, Smith sung live at the Spectrum, including the Game 6 clincher in 1974 against the Bruins. For whatever reason, the Flyers have been extraordinarily successful during the games where Smith appeared, live or otherwise.
Watching the Hart-Smith mix with my kids in 2010 was something. Hearing Kevin then explain the Flyers’ record in “Smith” games was something else. The blending of old and new … in Philly and at home. Card hockey became car hockey, Smith became Hart, and so on. In 1974, I was nine years old. In 2010, my boys are the same age. Didn’t quite work out as planned, but more on that later.
MORE TO FOLLOW, or not.
