Billy Penn To Philly Sports Teams: "Screw You Guys"

The Red Sox had the Bambino. The Cubs have the billy goat. The Astros have Brad Lidge. But did you know that the Phillies have their very own alleged curse?

Actually, if you're a fan of Philadelphia sports, then you probably do because the "Curse of Billy Penn" is a locally-known scourge of the four "major" professional teams.

The legend goes that after the construction of Philadelphia City Hall in 1901, there was a tacit agreement that no future building should be any higher than the statue of William Penn that sat atop the 548-foot edifice.

Fast forward to 1983: the 76ers win the NBA Championship, which is Philly's most recent world title to date. A few years later, with wanton disregard for their own safety from the wrath of the Quaker community, builders completed One Liberty Place--topping out at a whopping 945 feet. Since then, a handful of skyscrapers have also been built to dwarf the statue of Penn as Philadelphians keep coming up short in playoff games, Super Bowls, owning horses that don't break their legs, and Live 8 lineups (Dave Matthews Band...ewww).

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the use of "curse" mythologies to explain away decades of mismanagement and incompetence. Philadelphia's sports teams have sucked for years at any given time, way before they futilely tried to please their English lord by dressing him up in the whorish colors of Philly team spirit. The magnitude of sucking just increased across the board from the mid '80s to the early '90s, and poor Billy Penn was an easy scapegoat.

In a way, the 1980 annus mirabilis was the best and the worst thing to happen to Philly fans. All that success all at one time only exacerbated the pain of many successive losing seasons or heart-wrenching playoff losses. One of these days, we too will be doing stupid shit along the lines of dredging up Babe Ruth's piano or going Joey Crawford on a bunch of Quakers. That would just be counterintuitive. Way to pick such a defenseless and pious nemesis, guys.

Nonetheless, the curse is gaining a lot of capital in Philly fan circles (in remains to be seen whether one championship by any team is sufficient enough to "break" the curse, or if a Super Bowl counts as two, or a Stanley Cup as 1/2). In fact, a trio of Philly filmmakers recently screened their documentary, The Curse of William Penn, at the Philadelphia Film Festival--where I hoped they also screened other local sports-related fare. It seems to be a fairly balanced (read: skeptical) look at the curse and how it's begun to affect the Philly sports community. I really hope it gets a limited local theatrical run or DVD release; for now, check out the trailer (the math professor/chalkboard clip is my favorite).

Oh, and just to warn you guys....PAT CROCE ALERT!!