For those of us who were baffled by the poll option "Serves them right for booing Santa Claus.", I did a little research. Reports on the incident vary, but there are a few things that aren't disputed:
- The Santa Claus incident took place on December 15, 1968.
- Someone dressed as Santa Claus was booed and pelted with snow- and iceballs.
- A sellout crowd of 54,535 fans showed up to watch the Eagles lose to Minnesota in a snowstorm, ending a 2-12 season.
- The Eagles two wins late in the season after losing 11 straight hit them with a double-whammy: they lost their first-round draft pick. Eagles fans were already salivating over the prospect of having young OJ Simpson join the team. By beating the Steelers, the Eagles moved into second-to-last place and lost their shot at OJ. The hardcore fans were painfully aware of this fact.
According to
The Great Philadelphia Fan Book as quoted in
USA Today "At halftime, there was supposed to be a Christmas pageant. Then there was too much snow and muck for a float to parade around the field. Instead, according to the book, a 19-year-old fan wearing a Santa suit and fake beard in the stands was recruited to jog onto the field between two columns of cheerleaders." "Santa was a surrogate that day for [despised coach and general manager] Joe Kuharich and [despised owner] Jerry Wolman and [despised QB] Norm Snead. The poor kid just happened to be representing the frustrations."
According to Wikipedia's entry on Franklin Field, the guy who was supposed to play Santa was snowed in and couldn't make it. Organizers grabbed a 19-year-old kid wearing a Santa suit out of the crowd and sent him on to the field. Frank Olivo, now playing Santa for a stadium crowd, was roundly jeered by the fans who felt he was a poor Santa. Olivo reportedly replied that some of his detractors would have empty stockings come Christmas. Understand that I'm paraphrasing here.
So. Here's the scene: The Eagles are losing yet another game to cap yet another losing season. Their earlier wins mean they don't get a first round draft pick so next year doesn't look so good either. Team management is despised by all who care. There's a snowstorm railing, the temperature is hovering in the 20s, and the fans are greeted with a halftime show that consists of some skinny kid in a home-made Santa suit running down the sideline. And the beer garden was in full swing.
Suffice to say, the scene was set for something unpleasant to happen. Fans began throwing snowballs and iceballs at Olivo and hit him with a torrent of abuse. In retrospect it's worth noting that things didn't escalate from there. There wasn't a riot. There were no arrests that I've been able to discover. The game restarted on time and without incident. Considering the level of violence associated with European Soccer matches and our own track record of rioting, I think the Eagles fans should be given a pass. I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is on fan behavior, but if other franchises' fans can be forgiven for heckling Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, surely the 40-year mark is good enough for booing Santa.
-=Logan
Research, facts, a Republican needs not these things.
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Re: Booing Santa Claus?
Mon Jun 18, 2007 at 05:57:34 PM EST
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Every once in awhile, the hosts at Philadelphia's all sports talk radio station WIP will take a trip down memory lane to revisit those magic moments which helped define Philadelphia sports. They did a show about the infamous Santa game and one of the callers that day said he was at Franklin Field that day where he booed and threw snowballs at the ersatz Santa Claus. When asked why he did it, he said "he was a crappy Santa." Tough crowd.
Of course the salad days for Philadelphia fan misbehavior had to wait until they built Vet Stadium which opened in 1970. It was home field to both the Phillies and the Eagles being a dual use field. The truly rowdy fans were the Eagles fans who inhabited the topmost 700 level. Being true Eagles fans they would show up five hours before a game and tailgate in the parking lot. Tailgate is a euphemism for getting yourself so shitfaced you can barely make it to your seats in the 700 level. Then kickoff would take place and the games would begin -- up in the 700 level, if not on the field. The litany of loud, obnoxious, assaultive behavior up there got so bad the city of Philadelphia assigned a judge to sit in a room in the stadium and conduct hearings for anyone stadium security or the cops hauled in. As far as I know, nobody ever got tossed off the 700 level, but Lord have pity on your Cowboy or Giant fans brash enough to attend a game outfitted in Cowboy or Giant gear. There was an incident which took place in the waning days of the Vet where an inebriated fan took out a flare gun and shot it at across the field right after the game was over.
Things are a lot quieter these days. Attendance at the games is pretty much by season ticket holders, most of whom have paid a handsome seat license for the right to purchase their season tickets. One of the things the Eagles will do if you should happen to engage in 700 level type behavior (or if someone you gave or sold your ticket to for the game does so) is to revoke your season tickets and your seat license without compensation.
Illegitimi non carborundum.
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Michael Irvin Can Still Kiss My Ass
Mon Jun 18, 2007 at 10:49:37 PM EST
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The Vet was the first (only?) stadium to have a jail built in it.
make it rain you nappy headed ho's
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Re: Michael Irvin Can Still Kiss My Ass
Mon Jun 18, 2007 at 11:03:40 PM EST
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I believe both the first and the only. However, if things keep going the way they have been, they might need to turn the Cincinnati Bengals locker room into a jail.
Illegitimi non carborundum.
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Re: Booing Santa Claus?
Mon Jun 18, 2007 at 10:47:23 PM EST
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other franchises' fans can be forgiven for heckling Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, surely the 40-year mark is good enough for booing Santa.
It's interesting you should say that. The Philadelphia Phillies are actually the #1 booer of Jackie Robinson, too. At the time, they had a lot of southern good old boys on their roster and an especially racist coach who encouraged his players to slide into the second baseman spikes first and spew vitriol at the budding legend. It's "interesting" that "the media" is able to extend their collective memories back to 1968 but not another decade. You don't hear Philly being called "the city that booed Jackie Robinson." So yeah, make that booed Santa Claus and Jackie Robinson. As Charles Barkley called it, Philadelphia is the most northern "southern" city.
But generally, I do wish "the media" would be a bit more savvy about the incident you've so well researched. It meshes with the story that was handed down to me from family members.
make it rain you nappy headed ho's
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Re: Booing Santa Claus?
Tue Jun 19, 2007 at 12:16:18 AM EST
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My point exactly. When we talk about Jackie Robinson, we talk about how strong he was to withstand racism and how brave he and Branch Rickey were to break the color line. We talk about what a great ballplayer he was to perform the way he did under the worst possible conditions. What you don't get is any real mention of the thousands of ordinary average Americans who made a point of hurling racist abuse at the man every time he stepped on to the field. As a society we just put our fingers in our ears and chant "la-la-la-la-la" at any reminder that racism was both acceptable and common only a few years ago. I'd like to believe that time is over, but I know it's not.
And that brings us back to Philadelphia. I'm going to cut and paste from Wikipedia:
On April 22, 1947, during a game between the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies, Phillies players called Jackie a "nigger" from their dugout, and yelled that he should "go back to the cotton fields." Rickey would later recall that the Phillies' manager, Ben Chapman, "did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers. When he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and united thirty men." Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler admonished the Phillies and asked Chapman to pose for photographs with Robinson as a conciliatory gesture.
Thanks for the props on my research. It took me all of ten minutes. I find it hugely ironic that research is easier now than at any time in history, but people (not even professional journalists) seem to be able to take a few minutes to bring up Google and check these things out for themselves. Now if you'll all excuse me, someone forwarded me an email about how Proctor and Gamble is run by the Moonies and I've got to send that on to everyone in my address book.
-=Logan
Research, facts, a Republican needs not these things.
My money is on this happening on July 19th against the San Diego Padres. This is based upon their playing a combination of good teams and donkeys until the 19th, their home and away schedule, and I just flipping heads (victory) and tails (defeat) with a Pennsylvania quarter.
For those who are wondering which team might be the closest to the Phillies team record in failure, that would be the Atlanta (Boston, Milwaukee) Braves. But no worry on them hitting 10,000 losses before the Phightin' Phils -- their total loss figure is hovering just below 9,650.
Illegitimi non carborundum.
This story claims that the record of the Phillies is really bad, given that they have lost an average of 80 games per season, over the course of the past 125 years, and until the past 45 years, the season has consisted of only 154 games, although it currently is 162 games long, which means that if they lose 80 games per current season, they win 82, which is not bad at all. Even if they lose 80 games out of 154, they still win 74 games, which is nearly half. It's really not that terrible, in my humble opinion. In fact, I would consider the ratio of wins to losses to be a much more meaningful measurement of the quality of a team, rather than the cumulative total of losses. Even a team that consistently wins more games than they lose, would eventually reach a total of 10,000 losses if they played a sufficient number of seasons (while also reaching an even higher total of wins). If a team loses twice as many games as they win, then that is an inferior team. If wins and losses are similar in quantity, then they are an average team.
