It was only Michael Lorenzen’s second start with the Phillies since he was acquired from Detroit at the trade deadline. And he threw a spectacular no-hitter, no doubt about it. A whole 124 pitches, with none of them leading to a hit, was special. Lorenzen offered his thanks to everyone involved on his special day and gave an effusive shout-out to the local fans — marking the latest chapter in the tortured romance novel that is Phillies players sucking up to the hometown crowd. Trea Turner bought a billboard thanking fans for their ironic standing ovations, which they carried out in direct rebellion against the slumping star who signed an 11-year, $300 million contract this offseason and is now batting .243 with 11 home runs. Bryce Harper also went out of his way to praise Philadelphia denizens earlier his month, stating he wished he started his career in Philadelphia, not Washington.
Seeing Lorenzen’s edition of baseball history brought out the best in fans, even from Philadelphia, leading to this cute quote from Lorenzen after the game: “Walking out for the seventh, eighth and ninth, man, these fans. I’ve never been part of an organization where fans are a part of the team. And they gave me that boost that I needed. ... If you are feeling fatigued, you don’t feel it at all in front of these fans.”
Philadelphia sports fans don’t have any other kind of reputation, do they?
If you took the preceding sentence as anything other than a joke, welcome to the real world, where “The City of Brotherly Love” is a sarcastic nickname at best. It hasn’t been that since it was the capital of the United States, when Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams to become our third president in 1800. Lorenzen’s quote may have been uplifting to those in and around the city, but to anyone else (and probably even to many in Philadelphia) it was farcical at best. Let’s go back to the city’s last championship team, the 2018 Eagles, to see that brotherly behavior.
I remember tuning into the city’s police scanner after that Super Bowl LII victory over the Patriots, where I heard plenty of reports of property damage, including the destruction of the canopy covering the city’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. While the canopy was still standing, another fan decided to take a trust fall off of it. It’s unclear whether anyone caught him, or if he was injured, but either way that is the baseline we’re dealing with here. This is the baseline for Philly sports fans.
And then there’s the fan who thought it was a good idea to devour horse poop, because nothing screams “I love the Philadelphia Eagles” quite like literally eating crap. Also, speaking of our equine friends, behold one of the most absurd newspaper headlines ever written, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times:
“Why do people keep punching police horses at Philadelphia Eagles games?”
(One of the fans whose arrest was mentioned in that story recently found himself sentenced to 23 months in prison for an unrelated attack on a human.)
Okay, but that’s just the Eagles, right? Lorenzen is a baseball player! Different crowd! Well, what about Matthew Clemmens, the role model of a Phillies fan who intentionally threw up on an 11-year-old girl? Yup, that happened in 2010 when Clemmens, 21 at the time, was charged with assault and harassment of an off-duty police captain and his adolescent daughter. The officer said at the time that he saw Clemmens put his fingers down his throat — in other words, not just some ill-timed drunken accident. Clemens, according to police, would go on to punch the off-duty captain and then vomit, once more, on an arresting officer. Philly!
But one bad apple (or six) shouldn’t ruin the bunch, you say? Enter the infamous December 1968 Eagles game, where fans decided the team was so bad that Santa Claus deserved to be pelted with snowballs. There was about a foot of snow covering Philadelphia that day, so the brotherly faithful had plenty of ammunition to make St. Nick dip, duck, and dodge as many snowballs as he could. And if you think that’s one ill-mannered incident, how about when Eagles fans broke Zema “Chief Zee” Williams’ leg at a 1983 game against the now-Commanders?
And these are but a few examples of the class acts that are Philadelphia sports fans.
I saw a game at Citizens Bank Park earlier this year, a 4-2 Mets win over the Phillies, where the lovely hometown crowd had no trouble booing their team after they couldn’t find a way to consistently get hits off now-Ranger Max Scherzer. Don’t worry Lorenzen, as soon as you start getting shelled, Philadelphia will treat you like horseshit too. You just haven’t done anything to anger them yet.
But hey, at least they’re not Boston.