There is a documentary on Netflix that is quite worthwhile: The Turnaround. This one revolves around John McCann, a lifelong Phillies fan. Clad in a T-shirt that said nothing but property of the Philadelphia Phillies -what a thing, I think, to assume an appropriate object for one’s team-, McCann told how the star shortstop acquired by the team, Trea Turner, accumulated zillion games without hitting a hit. The people, especially impatient, began to press. McCann concluded that the best way to encourage Turner was, who knew it, by chanting his name every time he came up to the plate to bat. What began for many as an eminently sarcastic gesture became gasoline for the player to start producing. Turner accepts that he initially thought they were making fun of him; Then, he just let himself go. The influence of the Philadelphia fans on what happens on the field is undeniable; His players know it, but they also know that this operates for good and bad.
Philadelphia, I already said, is not a tourist city. In 1993, Jonathan Demme released a film that had the name of the city as its title and revolved around the stigmatization received by a homosexual man who was a victim of HIV. Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, the protagonists, received any number of awards, but what was truly powerful was the song that Demme himself asked Bruce Springsteen to set to music for the work. Springsteen was not born in Philadelphia but in New Jersey, several miles away; He knew, however, the helplessness derived from being a satellite city; came from a place that had to be fled if one decided do something with your life. The United States, a country forged by a monstrous capitalism and its so-called opportunitieshardly turns to see someone who comes from a, let’s say, isolated city. Philadelphia has battled precisely with that stigma: the Eagles share a division, the NFC East, with the most influential team in the history of the country -Dallas Cowboys-, the favorite team of the eternal fashionable city -New York Giants- and the team that represents the capital of the country -Washington Commanders-. Little thing. Winning, we would say, is a kind of legitimization for the team and the city.
