Philadelphia: 100 Seasons of Losing...and Here's Why!

First off, I'm a 33-year-old diehard Philadelphia sports fan who has grown sick and tired of his hometown teams not being good enough.

As you all know, its been 25 years since this town has won a major sports championship and frankly, that's embarrassing considering we're the sixth largest city in the United States (we were fourth for most of this futility).

What makes it even sadder is that we have a team in all four major sports while cities like St. Louis (Rams/Cardinals), Baltimore (Orioles/Ravens) Tampa Bay (Bucs/Lightning), and Anaheim (Angles/Ducks) have not only won championships in that time frame, they did it in multiple sports!

But on top of all that, we have city rivals such as NY and Boston winning championships like its second nature. I mean it wasn't that long ago that I actually felt sorry for the city of Boston and now look at them...why can't that be Philly? WHY!

Actually, there are many reasons why it hasn't been us, and a lot of it starts with the ownership, especially with the Phillies and their unwillingness to spend money. But let’s focus in on something that has been bugging me for years...bad timing.

The Fly Guys
Since the Sixers won the NBA Championship in 1983, the Flyers have appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals three times. In both '85 and '87, they lost to one of the greatest Dynasties in hockey history, the Edmonton Oilers.

Edmonton advanced to the finals and won every year between '84 and '88, with '86 being the exception. Of course, that year the Canadians represented the Eastern Conference instead of the Flyers who did the year before and after.

Then in '97, the Flyers made it back to the finals only to be swept by the mighty Detroit Red Wings, a dynasty at the time, who went on to win again in '98.

It's now been a painful 10 years since the Flyers have even appeared in the finals and a dreadful 33 years since they have actually won a championship.

Bird Seed
Talk about championship futility and you have to look no further than our beloved Eagles. While they have managed to win three championships in their storied history, none have come since 1960, and they have never won a Super Bowl.

Since '83, they have made just one appearance in the Super Bowl and once again a Philly team was matched up against a dynasty. The Eagles faced the now hated Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX (39 for you non Romans) and narrowly lost, 24-21.

Of course, there are many areas to discuss here, but why they lost the game is not the point right now. It’s once again the timing. By defeating the Eagles the Patriots won back-to-back Super Bowls and their third in four years.

Phillies Phodder
With the distinction of losing more games than any other team in the history of baseball, at least this team has won a championship in my lifetime, which is more than I can say for the Eagles and Flyers (I was born three weeks after their '75 finals series ended).

But that's not saying much since I was merely five years old in October of 1980 when Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson giving the Phillies their ONLY championship in their 124 year history.

Yeah, you read that right, one in 124 years. Anyway, the Phils have made one appearance in the World Series since '83 and that was in 1993 against the Toronto Blue Jays. While the Phils sported a very likeable team, they too were going up against a dynasty.

The Blue Jays won the World Series in '92 and took back to back titles in beating the Phillies. The best team the Phillies had fielded in years (and probably since, until maybe '07), and they happen to run into a team like the Blue Jays.

Six Shots
The franchise started off in 1939 as the Syracuse Nationals and did win one title in 1955. In 1963, they officially became the Philadelphia 76ers, and since then, have won just two titles, '67 and '83.

Since the '82-'83 Sixers, who are recognized as one of the greatest teams in NBA history, won the NBA Championship, the Sixers have fallen on hard times. They finally got their act together in the 2000-01 season under Allen Iverson and Larry Brown.

On a personal level, that was a great season for me as I had season tickets and attended every home playoff game.

With exciting victories over the Paces, Raptors, and Bucks, the Sixers reached the NBA Finals, only to face a Laker team with Shaq and Kobe (coached by Phil Jackson) who were in the middle of winning three straight NBA titles...yes, ANOTHER dynasty.

While the Sixers did manage to win game one of the finals, the Lakers won the next four and set a winning percentage record for a playoff season going 15-1.

So there you have it...every team a Philly Sports franchise has lost to in a final since 1983 has been to a team in the middle of winning at least back to back titles.

Unfortunate, bad timing, bad luck, sour grapes...whatever you want to call it, those are the facts and no matter how you twist them around, we're still winless since '83.