Finally, Vilification For Philly’s Boobirds

Cheer up, Phillies fans! Not only has your team scored thirty-five runs in the past two games, but it appears your hearty boos over 125 years of the franchise has actually paid off. So, uh, rather: Get angry, Phillies fans! Boo anything you can think of!

The idea that a team’s passionate fans helps a team win — or, rather, helps a team avoid long losing streaks — comes from superb baseball writer Joe Posnanski. While he goes over the league-leading 11 losing streaks of eight games or more by the Kansas City Royals since 2002 — 9 since ‘04! — he notes that only three franchises haven’t had a losing streak of eight games or more since then: Yankees, Red Sox and (!) Phillies.

Yes, somehow the Fightins haven’t lost over a week’s worth of games since Terry Francona skippered eight straight defeats in late August and early September of 2000. (It wasn’t a September swoon, as the Phillies weren’t even above .500 all season; that team had both Ron Gant and Desi Relaford.)

I wonder if the booing fans, the angry media, the intensive talk shows, the angry Internet boards — I wonder if these things keep the players a bit more on edge. I’m not saying this can make the players BETTER over the long term — I’m not saying boos can turn a 73-win talent into an 89-win team. But we’re not talking about that — it only takes one victory to break a losing streak. And maybe in the angriest towns there is a heightened sense of awareness when the losses start to mount, a greater sense of agitation, a feeling like, “Um, we better freaking go out and win a game already or it’s going to get really ugly around here.”

I’m not one to take a throw-it-out-there blog post — where the author writes, “I suspect that if someone did study it they would find there’s nothing to it” — and treat is as gospel, but… wait, yes I am. Okay, Philadelphia fans, let’s all use this as an excuse to boo the players mercilessly after a single loss. After all, we wouldn’t want them to go into a two-game losing streak.

Fans Who Boo Loudest Suffer Least [Joe Posnanski]