Gee another Boo Santa Clause comment. How old is that story.

This is what bugs me. You lived in Philadelphia for one year as a white guy. That's enough of a reason for you to say "you can't say they target black athletes to hate on." Barkley, a black man, played in Philly for eight years. He's personal friends with other black athletes who live and work in Philly. Charles' opinion has more weight than yours. Why you would contradict it because of your one year and Pat Burrell shows a shocking amount intellectual laziness. Didn't you just say people should stay away from talking about race? Maybe you should take your own advice.

What doesn't bug you about this site, AA Hates ESPN?

Hahaha. Come on man....are you serious? I said he had some points right and some points wrong.

I know you're trying ultra hard to catch me being hypocritical but do you realize how dumb you come across sometimes?

Take a few weeks off and then come back and try again.

OK, AA. I'll take some weeks off. I guess you're right. There's no racism in Philly. None at all. Thankfully, I know that because you spent a year there. And people didn't like Pat Burrell!
Anon...I like this site when it does what it originally set out to do...show clips of announcers being awful. I don't like this site when it veers into poorly thought-out opinion, blatant hypocrisy and general errors in fact!

Gee another Boo Santa Clause comment.

I'd boo Tim Allen, too. Those incessant "Pure Michigan" radio ads during Cleveland Indians games are annoying as all Hell.

Dude...every city has racism. I don't think Philly fans generally target black athletes though. The example used in the video was fans booing Ryan Howard and not Chase Utley. I provided an example of witnessing them hammer a white player in Pat Burrell. I was there for a year, but knowing Sports it went on for four or five years. The whole city despised him. You cannot say that about any other player black or white in the city. People love and hate McNabb, they loved and hated A.I., but there was never a concensus and a downright vilification like there was with Burrell.

Just because you never saw Babe Ruth play (like I didn't live in Philly the past five years), doesn't mean you don't know he's a HOFer.

You have every right to disagree my friend, but you have yet to actually find myself or this site actually being hypocritical. I don't know what the vendetta is about but as long as you keep reading I don't really care.

aa hates espn is Joe Morgan.

No, gmoney. I don't drive a snow plow.

FYI its NBC 10

What does this mean? "Philly is tough and all athletes really."
Not your most eloquent post, aa.

I think you're missing a word here: "When I lived there for a year back 2003..."

I've lived in Philly for my whole life and I disagree with Charles here. Generally Philly fans get behind an athelete when they begin to struggle to try to help them out of it. This happened last year when Howard struggled at the beggining of the year and has happened to rollins at the start of this year. However the fans can become impatient quickley if a player does not live up to what they have shown in the past. This has happened with Burrell, McNabb, Lindros, and Howard and many other black and white players in the past. Just because Utley struggled for a week doesn't mean he should be booed. Howard has been batting around .210 all year and has severley dissapointed in late innings so I believe he deserves some criticism.

Philly is also the city that wanted pothead Ricky Williams over Donovan McNabb. All McNabb's done over his career is help his team win, play hurt and put up with a lot of garbage from people who said who he couldnt play. And yes right now McNabb is probably on the downside of his career.

Gotta disagree with charles....im black and a 25 year philly sports fan and "we dont dicrimanate when it comes to hate"

I hate Lindros, Rolen, Derrick Coleman, Chris Webber, Matt Geiger, Andy Reid (on gamedays), Lawernce Brown, Mike Mamula, Mitch Williams, Todd Pinkston, Fraud Mitchell, Howard Eskin, Joe Banner, JD Drew, and five (5) anonymous owners of the Phillies

The main reason Howard is getting booed is that he won an arbitration case and is making $10 million this season up from $900k last season. Since Howard has been a K machine (leads MLB in this category and is on pace to K over 200 times this year), his average is in the tank (in 2006 he hit .313 and last season he hit .268), he can't hit in the clutch right now, and his defense is terrible, the fans are being very hard on him, and rightly so. In Phila the fans stress that you earn what you are paid with the performance. As it stands now Howard is earning more than Utley and Rollins and is producing less.

Philly is tough on all athletes, black or white. For every Ryan Howard there's a Mike Schmidt. For every Charles Barkley there's an Eric Lindros. For every Ray Rhodes there's an Andy Reid. For every Ritchie Allen there's a JD Drew. Mike Schmidt was probably the most successful athlete in Philly history (at least in terms of his accomplishments, leading the Phillies to their only World Series and hitting 500+ HRs in an era where that was uncommon), and he was reviled.

Philly is the new Boston. It's filled with mindless racists, who apparently don't recognize their racist actions. Sure, they hate TO. Everyone does. But not everyone takes their hatred of him to the racist extremes that Philly fans do.

There's no question there's a racial component to Philly's love/hate relationships with its athletes, but I doubt it's worse than anywhere else. I think people pay attention to it in Philly more than elsewhere because of history. The Phillies were the last team in the National League to integrate and there's no question that Dick Allen was the target of racism by fans. As a result, Philly fans attitudes towards minority players always gets a second look, sometimes fairly, sometimes not.

One thing to remember is Philly fans hold all of its players to the same standard: playing to potential. That's why Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley will get a pass while they are in a batting slump (they have other skills to compensate) and Ryan Howard doesn't (if all you can do is hit and then bat .210, you're going to have a problem with the fans). That's why it's hard to be a superstar in Philly. There's no such thing as "good enough" here. For a player who's driven and is always pushing themselves, Philly is where they will thrive. If not, then you'd better have a thick skin.

People focus on the fans' treatment of Donovan McNabb and see racism. Make no mistake, there's a group of fans out there that will hate him no matter what because of his race (I've heard them in the stands and it makes me cringe every time). But they are the minority and I suspect no more prevalent than in any other city this size. The bulk of the fans are treating him no worse than they treated Jaworski while he was here (everyone forgets that he was run out on a rail by the fans in favor of Randall Cunningham -- who had his own issues).

I have no doubt that after McNabb leaves Philly, either by retirement or otherwise, he will be appreciated for the great player he is, just like Schmidt, Jaworski, Iverson and even Dick Allen.

It has little to do with race, and everything to do with playing to potential. If people get on McNabb's or Howard's case unfairly just because of race, then how do you explain the near universal reverance for Brian Westbrook, Brian Dawkins, Jeremiah Trotter and Reggie White?

The only guy I can think of who played at a high level but is still thought of negatively here is white: Eric Lindros.

Are some Philly fans racist? Certainly. Do Philly fans treat black athletes more harshly than white athletes as a whole? I'm not seeing it.