The Philly Fan's Code: The 50 Toughest, Craziest, Most Legendary Philadelphia Athletes of the Last 50 Years

by Mike Tanier

Overview

Face it: Philadelphia athletes are often as tough as their fans are passionate. How else to explain the rabid appeal of the bone-crunching Broad Street Bullies? Chuck Bednarik was one of the looniest tunes in Philadelphia sports history, but fuggedabout him. In The Philly Fan's Code, New York Times sportswriter Mike Tanier provides fun and opinionated essays that evaluate the 50 greatest, toughest, and most eccentric legends of Philly sports since Concrete Charlie hung up his cleats.

Using his own "rubric" to calculate the impact of each athlete, Tanier ranks well-adjusted players like Mark Howe alongside both unpredictable athletes like Brad Lidge—who followed an almost perfect season with a 162-game catastrophe—and quirky ones, such as Wilt Chamberlain, who may be better known for bragging about his sexual conquests than for scoring 100 points in a game. And let's not forget our visitor from Planet Lovetron… Then there are the real wild cards-players like Terrell Owens, who does sit-ups in his driveway and whose impact—for better or worse— outlasted the few actual games he played for the Eagles. As for Tanier's choice for the No. 1 toughest, craziest, most legendary player, well, you'll have to read the book to see if you agree. Whether you do or don't, The Philly Fan's Code will provide hours of debates and memories of who our toughest sports heroes were—or weren't.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439906002
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	08/26/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Mike Tanier is a senior writer at Football Outsiders and a regular contributor to The New York Times and NBCSports.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Answer in Theory, but Not in Practice 
2. The Bully Who Made Us Believe 
3. The Slugger Who Won Our Hearts, Eventually 
4. The Man, and the Man Crush 
5. The Showman We Could Not Boo. Or Could We? 
6. The Babe Ruth of Backspin 
7. The Haunted, Eternal Samurai 
8. The Defense of the Minister 
9. The Role Model for the Non-Role Models 
10. He Called Us the F-Word 
11. He Brooded Back at Us 
12. The Idiot Man, Hallelujah 
13. Better Than the Greatest, If Only Briefly 
14. The Reluctant Enforcer 
15. The Once and Future Captain 
16. The Pan-Dimensional Catcher 
17. He Left Us So He Could Stay with Us 
18. The Baby Brother We Could Not Pick On. Yet. 
19. The Haters’ Favorite 
20. The Ultimate Something or Other

Intermission: Coaches and Executives

21. The Forever Flyer 
22. The Man from Lovetron 
23. He Taught Us to Win, and Laid Off the Action 
24. The Origin of the Booed Species 
25. The Other Fighter 
26. The Man Who Spoiled Memories 
27. The Slaphappy Workhorse 
28. The Legend We Could Love 
29. He Gave His Life for Philly Toughness 
30. The Agony of the Feet 
31. He Nailed the Good Ol’ Boy Act 
32. He No Longer Takes That Fifth Day Off 
33. The Spirit of ’64, the Year That Wasn’t 
34. The Quarterback We Grew Up With 
35. Point Guard for a Nation 
36. Ameba, Enigma, Goaltender 
37. The Thinking Man’s Slob 
38, 39. The Lost Brothers 
40. The Forgotten Hall of Famer 
41. All He Had Was Four Little Words 
42. He Was Too Tall to Disappear 
43. The Wildest Thing We’d Ever Seen 
44. The (Briefly) Perfect Reliever 
45. The Man Who Got the Credit 
46. The Defenseman in the Shadows 
47. Backache, Headache, Heartache 
48. The Greatest Mistake 
49. The Bat Who Wouldn’t Leave 
50. The Face of the Future

Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

"A veritable cheesesteak between covers, Mike Tanier's The Philly Fan's Code is a book no self-respecting Philadelphia sports fan can be without."
—Gregg Easterbrook, ESPN


"Honest, incisive, funny, and compulsively readable, The Philly Fan's Code is the perfect book for Philly sports fans. Mike Tanier offers a fresh take on age-old debates about the legacies of the city's most memorable and controversial athletes, inviting readers to reconsider the reputation and history of Philadelphia fans."
—Tom McAllister, author of Bury Me in My Jersey: A Memoir of My Father, Football, and Philly

From the Publisher