Byline: DAN BOLLERMAN - Bloomberg News
Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone's prizefighter who tastes defeat in his latest film, comes to mind when cheesesteak grillman David James ponders the state of professional sports in Philadelphia.
So does another local pugilist, who lost his real-life middleweight crown in 2005.
'Our best two franchises are boxers -- one is fictional and one's Bernard Hopkins,' said James, 25, who works at Pat's King of Steaks and was a year old the previous time a Philadelphia team won a championship in 1983.
Of the 13 U.S. cities with teams in the four major pro sports, Philadelphia has suffered the longest without a crown. The gap between victory parades won't close this spring. The NBA's 76ers and NHL's Flyers are among the worst in their sports. Even Philadelphia's famously impatient fans are feeling bruised.
'Being a Philadelphia fan is like having an absentee father,' said Marc Lamont Hill, an assistant professor of American studies and urban education at Temple University in the city. 'He tells you to stand by the door to wait for him, and he never comes.'
'It's certainly been disappointing,' said Peter Luukko, president and chief operating officer of Comcast-Spectacor, the joint venture that owns the 76ers and the Flyers. 'We never expected both teams to not be able to get it done in the same year.'
The 76ers are heading for their third year in four without a trip to the NBA playoffs. Average attendance is down this year by almost 2,500 a game, to 14,001. The team is rebuilding, after trading four-time NBA scoring champion Allen Iverson to the Denver Nuggets on Dec. 19 for a package that included two first-round draft picks. Some fans saw that as surrender.
'It's like you fell down the steps,' said Tommy Dorsey, a 24-year-old bartender from Bethlehem, Pa., who hasn't been to a 76ers' game in two years. 'But when they traded Iverson, it was like you fell down the steps and somebody kicked you.'
The problems with the Flyers, who made the Stanley Cup playoffs 11 straight years, surfaced earlier. After winning just one of their first eight games, the team fired coach Ken Hitchcock on Oct. 22, and general manager Bobby Clarke quit. Six weeks later, Clarke was rehired to work with the Flyers' player- development program.
The Flyers struggled with injuries to five-time All-Star center Peter Forsberg. They traded him to the Nashville Predators on Feb. 15 for draft picks and younger players.
'We never would have traded him if we were one of the top teams,' Luukko said. 'We're committed to building with young players, and we have some good veterans.'
Since the Flyers joined the NHL in 1967, they and the Sixers have missed the playoffs together in the same year only four times.
'It's sad to listen to people talk about them,' said Steve Stein, who opened Sports Phan Sports, a local sports-apparel store in November. 'It's depressing.'
Philadelphia sports fans, who watched the Eagles complete their 46th consecutive season without a championship in January, are left to pin their hopes on baseball's Phillies. The team won one title in its 124 seasons, in 1980. This year, the Phillies will take the field next month after missing the playoffs in 2006 by only three games.
Stein is unconvinced, even though the Phillies will have Ryan Howard, who in his first full season last year won the National League's Most Valuable Player award.
'He'll get good,' Stein said. 'And he'll get traded and he won't be a Philadelphia player anymore.'
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