Curse of Billy Penn

The Curse of William Penn (supposedly begun in March 1987) is an alleged curse sometimes used to explain the failure of professional sports teams based in the American city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to win championships in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. None of Philadelphia's four major sports teams (baseball, football, basketball and ice hockey) has won a championship in its respective league since 1983, when the 76ers won the NBA title.

Origins of the Curse

Atop City Hall at Broad and Market Streets in Center City, Philadelphia is a statue of William Penn, city founder and original proprietor of the then-British colony of Pennsylvania (meaning "Penn's Woods"). By tradition—though not by law—no building in the city could ever rise above this statue; however, in March 1987, a glass skyscraper, One Liberty Place, opened for business approximately three blocks away. It dwarfed the City Hall building, exceeding its height by 397 feet (121m), reaching 945 feet (288m) compared with the latter's 548 feet (167m). Its sister scraper, Two Liberty Place, at 848 ft (258m), would soon follow.

Philadelphia sports teams had, until then, enjoyed an admirable run of success: the 1980 Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies had won the World Series, the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers had won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975, and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers had won the championship in 1983. In fact, prior to 1980, the Phillies had appeared in only two other World Series, in 1915 and 1950.

Unlike other "curses" that seem to strike particular teams (Boston Red Sox's Curse of the Bambino, Chicago White Sox's Curse of the Black Sox, both of which seem to have been lifted), this evil is said to have struck four professional teams in the same city.

Philadelphia Sports Since the Curse's Inception

Major League Sports

Following the opening of One Liberty Place, Philadelphia's franchises commenced a pattern of narrow failures to win a championship: The Flyers have lost in the Stanley Cup finals twice since the skyscraper's construction (in 1987 — a mere two months after One Liberty Place opened — and again in 1997), the Phillies lost the 1993 World Series to the Toronto Blue Jays, the 76ers lost the 2001 NBA Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers, and the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles lost Super Bowl XXXIX to the New England Patriots.

In addition, losses in conference finals have occurred seven times since the opening of One Liberty Place, including four by the Flyers, in 1989, 1995, 2000, and 2004. The 2000 team was one win away from a Stanley Cup Finals appearance, leading the New Jersey Devils 3-1 before losing three straight, and in 2004, the Flyers lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Eagles accounted for the other three conference final losses; they lost the NFC Championship Game (the winner of which meets the winner of the AFC's corresponding game in the Super Bowl) three years in a row from 2002 to 2004, thus becoming the first NFL team to do this in either conference since the Dallas Cowboys of 1980-1982, losing the last two at home after posting the best record in the NFC. No other team in NFL history has lost back-to-back conference title games at home since the NFL began its practice of awarding home-field advantage in postseason games based on regular-season record in 1975.

The curse appeared to have manifested itself again on December 19, 2004. The Eagles clinched home-field for the NFC playoffs, but wide receiver Terrell Owens suffered a fractured fibula and severe ankle sprain, which was expected to end his season. Even so, the Eagles won the NFC Championship Game 27-10 over the Atlanta Falcons, breaking their three-game NFC Championship losing streak. However, the Eagles lost 24-21 to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX on February 6, 2005, despite Owens returning for the game against medical advice. Donovan McNabb threw three interceptions after having had only eight in the entire regular season, yet never gave up, throwing for three TDs and over 350 yards in the air.

Other Sports

The curse is sometimes also extended to include the saga of Bensalem Township based thoroughbred race horse Smarty Jones, who saw his bid for horse racing's Triple Crown evaporate when he finished second in the 2004 Belmont Stakes after registering decisive victories in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, including having beaten the Belmont winner, Birdstone, by 15¼ lengths in the Derby.

Another Philadephia-based race horse, Barbaro, was the winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby and was the favored Triple Crown winner when, during the beginning phase of the 2006 Preakness Stakes, the horse suffered a fractured right hind leg and had to be transported to the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania where it underwent a 5-hour surgery to repair the leg. Despite the success of the operation, veternarians still gave Barbaro a 50-50 chance of survival.

The curse did not affect Delaware Park-based Afleet Alex, since he did not win the Kentucky Derby, but almost suffered what would have been a traumatic injury at the Preakness, only to come back from the near mishap to win the Preakness and later the Belmont Stakes.

Although not officially attributed to college sports, two Philadelphia-based college basketball teams, the St. Joseph's Hawks and the Villanova Wildcats, which had very successful seasons in 2004 and 2006 respectively, failed to reach the Final Four of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. They were both eliminated in the fourth round Elite Eight matches, with St. Joe's, the number 1 seed in the East Regional, losing a heartbreaker to Oklahoma State, and Villanova, the number 1 seed in the Minneapolis Regional, falling to Florida. A third college basketball team in Philadelphia, the Temple Owls, also failed to reach the Final Four 5 times due to losses in the fourth round (1988, 1991, 1993, 1999, 2001).

The curse, however, does not seem to affect Philadelphia's minor league hockey franchise, the AHL's Philadelphia Phantoms, who won the Calder Cup championship trophy twice since the curse's inception, in both 1998 and 2005 (with the 2005 title being recognised as the top champion in professional hockey because of the NHL Lockout), the Philadelphia Wings of the National Lacrosse League, who have won six titles since 1989, the Philadelphia KiXX of the Major Indoor Soccer League, whom won the league's championship in 2001-2002, nor the Philadelphia Barrage who won the Major League Lacrosse championship in 2004.

Miscellaneous

While several more skyscrapers have sprung up since Liberty Place's construction, it should be noted that all of the offending buildings stand to the west of City Hall, and that Billy Penn's statue faces northeast. As local sentiment goes, Penn may not be pleased, but at least his view of the Delaware River remains unobstructed. Currently, construction is underway for what would become Philadelphia's largest edifice, the Comcast Center, expected to be completed in 2007. Interestingly, Comcast-Spectacor, a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, is the owner of two of the city's sports franchises, the Flyers and the 76ers, which may give the curse an added spin in years to come.

External links

Throwing Things explanation

Notes

The Philadelphia Phillies had their own separate run of bad luck before 1980. Until then they were the only one of the sixteen original Major League Baseball teams formed from the 1901 National League contraction and subsequent American League foundation to have never won a World Series (the St. Louis Browns had won in 1966 and 1970 as the Baltimore Orioles). This, however, appears never to have been publicly identified as a curse, and no curse-related theories were ever offered.