Off Day: The Curse of William Penn

So I'm sure you've heard of the Curse of William Penn. I mean, if you are an avid enough Philly sports fan to have found this site, you surely have read many of the commentaries on why the Philadelphia teams stink.

Just as a refresher, it goes something like this: For a long time a law stood in Philadelphia stating that no building could stand taller than the tip of William Penn's hat. William Penn, of course, forever overlooks Center City from his perch atop City Hall at Broad and Market Streets. The ordinance limiting building heights below that famous Mormon's Quaker's brow was removed in sometime in the mid-80's, and the construction of One Liberty Place was begun immediately thereafter. Since the time that building was completed, in 1987, no major-league professional sports team in Philadelphia has won a championship. It's up around 94 seasons of professional sports between the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and Eagles, and no rings for anyone. This impressive drought (easily the longest current streak of any city with teams for all four major sports) has been attributed to the ire of the statue perched above John Street's office and its likeness, one William Penn. So the Curse of Billy Penn was born.

I have an interesting tidbit to add to the story. The current major skyscraper project in Philadelphia is the Comcast Center, planned headquarters for the evil-empire cable company. This bohemoth edifice, which easily dwarfs the other skyscrapers in the city, is rapidly nearing completion. Earlier this week the final beam was placed atop its massive structure. One of my high-ranking friends (who cannot manage to make parking tickets disappear, despite my repeated wishes to the contrary) fills me in on this piece of information:

Well the Rouse Company decided to try to reverse the "Curse" and at the ceremony they put a tiny statue of William Penn on the top beam of the building to reside there permanently, thus making his hat the highest structure in the city again.

I think this is a watershed moment in recent Philadelphia sports history. I think we're reversing the curse as we speak. First thing that's going to happen: the Phillies win the pennant. I don't know if they win the series, because the American League is crazy good, but the Phils will be the last NL team standing. Then, Donovan McNabb plays out of his reconstructed knee and leads the Eagles to a Superbowl victory. The Sixers and Flyers take all their high draft picks and barrel through their respective Eastern Conferences, only to lost to the Pistons, Hurricanes, and/or any other team owned by that exceedingly rich old guy. Then Barbaro comes back from the grave and sires a steed named Barbaro II that wins the Triple Crown (sponsored by Visa). Just to top things off, Jon Bon Jovi himself becomes starting running back (or whatever you call that guy in Arena Football who starts 15 yards from the line of scrimmage and runs fill-tilt straight towards the quarterback from behind) and leads the Soul to the Arena League championship.

So you can see that I don't think this is going to make a lick of difference. William Penn isn't screwing with Philly. They built One Liberty Place right after the Philly sports renaissance of the mid-70's to early-80's and then all the teams got bought up by either well-meaning-but-perenially-losing gamblers (Leonard Tose) or penny-pinching-good-for-nothing misers (Bill Giles and anyone else on Bill Conlin's kill-list) and they're just now getting out of the holes that were dug for them.

The REAL curse of Billy Penn is that the Big Five dissolved. That might be the most significant tragedy of the Curse of William Penn; it happened a few years later (in 1991) but was much more of a loss than anything else. But it's back, and, like many of the professional teams in town, is a mere shadow of itself in its heyday.

Anyway, I sure hope that tiny statue atop Comcast Center is going to appease Mr. Penn up there in Quaker heaven. I will send a free "Whiz With" T-shirt to anyone who can supply an authentic picture of that statue.