In the fall of 1934, the Brooklyn Dodgers had something to prove, and despite being in sixth place on the last weekend of the season, they had something to play for.
Before the season, Bill Terry, the manager of the crosstown New York Giants, was asked about the Dodgers’ chances that year, and Terry quipped, “Are they still in the league?” The season mostly confirmed Terry’s implication. By the final weekend, the Dodgers were 23 games out of first place, while the Giants were tied with the St. Louis Cardinals atop the National League.
Brooklyn, facing their rivals for the final two contests, relished the chance to play spoiler.
The Dodgers in Game 1 had their ace, Van Mungo, throw a complete game victory to knock the Giants out of first. After falling behind 4-0 in the first inning of the final game, the Dodgers still didn’t give up. Star reliever Dutch Leonard shut down the Giants as Brooklyn climbed back, tied it in the eighth, and then scored three in the 10th, ending the Giants’ season.
Time and again, since then, the Giants and the Dodgers (now in San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively) have relished the opportunity to play spoiler. It’s the same with the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys, the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears, and so on.
That’s how a team with pride plays, even when, in one sense, “nothing is at stake.”
Things are done differently in Philadelphia, apparently.
Trailing the first-place Washington Football Team by 3 points in the fourth quarter on Jan. 3, the fourth-place Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson pulled his new starting quarterback, Jalen Hurts, and subbed in third-string quarterback Nate Sudfeld. Sudfeld promptly threw an interception, then fumbled away the snap, and then ran backward and took a 15-yard sack. With time expiring and trailing by 6, Sudfeld didn’t throw to the end zone, but he threw a short pass over the middle. The game ended, and Washington won, knocking the Giants out of the playoffs and ensuring the Eagles got the 6th pick in the 2021 draft rather than the 9th.
Front offices have been tanking for years. Owners deal away their best players, saving cash and guaranteeing a few years of losing records, and thus high draft picks. It’s all an effort to build a championship down the line. This seems to have worked for the Chicago Cubs, the Houston Astros, and the Los Angeles Lakers.
This month’s Philly Special was different, though. A head coach (and maybe a quarterback) tanking mid-game was unthinkable. You play to win the game. You don’t play to get the 6th draft pick in April.
Eagles players were furious. “That’s just wrong,” Hurts was seen saying on the bench. Multiple players tried to lobby Pederson away from this decision. But the fans? Well, some were OK with it.
“Eagles remind us that tanking is cool and smart,” one local sportswriter explained, saying the Giants’ complaints were just “lame.” Another Eagles fan explained before the game he was rooting for Washington because he hated the Giants more and that “a loss gets a us a higher draft pick and an easier sked next year.”
I guess the Eagles know their fan base.
