Philadelphia sports fans are ready for the restart

Philadelphia sports fans, foaming at the mouth for months, are finally about to see their teams again.

The last few months have been hard on everybody everywhere, and they’ve notably been lacking the (sometimes) pleasant diversion of Philadelphia sports.

That’s all about to change for Philadelphia fans. Finally.

We are mere days away from a new Phillies season, a 60-game sprint which has the potential to become must-watch TV, even for those who usually can’t be bothered to pay full attention to a typical baseball season because of its length.

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And if that’s not enough to excite us, the Phillies will be followed shortly thereafter by “restarts” for the 76ers and the Flyers.

The Sixers find themselves with a cushy eight-game slate as a run-up to playoff basketball inside the Disney bubble, one that they can basically sleepwalk through and still go 5-3. Ultimately however, their seeding won’t matter as much as their collective ability to gel and stay healthy during these games as they look to make some postseason noise.

The Flyers are similarly looking to fine-tune things, although they’ll only have one exhibition game and three “real” ones to do it. Then it will finally be time for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Philadelphia Toronto. Close enough, I guess.

Still, this is an unprecedented time for the Philadelphia sports fandom. With deep runs by the basketball and hockey teams, we could have wall-to-wall Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers for two months, which will also overlap with the start of the Eagles season. This will be truly unreal if it happens this way, but this fanbase is ready for anything.

Who could have ever conceived of this? In just the span of a few weeks, we could see the Flyers take on Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL playoffs, the Sixers meet up with Boston or another heated rival in the NBA postseason, the Phils do battle with the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox, and the Eagles start a new season with a clash against age-old foe…Washington NFL team! This all sounds amazing in theory, but of course there are a couple of flies, or potential ones at least, in the ointment.

First and foremost, Philly fans will only be able to enjoy these games on television for the foreseeable future, supposedly until early 2021 at the very least. It remains to be seen how much the sports-watching experience will be degraded with no fans in the stands. Maybe we’ll quickly adjust, or maybe not. Either way, there will still be that nagging feeling that things aren’t truly “normal” until fans are allowed back in.

And then there is the distressing fact that this could all go away in an instant. Leagues can do their best with protocols and bubbles, but a wave of sickness would wreck all of the work that has gone into this restart. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, because that scenario is even worse than if sports didn’t come back at all. Nobody likes being given hope, only to have it taken away. Trust me, Philadelphia fans know the feeling, albeit usually in the form of teams who crash and burn in the playoffs.

Let’s think positive here, though. The coming months have the potential to be the most fantastic stretch of Philadelphia sports that any of us have ever seen. And it couldn’t come at a time when we needed it more. It’s going to be weird for sure, but it’ll all be worth it if Philadelphia can rack up two or three championships in the next seven months.

Ok, maybe that’s TOO positive. But you get my point.