OPINION: Mr. Simers, welcome to Philadelphia

What happens if T.J. Simers gets 7,121 `obscenity-laced e-mails' from people living in a city the Los Angeles Times sportswriter recently called a hellhole?

He does two things:

1. He writes a worst-thing-anyone's-ever-read opinion piece about getting those 7,121 obscenity-laced e-mails from the comfort and safety of his upscale office in West L.A.

2. He asks his relatives to remind him not to cry the next time his editor sends him to Philadelphia to cover a sporting event because it could be worse.

Oh wait, no it couldn't.

Because upon his arrival, a Philadelphian -- any Philadelphian, for that matter -- would recognize his ugly mug from a picture the Philadelphia Daily News ran of him, take the `brain-dead hack columnist' to the local radio station and let the Sixers fans -- or as he calls us, the `inmates' -- loose on him.

That Philadelphian would then receive a $60,000 reward -- a cent well spent by every person in the Philadelphia Metro Area.

Now if you read Simers' June 9 column, you've probably realized by now that this piece starts out similarly to his.

If you didn't read it, well, it's too late, because the greedy folks at the Los Angeles Times charge you two bucks for viewing anything in their archives older than two weeks.

But hey, can you blame me for copying the guy? He's a good writer. Really, he is, despite what the Philadelphia Daily News said about him.

His piece caught the attention of 7,121 people that live 3,000 miles away from him.

Of course, he picked the wrong city to pick on, as those same 7,121 people will gladly tell you.

Simers is from the West Coast, and he doesn't know the first thing about this city.

Of course, neither do I, having lived in Philly for just nine months (I grew up in a suburb of Washington D.C., with sports teams that have let me down time and again like you wouldn't know).

But in those nine months, I've come to love this city.

Not just because the food here is better than anywhere else in this country.

Not just because the people here are more interesting and diverse than anywhere else in this country.

But because this city has history. It is home to generations and generations of Americans who have grown up in the City of Brotherly Love. And with that, its people love their sports with an amount of passion and energy that is unmatched anywhere else.

Sure, we boo the Phillies, Eagles and Flyers when they don't perform up to our expectations.

Hell, we usually boo them when they're good, too.

But it's only because we care. Like many have said, the players are like members of our family. And that's why we support them.

And that's why we believe in them. Perhaps stupidly. Perhaps blindly. But we believe in them.

Even after Iverson picked up his third foul at the end of the first quarter.

Even after The Answer suffered that contusion on his right side in the first half.

And even after Fisher's three put the Lakers up by 10 with 51.4 seconds left.

We still believed.

The Sixers are a team the entire city of Philadelphia has rallied around.

"It's nuts. There's a fanaticism now," Sixers President Pat Croce told reporters after his team won its way into the NBA Finals. "If you think I'm a happy boy, now we have millions of them just like me which is great... But now it's exceeded my expectations because not even basketball fans are juiced on the team.

"It's something that's galvanized the pride of Philadelphia."

And it starts at the top, with President Pat Croce himself.

When you got a guy climbing the Walt Whitman Bridge to support his team, how can you possibly not show support for him and his team (and despite what Simers predicted, Croce and others did not jump off the bridge after the Sixers dropped Game 5)?

Then there's Larry Brown, a respectable and classy coach who's been around the league for a while and knows what it takes to produce a winner. Not to mention he found some way to patch up his relationship with The Answer.

And there's the city. Home of SEPTA buses that flash `Let's Go Sixers' signs interchangeably with their route numbers and destinations. Home of restaurants that hang Sixers banners and signs in their windows. Home of cars decorated with flags -- no matter how hideous -- cheering on their team. And home of retailers like Society Hill Furnishing Co. Outlet that shamelessly hang signs like, `Allen Iverson's 3rd Cousin Shopped Here,' thinking -- and perhaps knowing -- that they will catch the attention of shoppers (positive or negative, that's a different story altogether).

I remember walking into McDonald's the morning after Game 1 of the Finals and hearing everyone in the place -- regardless of age, race or sex -- talking about the game last night. In fact, a woman who appeared to be well into her sixties knowledgeably interrupted a conversation two McDonald's employees were having about how the injuries were affecting the Sixers' play (she started talking about a metatarsal something when I finally got my food).

And of course, there's the Sixers. The team itself. Not just Iverson and Mutombo, but Bell, Buford, Claxton, Geiger, Hill, Jones, Lynch, MacCulloch, McKie, Ollie and Snow -- the whole lot.

They play every game as if it were their first and their last at the same time. No wonder Philadelphians and everyone else in the U.S. -- minus the residents of SoCal -- have been swept up by Sixersmania.

That's not to discredit the Lakers, however. They made a great run through the playoffs and showed a lot of heart, too.

But their fans? I feel sorry for some of them. Those like you, T.J. Simers. You'll never get that feeling. You'll never understand that supporting your team means more than buying a pair of overpriced shorts and a jersey with the team's logo and knowing all the stats.

But hey, T.J., I don't hold it against you.

Rather, I invite you, Mr. Simers, to fly east and stay a while -- a little longer than your usual couple of days to cover an event -- in Philadelphia. So you can know what it truly means to be a fan of your city's sports teams.

That is, if one of those 7,121 doesn't have your head first.

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