# Which is a better sports city, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 18, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224 "2007-10-18T21:16:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Captain\_Socks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Captain\_Socks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Socks)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/1 "2007-10-18T21:16:09Z")
[Discuss.](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/features/si50/states/pennsylvania/essay/) Here we go Steelers, here we go! ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/2 "2007-10-18T21:22:58Z")
Well, this is just off the top of my head, but I tend to look at it as so: Pittsburgh: Multiple championships Philadelphia: Multiple near-misses and choke-jobs, with all the whining about it you can stand. However, I live quite close to Philly and get to hear their crybaby sports radio hosts making lame excuses all day long, so I might be slightly biased. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/3 "2007-10-18T21:31:51Z")
And now that I read the story in the OP…oh my. You almost have to feel bad for the guy who has to try and defend Philly. A quick summary of his key points: –We have a better pre-game song (_God Bless America_) than they do (_We Are Family_). \ –Our pre-game sandwiches are better. \ –Oh…huh…those are really his only two points. Sorry Opal. Gotta say, I _love_ that these two bits are part of the same paragraph: > [@](#): > > When free agents tour my city, they are sometimes shown the steps of our art museum, where Rocky trained for his fight against Apollo Creed. Maybe Apollo was from Pittsburgh, I don’t know, but Rocky Balboa was definitelya Philadelphian. > \ > My so-called friends in Pittsburgh like to remind me that Philadelphia fans booed Santa Claus. Hey, I’ve got news for you guys: Santa Claus is make-believe! So…on the one hand, we have “Rocky Balboa is from Philly!”, and on the other hand, we have “Santa Claus is make-believe”. See the type of sports “expert” I get to deal with every day? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/4 "2007-10-18T21:41:08Z")
Pittsburgh wins for hockey alone. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2007, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/5 "2007-10-18T21:39:49Z")
Pittsburg wins for hockey alone. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2007, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/6 "2007-10-18T22:06:16Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] Pittsburgh wins for hockey alone. [/QUOTE] You inspired me to check this out, and as it turns out, that’s not entirely true – the two cities are tied in that respect. Let’s look at championships, broken down by sport. Football: Pittsburgh Steelers – Five Super Bowl Championships Philadelphia Eagles – Zero Super Bowl Championships Baseball: Pittsburgh Pirates – Five World Series Championships Philadelphia Phillies – One World Series Championships Hockey: Pittsburgh Penguins – Two Stanley Cups Philadelphia Flyers – Two Stanley Cups Basketball: Philadelphia 76ers – Three NBA Titles Pittsburgh – No NBA Team Interestingly, even though Philly lags woefully behind Pittsburgh, a relevant [GoogleFight](http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Pittsburgh+Sports+Championships&word2=Philadelphia+Sports+Championships) reveals that folks on the web tend to do a lot of make-believe talk: Pittsburgh Sports Championships – 2,000,000 results Philadelphia Sports Championships – 2,130,000 results Then, of course, we have the [Donovan Index](http://www.donovanindex.com/index.php), a ranking system for tracking a particular city’s bragging rights. It currently has Pittsburgh ranked 9th and Philly ranked 20th. Of course, let’s keep everything here in perspective – New York is still far and away #1. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Soapbox\_Monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Soapbox\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soapbox_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2007, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/7 "2007-10-18T23:11:04Z")
So the Philly guy’s trump cards were…cheese steaks and a fictional boxer. Clearly no contest. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/8 "2007-10-19T00:26:58Z")
The Pirate fans once cheered Dick Stuart (Dr. Strangeglove/Stonefingers) for picking up a hot dog wrapper swirling around in the wind at first base without dropping it. That should count for something. Of course they booed Terry Bradshaw and threw trash on Tommy Maddox’s lawn. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/9 "2007-10-19T01:35:46Z")
Pittsburgh’s (I got it right the second time) hockey wins were more recent, and that’s gotta count, like, double or something. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/10 "2007-10-19T06:52:57Z")
Pittsburgh wins hands down for no other reason than [Bob Prince](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Prince) , the most colorful baseball announcer ever. (Sorry, Harry Caray fans.) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Socks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Captain\_Socks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Socks)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/11 "2007-10-19T08:49:01Z")
I just realized how horrible the Philadelphia guy’s point is after reading\*\* Hal\*\*'s post. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/12 "2007-10-19T11:03:31Z")
[QUOTE=Hal Briston] You inspired me to check this out, and as it turns out, that’s not entirely true – the two cities are tied in that respect. Let’s look at championships, broken down by sport. Football: Pittsburgh Steelers – Five Super Bowl Championships Philadelphia Eagles – Zero Super Bowl Championships Baseball: Pittsburgh Pirates – Five World Series Championships Philadelphia Phillies – One World Series Championships Hockey: Pittsburgh Penguins – Two Stanley Cups Philadelphia Flyers – Two Stanley Cups Basketball: Philadelphia 76ers – Three NBA Titles Pittsburgh – No NBA Team Interestingly, even though Philly lags woefully behind Pittsburgh, a relevant [GoogleFight](http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Pittsburgh+Sports+Championships&word2=Philadelphia+Sports+Championships) reveals that folks on the web tend to do a lot of make-believe talk: Pittsburgh Sports Championships – 2,000,000 results Philadelphia Sports Championships – 2,130,000 results Then, of course, we have the [Donovan Index](http://www.donovanindex.com/index.php), a ranking system for tracking a particular city’s bragging rights. It currently has Pittsburgh ranked 9th and Philly ranked 20th. Of course, let’s keep everything here in perspective – New York is still far and away #1. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Yeah, but it’s not all about championships. Philly could win 4 straight in any sport and their fans would still be vile creatures from the pits of hell. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/13 "2007-10-19T12:33:01Z")
[QUOTE=cochrane] Pittsburgh wins hands down for no other reason than [Bob Prince](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Prince) , the most colorful baseball announcer ever. (Sorry, Harry Caray fans.) [/QUOTE] And don’t forget the inventor of the Terrible Towel, [Myron Cope](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Cope). ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/14 "2007-10-19T12:44:42Z")
[QUOTE=Hal Briston] Then, of course, we have the [Donovan Index](http://www.donovanindex.com/index.php), a ranking system for tracking a particular city’s bragging rights. It currently has Pittsburgh ranked 9th and Philly ranked 20th. [/QUOTE] Off topic, but that index is a bunch of crap. Any hockey rating that has the Canadiens 4 and red wings 6 is just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/15 "2007-10-19T15:45:28Z")
[QUOTE=wolfman] Off topic, but that index is a bunch of crap. Any hockey rating that has the Canadiens 4 and red wings 6 is just stupid. [/QUOTE] Bwuh? The index tracks a team’s history of winning championships. Given that, I’d have to say that Montreal’s 24 Stanley Cups beat out Detroit’s 10. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/16 "2007-10-19T15:51:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Bwuh? The index tracks a team’s history of winning championships. Given that, I’d have to say that Montreal’s 24 Stanley Cups beat out Detroit’s 10. Sorry I wasn’t clear, I didn’t mean it as a direct comparison between the two, just examples of crap. Montreal is undisputably number 1 in any comparison of hockey history. And Detroit is much higher than 6. ---
**Author:** ![rockle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rockle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rockle)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/17 "2007-10-19T16:29:25Z")
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever] Yeah, but it’s not all about championships. Philly could win 4 straight in any sport and their fans would still be vile creatures from the pits of hell. [/QUOTE] _Ahem_. Not _all_ of us. I mean, I’m not about to defend the bozos who give Philly sports fans a bad name, but there are some of those guys _everywhere_. 😃 I was actually going to try to make a comparison of the two cities using my father (a Philly guy) and my husband (a Pittsburgh guy) as barometers, but I just _can’t_. I seriously believe that if I asked them which is the best Pennsylvania sports town, they would both say _State College_. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/18 "2007-10-19T17:10:19Z")
You don’t need championships to have the best sports town. Boston and Chicago (Cub sector) are unbelievably great baseball towns. Prior to the recent Series win for the BoSox, it was just as good a baseball town as any. So, championships don’t make the sports town a sports town. Heck, championships might **hinder** it. Personally, I think it’s insulting to even mention Philly in the same breath as Pittsburgh – it is insulting to anyone from Philly. Pittsburgh has this bug up their butt about the only real major city in the State of Pennsylvania – Philly – and they’ve had it for quite some time. Since the Steelers surge of late, the fans have accelerated their campaigning and have beat their chests repeatedly. Well, whoopdee-do-dah to all Pittsburgh sports fans. In Philly, we are more dialed in to what we have going on here. We’re happy for you over there, but we’ve got our own thing going on in this **major** city. Sans championships, we are here. Sans championships, you’d might have **no sports whatsoever**. Think that over when you watch the trucks and trailers drag one of your franchises off to Wichita or some place, cause it’s gonna happen. You’re a nickel and dime town, and you’ll be a penny and nickel town when the Pens are gone. Then the Pirates will be in grave danger of leaving, too. Matter of time. Sense it coming. Feel bade for your fate. In Philly, we are used to two things/themes from other towns, but they barely register as concerns, just acknowledgments to this big city. First, Boston tries to play themselves up as the center of all things ‘Revolutionary War’ or all things rooted in the ‘‘Founding of Our Great Nation’’. Guess what, Boston: Philly walks all over your ass in this category. Puh-lease. Don’t bother us with your nonsense and Sam Adams. I throw a Ben Franklin and the Declaration of Indepence down on the table. WHAT FRIGGING CARDS DO YOU HAVE, BECAUSE I GOT DOZENS MORE TO TRUMP YOU!? Second, Pittsburgh tries to hype themselves as the best PA sports town over Philly. Guess what, Pittsburgh: Check back when you are a two-sport town on the verge of becoming a one-sport city. Further, the longer Philly goes w/out championship in FOUR sports, the more national hype we are going to get as possibly THE GREATEST sports town with the most dedicated fans. Take the passion of the Cubs fans or the Red Sox fans and roll that into all FOUR sports in Philly, and we will be propped up as the standard by which all others are measured. Philly, a great **big city** sports town – possibly the greatest – will be a cohesive and loyal group, a vehemently passionate town, following all four sports in a quest for the championship that ends the drought. Pittsburgh? Yeah, nice little sports town. No argument. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/19 "2007-10-19T22:30:36Z")
[QUOTE=rockle] _Ahem_. Not _all_ of us. I mean, I’m not about to defend the bozos who give Philly sports fans a bad name, but there are some of those guys _everywhere_. 😃 I was actually going to try to make a comparison of the two cities using my father (a Philly guy) and my husband (a Pittsburgh guy) as barometers, but I just _can’t_. I seriously believe that if I asked them which is the best Pennsylvania sports town, they would both say _State College_. [/QUOTE] I dunno…there IS a reason the old Philly football stadium had a jail in the basement… ---
**Author:** ![rockle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rockle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rockle)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224/20 "2007-10-20T00:15:21Z")
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever] I dunno…there IS a reason the old Philly football stadium had a jail in the basement… [/QUOTE] That would be The Vet. It wasn’t _just_ a football stadium – the Phillies played there, too. And IIRC, most of the people who spent any time before a judge were not from around here. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-a-better-sports-city-pittsburgh-or-philadelphia/423224.md?page=2)