PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia sports teams haven’t won many championships, but some years still stand out.
Sure, professional sports titles of note happened in 1967, 1974, 1975, 1980, 1983, 2008 and 2017, and you can add Villanova’s Final Four title years of 1985, 2016 and 2018.
But then, there’s 1993, 2001 and – now — 2022.
Was there a championship? No, at least not yet. More accurately, we should say “to be determined” since technically, the Philadelphia Eagles’ 2022 season rolls into the new year.
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But even though Broad Street has had no 2022 championship parades to this point, think about what did happen over the past 12 months.
Villanova men’s basketball made it to yet another Final Four.
The Philadelphia Union were minutes – literally two to three minutes – from a title they lost on penalty kicks.
The Phillies ended a decade-long postseason drought and went to the World Series.
And the Eagles are arguably the best team in football, with the NFL’s best record.
Where does 2022 rank in the history of Philadelphia sports? The experts chime in.
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Recently retired iconic sports media member Ray Didinger: “I would say probably second. I still think 1980 was the best year.”
Phillies legend Larry Bowa: “I think it’s up there. But I don’t think it’s up there with ‘80 because every [pro] team in ‘80 went to the finals.”
WIP Morning Show Anchor and Co-Host Rhea Hughes: “It doesn’t come close to 1980.”
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WIP Host Howard Eskin: “It’s probably no higher than four or five.”
WIP Host Glen Macnow: “I’ve only been here since 1987, and the old heads older than I say that 1979-1980 was the greatest ever when all of the teams went to the finals.”
Longtime Eagles Radio Voice Merrill Reese: “To rank it accurately, you’d have to wait until the Eagles season plays out as optimistic as we are … If they go the distance, and if they end up with a Lombardi Trophy, I would put it up there with the greatest years in Philadelphia sports history.”
In 1980, the Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers – who had a 35-game unbeaten streak – both made their respective finals and lost. The 1980 Eagles made it to Super Bowl XV in January 1981 after beating the hated Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game at Veterans Stadium, but lost the Lombardi Trophy to the Oakland Raiders.
And the 1980 Phillies – a team at the end of a golden era filled with disappointment – got hot under no-nonsense manager Dallas Green, outlasted the Houston Astros in an epic NLCS and won the World Series over the Kansas City Royals.
All four major professional sports teams in the city got to the final round of their sport.
Didinger, a columnist for the Philadelphia Bulletin at the time, said, “If you were in the sports business, either as a writer or a broadcaster, that was the land of milk and honey.”
And the fact this came about 10 years after Philadelphia sports was — save the Stanley Cup-winning 1974-75 Flyers — brutal in the early 70s made it all the more sweeter, according to Didinger.
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Bowa, the popular shortstop on the 1980 Phils, said the town was electric and it was hard for a sports fan to be negative about anything.
Hughes was a young fan living in South Philadelphia at the time, and said it was a really fun time to be a kid and celebrate with everyone in the neighborhood after wins.
“I grew up with that. I thought that was going to be my life,” she said. “I was set up for huge failure.”
“I don’t think in our lifetimes … nothing, nothing will be able to surpass that because I just can’t see all those teams being good at one time,” Eskin said.
While 2022 is not 1980, could it be in the conversation with other memorable years, such as 1983 when the Sixers won it all, 2008 when the Phillies did, or 2017 when that Eagles team won Super Bowl LII in February of the following year?
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Eskin thinks it’s fourth right now behind 1980, 2017 and 1983. He believes if the Eagles win the Super Bowl LVII in February, it will move to third.
Bowa said he would be very disappointed if they don’t get to the Super Bowl.
Macnow, whose personal favorite year is 2008, says 2022 will move past that year if the Eagles go all the way.
“We’re going to have to be gathered out on Broad Street in our cold winter jackets watching Jason Kelce get dressed up one more time in that Mummers suit.”
So, even though 2022 is coming to a close, the story of this year in Philadelphia sports still needs its ending to be written, and that will rest in the hands of Jalen Hurts, Nick Sirianni and the rest of the Philadelphia Eagles.