Erik Moe: Critic at Large

When professional sports teams reach championship games, newspapers start doing strange things. Take Friday’s edition of the Metro, for example. The tabloid made up non-existent news and doctored a photograph to go with it. Then, they reported on how the non-news in the fake photo didn’t exist and wasn’t going to exist and ran a giant red NO circle on top of the doctored photo of the non-news to make sure you knew that it wasn’t news. I was confused enough when I walked past the newsstand that I had to take a second look. I assumed the red X indicated some kind of editorial point of view, since you generally don’t run symbols on top of your lead photo. In fact, the X was the collective superstition of the city big-wigs that made for the non-news story. SO, here’s the non-news: Apparently Billy Penn on top of city hall was once draped in a Philly Flyers jersey and once wore a Phillies hat during championship runs by those teams. Both of those championships were lost. It is also thought that Billy is mad about the violation of the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” that long kept developers from building anything taller than the brim of his hat (Philly hasn’t won a championship since before Liberty Place was built). And so, the Eagles are poised to try and break “The Curse of William Penn” during Sunday’s Superbowl, and out of superstition Billy will not be wearing an Eagles Jersey. Did the Metro jinx it by putting this image in everyone’s mind anyway?