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On Friday, writer John Ellis conveyed his disdain for the city's recent "also ran" status, with only one championship in the last 27 years.  Readers opined strongly both for and against John's argument.  Here are our two favorites, one for, one against John's opinion:

Nick from Germantown:

I understand where this article is coming from. It's very frustrating that we don't take advantage of our situations more. Why is it that it seems like we are either an underdog that gets outplayed as expected or a talented team that comes up short?

I think that our teams have two issues. One is chronic mismanagement. The Sixers as of late fit into this. The Phillies up until the 70's were the classic case. The other issue may just be the sports psychology of the city. While it is a great movie and very poetic, maybe we shouldn't keep associating with Rocky, but instead with Rocky II, Rocky III, and Rocky IV.

There are real implications to losing though. It affects a sense of civic pride and overall sentiment of the city. Everyone is happy when we win. I think winning is definitely important.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't translate this into an "overall greatness of city" argument. Chicago can identify with us a lot and in many ways their sports success is worse than Philadelphia's is. I know it might sound funny, but just take a look at it. Also, I would gladly take Philadelphia the city any day of of the week over Detroit's sports championships.

Rather than lose and sulk though, I think it is important that we take losing in stride. I'm tired of Philadelphia being viewed as this looney bin of barbarism.

Josh:

So instead of being grateful that we make it as far as we do in the first place (many times against big adversity, which has become our calling card), you whine that we aren't loaded with championships? Are you aware that North America is chock full of cities that'd be happy to have a sports history to even speak of? We'd only be a "City of Losers" if we whined and complained instead of congratulating our teams that work as hard as they do. Keep crying buddy while I wipe my ass with this article.