Anyone who's attended a Philadelphia sports event could have warned Sarah Palin that she might be treated to something less than brotherly love when dropping the puck at a recent Flyers game. The city's fans have an infamous brand of sportsmanship, exemplified by the incessant booing of opponents and struggling home team players (even greats like Mike Schmidt and Jimmy Rollins) and epitomized by incidents like the 1968 snowball attack on Santa Claus during an Eagles halftime.

Yet with their beloved Fightin' Phils dispatching the Los Angeles Dodgers and entering their first World Series since 1993, there isn't much to boo about. Nor will there be, if the Phils end up winning the whole thing.

But would a World Series title change the rowdy, taunting Philly sports fan -- as ready for a fight as he is for the next beer -- into a upstanding crowd member? Click here to see our investigation and check out the gallery below for a round-up of some of the most unsportsmanlike moments in athletic support.


Shameful Moments in Sports Fandom

    Booed Santa. At a highly mythologized December 1968 game, Philadelphia Eagles spectators pelted a man playing Santa with snowballs during an overlong Christmas half-time show.

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    The Bartman Incident. In game 6 of the 2003 NLCS, fan Steve Bartman appeared to swat the ball out of the way of Moises Alou, a move many believe cost Chicago a World Series slot. Bartman was put under police guard and reportedly considered the witness protection program.

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    Denver Self-Destructs. In an inexplicable (but not uncommon) case of fans destroying their own city, Denver Broncos fans smashed storefronts, started dumpster fires, and overturned police cars following their 1998 Superbowl victory.

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    Ten Cent Beer Night. Boozy chaos ensued when Cleveland's Municipal Stadium offered Indians fans beer at a dime apiece in 1974. The game was forfeited to Texas Rangers when the crowd stormed the field armed with home-made weapons and (literally) stole the bases.

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    Disco Demolition Night. In 1979, a Chicago DJ offered tickets to a White Sox game as bounty for destroying disco records. A packed stadium of crazed anti-disco fans pelted players with LPs, stormed the field, and ultimately caused Chicago to forfeit.

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    The Shoe Incident. It's said that nonstop crowd heckling drove several members of the 1979 Bruins into the seats at Madison Square Garden to tussle with New Yorkers. (Boston's Mike Milbury infamously beat a fan with his own shoe.)

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    Trash Gordon. A tradition was born when Jeff Gordon beat fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. at a 2004 Nextel Cup. Fans threw a blizzard of trash onto the Talladega Speedway, so much so that Gordon got back in his car to execute celebratory doughnuts in the debris.

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    Glass of Punch.When a Pistons fan famously threw a beverage at the Pacers' Ron Artest, he charged the stands and punched another fan in the face.

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    Giant Snowball Fight. In December 1995, cold, crabby Giants fans hurled giant chunks of ice frozen to their seats at San Diego chargers, resulting in hospitalizations, arrests, and the revocation of season-tickets.

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    Souvenir Ball Day. The brilliant LA Dogders handed out over 50,000 souvenir baseballs to stadium goers in 1995, who unleashed a barrage of them at umpires and fellow fans after a series of close calls led to the ejection of manager Tommy Lasorda.

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Gallery by Julieanne Smolinski.

Sara Palin got off lucky. At least the hockey mom didn't have batteries lobbed at her, like St. Louis Cardinals outfielder J.D. Drew did during a 1999 game at Veterans Stadium -- a stadium that infamously housed its own holding cell and makeshift courtroom for processing unruly fans.

Though the Vet is gone, the angry, sometimes assault-prone Philly fans remain. Some believe a title, and the civic pride that comes along with it, just might sap a smidge of that vitriol and help end years of boorish behavior, perhaps at least the kind that could land you in jail.

"A Phillies World Series title would probably swell our Grinch hearts about 100 times," admits Roger Leister, a longtime fan of all the city's teams. "We'll sing and party like the Whos in Whoville for a while, but revert right back to being miserable SOBs next spring after raising the banner, ready to rip into the first player who can't lay down a sacrifice bunt."

What Leister is referring to is how the springtime chants of "M-V-P" were a distant memory to Jimmy Rollins in August, when the all-star shortstop was booed during a slump at the plate. His comment that Philly fans were "front-runners" didn't do much to help.

But J-Roll shouldn't take it personally. "If there is even a slight thought in the fans' minds that they should boo, they will, because it's a routine. It's expected of them," says Scooter Lammey, a Phils fan and independent filmmaker. "If someone discovered the cure for cancer, was announcing the 'antidote' to the world at an Eagles game and came out wearing a Cowboys jersey, he would be booed so loudly the world would never know the cure."

And if the Phils win, Lammey thinks the behavior will continue, at least at Eagles games. "Winning the World Series would only give fans more reason to boo the Eagles' failures for the next two months."

Steve Thomas, a fan from Philly's western 'burbs, doesn't foresee a championship title having much effect either. "A World Series victory would be well deserved for Philly fans. But it wouldn't stop the booing. It would just make it more arrogant," he says. "Ya know, like New York fans."

That's something Mark Letcher, a Philadelphia transplant now living in Oklahoma, hopes doesn't happen.

"It would really suck if Philly fans start to act like Red Sox fans after they won in 2004. They just became the most arrogant, cocky SOBs around," he says, adding that for the mystique of the Philly fan to endure, the future will need to remain somewhat bleak.

"We will always, always need something to complain about, or some sort of other shoe to drop, in order to survive as Philadelphia fans."

Fair enough. We just hope political figures remember this next time they schedule a campaign event.