After All We've Done for You

Apparently, Angelo Cataldi is bringing the Dirty Thirty back together. In case you don’t know who Cataldi and the Dirty Thirty are, he is the morning radio host on WIP, one of Philadelphia’s sports talk stations. In the weeks leading up to the 1999 NFL Draft, Cataldi was upset that Andy Reid was looking to draft a quarterback, specifically Donovan McNabb instead of Ricky Williams. He decide to put together a group, the Dirty Thirty, to take on a bus trip up to Manhattan for the draft. His revisionist history may now state otherwise, but when Cataldi auditioned callers for spots in the Dirty Thirty, he had asked them to boo as they would on draft day when they heard McNabb’s name called.

These days Cataldi says that his intention was to put together a group to cheer the newest Eagle draft pick. According to today’s column by Joseph Santoliquito on the website for CBS’ Philadelphia affiliate, Cataldi said, “We weren’t driving a 100 miles both ways to boo the newest Eagle. Now as I wind down my radio career, I’m going to be remembered as the guy who got 30 big fat puking drunks together to boo McNabb—not as an articulate journalist who contributed something.” This statement is entirely false. What Cataldi wanted was to raise a stink and coerce the Eagles into drafting Ricky Williams. He feels his “Honk for Herschel” campaign, during which he asked drivers to honk loudly while driving by Veterans Stadium to show their desire for the Eagles to sign the former Vikings and Cowboys running back, was the primary catalyst for the Eagles bringing Herschel onto the team. In 1999, he thought he could influence the Eagles’ decision-making by vocalizing his disagreement with the idea of drafting a quarterback. When Andy Reid did not appear to budge, Cataldi decided to take his displeasure national. That was the reason behind the Dirty Thirty.

Eleven years later, he’s doing it again. This time, he’s bringing the Dirty Thirty back to boo McNabb during a march to the stadium on Sunday afternoon. Why?

There is plenty of reason for Eagle fans to be dissatisfied by the McNabb era. There was a lot of promise, but ultimately, there was no championship. While McNabb was a very good quarterback, he did not have the best personality for the city in which he played. But there is no reason to boo him on Sunday. He doesn’t deserve it.

McNabb will be booed on Sunday. Some will do it because he did not win a Super Bowl. I disagree with it, but I understand the notion. Others, led by Cataldi and his Dirty Thirty, will boo because McNabb was rather cold and distant to the fans in the city. This faction is asinine. What reason did McNabb ever have to try and bond with these people? The boos of the first Dirty Thirty were his introduction to the city.

By staging his march on Sunday, Angelo Cataldi perfectly embodies societal privilege. When you break this down and actually analyze what occurred in Philadelphia over the past eleven years, McNabb’s crime, in the eyes of Cataldi and his supporters, is that he never embraced the people who shat on him. “After all we’ve done for him…” and “After we cheered for him for throughout his entire career…” are two of the more common phrases I’ve heard from people who agree with Cataldi. If this doesn’t represent privilege, I don’t know what does. This type of attitude is male privilege, heterosexual privilege, able-bodied privilege, and just about every other type of privilege out there,

Cataldi and the Dirty Thirty destroyed what should have been the happiest moment of Donovan McNabb’s first 22 years of life. In an orchestrated—though they’ll never admit it anymore—move, they absolutely crushed the kid. Then, once he got on the field and started to produce, they cheered and adored him.

But because he never thanked and embraced them for it, they now hate him. Because he told them how much they mean to him, they think he doesn’t deserve them. They’ll cover it up by saying he was distant and cold and passive-aggressive. Many of the things they say are true, but they aren’t fooling me. Cataldi and his backers are to McNabb what Dan Gilbert was to LeBron James. He is bitter that the player for whom he grudgingly came to root does not feel grateful for it. After all they did for you, how dare you nigger, I mean, Donovan.

It takes a high degree of privilege to feel entitled to love after treating someone in a disrespectful and indecent manner. I guess a straight, upper-class, pure White Christian man wouldn’t see anything wrong with that, though.