Giving 'Em Fitz: The vanishing local-sports landscape

Sometimes, trying to return to sleep in those unsettling hours before dawn, I'll walk my mind through vanished sports landscapes.

The mental exercise required to dredge up details of once-familiar locales can induce sleep as effectively as any pill.

I might enter Connie Mack Stadium beneath the 21st and Lehigh portico, and walk through the clacking turnstiles and down the dank concourse, passing program vendors and dimly lit concession stands, until finally I am climbing a ramp to the lonely left-field bleachers.

Other times I'll exit a car in the vast parking lot at Brandywine Raceway, enter that busy clubhouse where the ever-hopeful chatter of prerace handicappers is as thick as the smoke and move on to a spot at the rail to watch the trotters and the glorious sunsets.

On other nights, the venue might be the Arena; Municipal Stadium; Convention Hall; or the cramped, linoleum-floored gymnasium at the bottom of that steep hill behind St. Pius X school in Broomall.

Sadly, since sports is no less immune to time's fickle nature than newspapers or malls, there's no shortage of stops on these nocturnal tours.

The drill leaves me wondering what now-popular landmarks, what games and traditions will exist only in the mind's eye a half-century from now.

Can Franklin Field endure many more decades as an outdated, little-used facility that sits on increasingly valuable real estate?

Will historic area clubs - and the game itself - survive the steep decline in golf interest? Will the paucity of U.S. stars kill tennis in America? What does the future look like for the Penn Relays, the Dad Vail Regatta?

They might seem like silly questions now. But not that long ago who could have foreseen that horse racing and boxing would one day be confined to sports' distant fringes or that streamers would no longer rain down on the Palestra?

In 2015, the sports universe is so much larger, so much more accessible. One city, no matter how large or rich its sports history, can no longer contain our interests.

We've all become conditioned to focus on the next big thing. And the bigger that thing is, the better. If it's local, great, but there are plenty of sports elsewhere.

Thanks to the technology explosion, a Philadelphian can follow English soccer, Australian Rules football, or Chinese tennis as avidly as earlier generations could track the Phillies.

A Packers fan in Mayfair, for example, might never get to Green Bay, might never even leave home, and yet still be a fervent, informed fan.

There are Haddonfield kids wearing Manchester United jerseys who have never seen the Union play. And many North Philly youngsters for whom LeBron James is the ultimate idol couldn't name all the schools in the Big Five.

Last Monday night's national title game between Ohio State and Oregon was the most-watched telecast in ESPN's history. And while college football doesn't draw flies in Philadelphia, that game attracted the largest audience for postseason college football in this city's history.

The numbers here and elsewhere will be equally impressive when March Madness rolls around. And though the Eagles have played in just two, winning none, the Super Bowl will captivate the Philadelphia area in two weeks.

This broadening of our sports horizon does not come without a price. The further our interests wander from Philadelphia, the more vulnerable some local institutions become.

Events and traditions that were uniquely Philadelphian have been lost or greatly diminished, in part by our growing attraction to national and international sports.

The trend's most notable victims are high school and college sports. In another time, these lesser activities were sufficient to satisfy the constant cravings of sports junkies. Now, except for parents and purposes of recruiting, they've been rendered nearly irrelevant.

People are always surprised to learn that in Philadelphia, high school sports were once as popular as any professional team.

The annual city title games, pitting the Public and Catholic League champions, were always among the year's top two or three attractions. When, for example, Bonner and Central met in 1959's football championship, Franklin Field was nearly filled. A year earlier, playing in the same stadium, the Eagles had averaged just 29,000 fans a game.

In 1945, when Southern and West Catholic played, 54,000 fans packed Penn's stadium. A year later, for a Northeast-West Catholic matchup, there were 60,000.

Things were no different in basketball. On March 6, 1953, when Wilt Chamberlain's Overbrook faced West Catholic in the city title game, 4,000 fans had to be turned away from a sold-out Palestra.

The ascendance of big conferences and the easy availability of televised basketball combined to slay one of the city's most distinctive institutions, the Big Five and Palestra doubleheaders.

The same factors are killing college football here. Go to a Temple or Villanova or Penn game some autumn Saturday, and you'll see what I mean.

The Big Five is an indistinct shadow of its former glory. The city title games ended in 1980. Local college football is hanging on through little more than tradition.

Occasionally, on my late-night trips, I'll journey through a place that still stands.

In the Palestra, I always see the elderly guards in their outdated uniforms, the trophy-case photos of all those earnest young collegians, the burst of light, noise, and energy that meets you when you exit a tunnel.

By then, I'm usually asleep.

If the next morning I realize I've forgotten a detail or two, I'm not disturbed. I know, in this instance at least, I'll have a chance to refresh my memories.