Frank's Place: Even in death, sports can be life-defining

To honor Harvey Pollack's numerical obsession, I really should have counted, or somehow rated, all the readers who responded to last week's obituary for the Sixers' statistics guru.

So fascinated were they by the details, the richness, the passions of Pollack's long life that it almost seemed as if this 93-year-old man's obituary were instead his public introduction.

Sadly, that's often how it works. For most of us, the only time anyone bothers to construct a narrative of our lives is after we're dead.

I guess that's why obituaries and death notices are the first thing I turn to each morning. For me, as much as any other single newspaper element, they illuminate Philadelphia, its residents, its quirks and customs, its past.

If you're looking for a crash course on this city, you'll find it there amid the minutiae - the parishes, neighborhoods, fraternal organizations, career highlights - that make up these little life stories.

And what's most striking to me is how often the deceased's attachments to sports get mentioned.

If anyone doubts sports' significance in 21st-century America, all they need do is read a week's worth of these posthumous postings.

One recent example chronicled the life of a 77-year-old Olney native.

Among the survivors and funeral arrangements, the notice pointed out that as an Olney High basketball player in the 1950s, the deceased had once scored 24 points against Wilt Chamberlain's Overbrook team.

"[He also] played golf regularly and developed a graceful athletic swing that was reminiscent of his smooth basketball shot," it continued. "From his youth, he always remained loyal to all things Philadelphia and rarely missed an Eagles game."

Newspaper death notices - they're paid advertisements, unlike the staff-written obituaries - aren't cheap. And a life of 77 years must have been filled with many noteworthy accomplishments, joys, and sorrows.

Yet this man's survivors felt compelled to highlight his athletic loves and achievements. Reading it, I not only regretted having never met him, I felt as if I knew him.

That death notice was hardly an anomaly. Day after day, those gray columns and the obits surrounding them contain vivid and touching stories, loving indications of just how much games, teams, and moments mean.

My brother calls this section of the newspaper the "Irish Sports Page." He knows it's usually the first place maudlin old Irishmen like me look each morning.

Actually, Gaelic surname aside, I'm only one-quarter Irish. It's a powerful quarter, though, one that's constantly pulling me toward a past I find intriguing and informative.

For that, my Fitzpatrick grandfather gets the blame. Though he died in 1955, I recall he had a sentimental streak as wide as Roosevelt Boulevard, the busy thoroughfare that fronted his tiny apartment.

A minor stage director, he dripped theatricality. Each word was carefully enunciated. He had more pride than money, wore an ascot occasionally, and always walked with a stiff-shouldered dignity.

Most memorably, though, he believed the past was sacred. And the moments when he seemed to glimpse it most clearly came when he had The Inquirer's death notices in his hands.

"Ah, Mrs. Larkin passed," he'd say with a strange mix of grief and glee. "Just 48. What a pity. May the saints watch over her soul."

I doubt Mrs. Larkin's death notice included any sports connections. But as the sporting universe has expanded in the intervening decades, so have the posthumous references to it, so much so that the "Irish Sports Page" is now often literally that.

Sports are intertwined in these final tributes because they're increasingly intertwined in our lives. And the bonds are so strong even death can't sever them.

"He loved Philadelphia sports," is a phrase you see frequently, "and one of his great joys was watching Phillies and Eagles games on TV."

I've read notices that cite the specific Veterans Stadium section in which the deceased had Eagles season tickets. I've seen references to Little League teams they coached, to streets where they played stickball as youngsters, to the lasting scars inflicted by the Phillies' epic 1964 collapse.

Sometimes these same people were buried in an Eagles jersey or a Phillies cap. Sometimes loved ones put cherished sports artifacts in their coffins, the way fans placed baseballs, radios, and programs alongside Richie Ashburn's casket during the Phillies Hall of Famer's public viewing in 1997.

Recently, a Duke University professor pored over newspaper obituaries and death notices for evidence that might support his theories on the powerful connections between fans and their favorite teams. He had no trouble finding verifications.

"Accounts such as these, written to celebrate the life of a loved one, suggest the decedent's interest [in a favorite team] was no casual thing," Charles Clotfelter noted. "To refer to these individuals merely as fans is surely inadequate. These were true believers."

Those obits made clear, he added, that fandom was "a sign of the people's affection, and a source of pride, even a kind of patriotism."

So what does this trend signify?

Well, if nothing else, it shows that for many of us, sports allegiances have become at least as important as religious affiliations.

And that's not as odd as it sounds.

After all, when life is ebbing, what would we like to remember or have remembered about us? A first communion or bar mitzvah? Or that cherished afternoon, in the dimly lit gym of some castle-like school, when we took it to Wilt Chamberlain?