The Eagles in . . . Phoenix? That's not just losing a team, not to a community that bleeds green and silver. It would have been losing an institution, a franchise now estimated to be worth more than $1 billion that dominates the news year-round and casts a king-sized shadow over this city's other franchises. Its rowdy fans are legendary, a passion passed down and shared by several generations. No team in the league sells more merchandise; go anywhere in the region - from the Lehigh Valley to Wilmington to the shore - and you will find the team's colors and logo emblazoned on someone's back or window. Even back in 1984, with a fading team and just 2 years removed from a players' strike, the Eagles drew more than 55,000 fans a game to the Vet.
As panicked Philadelphians pondered the unfathomable possibility of losing their beloved football team, Tose assured them they had nothing to worry about.
"The Eagles aren't going anywhere," he promised. "In the first place, I'm not going to sell the club. In the second place, even if I ever did, the only way they'd get them out of Philadelphia is over my dead body."
Turned out that Tose, who died broke in 2003 at age 88, was lying through his capped teeth. Even as he spoke those words, he already had a handshake agreement with Monaghan to sell 25 percent of the club and move it to Phoenix. Even as he spoke those words, his daughter, club vice president Susan Fletcher, who once put a time clock in the club's Veterans Stadium executive offices to make sure everyone was giving a full-day's work for a full-day's pay, was out in Phoenix looking at private schools for her daughter.
