He probably shops online, or sends his servants to Kohl's for those holiday bargains. And I get that. But gee, wouldn't it be nice if he could share in the misery of his customers a little bit? Would it be so difficult for Lurie to share - with a news conference, or a sound bite, or a newspaper interview - that he too is disturbed by this Eagles situation and he's staying up nights trying to figure out how to correct it?
I've seen Lurie boast plenty over the years. I mean, he's downright giddy in his "state of the team" address every summer, speaking of the gold standard and how the Eagles are pedal to the metal, or how they're all in and such. But when things go bad, he abandons the fans like supporters of Herman Cain abandoned their candidate. You don't like the product? Yeah, well, take that up the street. I've got your ticket and parking and concession and merchandising revenue, and a waiting list 50,000 strong fueling my venture capitalism.
And therein lies a problem.
Lurie and team president Joe Banner are aghast at the notion that they don't generate an abundance of goodwill. They blanch at suggestions that the Phillies have taken over this town. I had Banner on my radio show one day and at the mere suggestion the Phillies were thought of more kindly in Philadelphia, he snapped off his preseason football TV ratings, which dwarfed what the Phillies were getting for regular-season games. On a later show, he revealed a bleeding heart, saying he couldn't imagine what more his organization could do to please the fans - that they have tried to put the best team possible on the field and have every year tried to win a Super Bowl. But he apparently doesn't understand there's more to running a team than that. Banner went to that awful Seattle game - which was one of the biggest debacles in team history - then made himself unavailable for comment afterward.
