Philadelphia sports fans know that it somehow feels worse when we lose than it feels good when we win. Even though it feels great when we win. But it feels really terrible, horrible, no good and devastating when we lose. Or something like that. Example: We lost the World Series and the Super Bowl within four months of each other in 2022-2023. Ouch. And that's only recently.

But surely we're not doing any worse in the big game(s) than fans in other cities, right? We just feel the heartbreak more – right?

Well, no. Science has the answer, and it's painful.

We at the Chestnut Hill Local went digging for answers. First, we had to define the question. What other cities have all had at least one team in each of the four major professional sports – football, baseball, basketball and hockey – during a relevant time period? And what's the relevant time period? We picked October 1967, when the Flyers played their first game in the NHL and Philadelphia joined the four-team club. How many other cities have continuously fielded at least one team in all four major sports since October 1967? Not many: just Boston, New York, Chicago and Detroit. A total of five, counting Philadelphia.

Los Angeles and San Francisco came close to joining the club, but had some periods without football and hockey, respectively. So they're out. Do New Jersey, Long Island and teams formed after 1967 count as teams from New York? Yes, because New York has had teams in all four sports since October 1967. We counted the results of the one subway series (Mets vs. Yankees in 2000), even though it was guaranteed to be one loss and one win. Feel free to disagree.

Easy question, next: What are the championship contests? The Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals, and the Stanley Cup Finals. Historical charts showing the contestants and results in all four events are widely available online.

Without further ado, our results. The five cities' respective success rates in championship contests in which they've participated since October 1967, are as follows:

Chicago      .750

Detroit        .600

Boston        .561

New York   .545

And then Philadelphia. We checked our glasses – this can't be right. .261.

The Flyers won two Stanley Cups in a row in 1974-1975, but have since lost in the Stanley Cup Finals six times. The 76ers prevailed once in the NBA Finals, in 1980, with Doc and Moses and the gang. But they've lost four other times. The Phillies won the World Series in 1980 (what a year!) and again in 2008, but have lost four times. And as for the Super Bowl, the impending event that caused us to think about these matters? The Eagles are one and three in four tries – so far.

Astute readers may object that Chicago and Detroit represent smaller sample sizes – 16 and 15 championship appearances, respectively, and the Detroit Lions have never appeared in a Super Bowl. But, for present purposes, we are looking only at success once you get there. By that metric, both Chicago and Detroit are doing very well indeed.

Boston punches above its weight in terms of total appearances (41) and championships (23), despite having fielded only four teams. New York has claimed 24 championships in 44 tries, but they had to field nine teams to get there.

But .261? Seriously? If one were to assume that every championship contest is a coin toss – yes, there's always a betting favorite, but bear with us – we would expect that Philadelphia teams would be at .500 on our chart. But we've only won six of 23, which, in terms of coin flips, is a result that has a one in 83 chance of occurring naturally (source: omnicalculator.com). Ergo, it would have to have happened unnaturally. We are cursed.

Which is nonsense! On Feb. 9, 2025, we are going to begin the process of progressing back to the statistical mean. When the Eagles win, Philadelphia's winning percentage in championship contests during the past 57½ years will jump to .292 – in one fell swoop. These days, a career .292 batting average will get you into baseball's Hall of Fame, so we'll be in good company. And then, if the Eagles win three straight Super Bowls ...

Richard Tuttle is an author and a board member of the Local.