Basements made for Philly fandom
These lifelong fans have saved mementos and gathered coveted collectors' items to show their love for Philadelphia sports.
Some might think the biggest Philadelphia sports fans would be found in the stadium on game day. But they’d be missing a crucial segment of superfans. These devotees have carefully curated collections and dutifully decked out basements where they cheer on the teams that have led them to victory, or mired them in disappointment, season after season.
Take Jay Gleckner, a 44-year-old heating oil delivery driver, who converted the lower level of his home in Philadelphia’s Millbrook neighborhood into a fan cave where he could display the jerseys, original art, and other mementos that honor his favorite teams.
His house is the Sunday gathering place for friends, he said, because there are two TVs, including the fan cave’s 135-inch projector screen with surround sound, and a barbecue and meat-smoking setup that would make any tailgater jealous.
“If you want to be here for sports, I’ll meet you in the basement,” he said.
Gleckner’s fan cave is painted in Eagles midnight green and gray and is decked out in memorabilia from his lifetime as a Philadelphia sports fan.
He has an Inquirer newspaper box stacked with the city papers announcing major wins. And he kept the folding chair he sat on in Citizens Bank Park when the Phillies won the World Series in 2008.
It was a cold day, Gleckner remembered, so he folded the chair up and slid it under his puffer jacket. A nearby cop shrugged it off.
“I just looked at him, and he looked at me, and he was like, ‘Dude, we just won a championship. I have a lot of other things to worry about,’” Gleckner recalled. He met team manager Charlie Manuel a week later and asked him to sign the chair.
Gleckner also collects original art of Philadelphia teams by local artist Jordan Spector. An original portrait of Allen Iverson is signed by the former Sixers superstar — who first tried to buy the piece off Gleckner at a meet and greet, he said.
But Gleckner didn’t want to part with it. “It’s one of one,” he said.
Building a fan cave in retirement
When Bill Levy and his wife retired and found themselves home most days, it was time to move the memorabilia that had cluttered their family room for years into his own space.
“She [needed to] send me somewhere to get out of her hair, since I was around all the time,” joked Levy, a 71-year-old former attorney who has lived in the Philadelphia suburbs most of his life.
Down he went to the basement, where he now displays a lifetime’s worth of memorabilia. That includes a few items he inherited from his dad that started his collecting habit: Three tickets from a 1919 exhibition signed by Babe Ruth, as well as what Levy said is believed to be the last photo of the baseball legend in his Red Sox uniform.
Those are nestled amid more Philly-specific items, like basketballs signed by Iverson and 54-year Thomas Jefferson University basketball coach Herb Magee, a baseball signed by former Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt, and a glove signed by boxing legend Joe Frazier who, Levy said, “used to live five minutes from me” when Levy was growing up.
Levy has passed his love of sports onto his son, 38, who he said is often mistaken for former Eagles center Jason Kelce. (Levy said when he was younger he was often mistaken for Schmidt.)
“He’s a real fan,” Levy said of his son, “and ultimately, I hope, will enjoy this as much as I have.”
Generations of Birds fandom in photos and ticket stubs
Bill Messick’s basement fan cave in Delaware County’s Glen Mills is dotted in mementos from games he has attended throughout his life, like his ticket and program from the 1981 Super Bowl in New Orleans when the Eagles played the Oakland Raiders.
“As a young man, I was in shock,” Messick, 69, said. His then-new father in law was an Eagles season ticket holder, and to fall into Super Bowl XV tickets was a dream come true for this Delco native.
Messick, who spent his career at Verizon, said he’s an Eagles fan first and foremost. One of his items is truly unique and personal — a framed photo of him and his tailgate group that was used in an ad for recycling in the Eagles Gameday catalogues. “Trash the Giants and the Cowboys,” the ad reads in big block letters.
But his favorites are two ticket stubs, one from the first football game played at Veterans Stadium, in 1971 against the Buffalo Bills, and the last game played there, in 2003 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
His two children, who have grown up to be avid Philadelphia sports fans in their own rights, are represented throughout the basement, in photos with players at meet-and-greets and signings.
For Messick, these memories in his basement provide “a sense of comfort,” he said, whether the Birds win or lose.
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