Generation L

Call them Generation L – the Loss Generation.

For 20-something fans of Philadelphia professional sports, an Eagles victory in the Super Bowl is a foreign concept.

“I’ve never seen one, so I don’t know what I’m missing,” said Wilmington, Del.’s Joe Britton, born on June 1, 1983, the day after the 76ers won the NBA title, Philadelphia’s last major pro sports championship.

Last fall, the Boston Red Sox’s World Series victory eased the suffering of New England baseball fans who had waited 86 years for a championship. But in that span, Boston fans also celebrated five Stanley Cup victories, 16 NBA championships and wins in two of the past three Super Bowls.

For 21-year-old fans of all four major Philadelphia professional sports teams – football, hockey, baseball and basketball – the misery has lasted just as long. But it has been ever more intense, compacted in a continuous stream of disappointment.

Fourteen other cities were home to pro teams in all four major sports during the past 21 years, and all of them won a championship, from eight for New York and Los Angeles, to seven for Detroit and Chicago, to single World Series victories for Phoenix and Atlanta.

“It’s heartbreaking to see everyone else be able to celebrate,” said Erin Harvey, 26, from Townsend, Del. “Whether it’s the Eagles, the Flyers, the Phillies or the Sixers, we’ve come so close … it’s devastating.”

The worst for many fans was a year ago, when the Eagles lost their third straight NFC Championship. This playoff run, which could end in a trip to the Super Bowl Feb. 6, is fraught with the familiar combination of hope and fear.

Harvey has no memories of the 76ers’ title when she was 4, so a win against Carolina in the 2003 NFC Championship game would have put her one win away from sharing a world championship hug with her father – who took her to that game – for the first time in her life.

“It’s all we ever wanted,” she said.

Instead, the Eagles lost 14-3 at Lincoln Financial Field.

It is those moments that stand out for fans in their 20s: The Flyers getting swept by Detroit in the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals; the 76ers bowing to Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2001 NBA Finals.

Since 1983, Philadelphia teams have made the playoffs 40 times, but the Flyers, Phillies and Sixers are 0-6 in championships. The Eagles haven’t managed to even reach a Super Bowl in that time.

Success is a hallucination. Corby Spruance, 25, from Wilmington, Del., thinks he remembers the Phillies’ win in the 1980 World Series, when he was an infant. But that’s because his father used to play him highlight tapes from the Series.

No, the real memories include snapshots of Phillies reliever Mitch Williams giving up the home run to Toronto’s Joe Carter that lost the 1993 World Series.

“I was 11 years old,” said Joe DiDiego, now 22. “Baseball was everything to me, and still is in some ways. I cried. I definitely cried.”

But fans like this won’t swap allegiances for the sake of a title.

“I couldn’t switch teams,” said Ryan Sarnecky, 21, of Wilmington. “You’ve got to take the bad with the good. It doesn’t make it hard, it makes you keep on watching, even though you don’t want to keep getting heartbroken.”