Cool Stuff You Didn’t Know About Philadelphia (Part 5)

It’s that time again – even more cool stuff that you might not know about Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. To brush up on previous fact-filled posts, read one, two, three, and four. Today we’re talking about some of Philadelphia’s weirder facts. Who doesn’t love oddball trivia?

Find out some oddball facts about the city of Philadelphia.

First of all, let’s talk about the Wing Bowl, a competitive eating competition that’s been around since 1993. It has since grown into such an event that it’s held to massive crowds at the Wells Fargo Center. Contestants have to earn their way into the competition by eating a massive amount of food (like 20 cups of cooked oatmeal or 3.75lbs of creamed spinach) to prove their mettle. The competition starts at 5:30 in the morning, which to me is the most ludicrous fact of all. Who eats wings that early? Anyway, the most recent Wing Bowl was held on February 2, 2017 and was won by Bob “Notorious B.O.B.” Shoudt with a total of 409 wings.

You can’t order it anymore, but Philly restaurant PYT used to offer a deep-fried Twinkie burger. The artery-hardening sandwich consisted of a juicy beef patty, cheese, and crispy bacon between two battered and deep-fried snack cakes. No word on whether anyone actually died of a heart attack while eating one of these.

You’ve heard about the rowdy Philadelphia Eagles fans and how there’s a jail (and judge) under the football stadium. But apparently “Iggles” fanatics are so hostile that they hate even Saint Nick. Someone dressed as Santa Clause came to a home game in 1968 and was pelted with snowballs until he ho-ho-ho’ed his way out of Dodge. On that same note: players who were asked to join the Eagles but declined the offer have had D-cell batteries thrown at them at games. There’s also the (apocryphal?) tale of some female Eagles fans who attempted to dump Ex-Lax into the food of a Giants player they saw at a restaurant. No confirmation, but it sounds just crazy enough to be true.

Part of the reason we love Philadelphia is because it’s so crazy. The above are just a few examples of Philly being weird.