Believe it: Phils are #1

I admit it: every time the Phillies are on a roll these past few seasons, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe that's why it's so magical every time they win big, defying expectation, which dictates: 'These are the Phillies, they're bound to lose, right?' And yet they don't. Game after game, playoff series after playoff series, this isn't my dad's Phillies. Heck, this team isn't like any other Phillies team in its 127 year history, nor like any other Philly sports team, ever.

2008 was amazing. It felt like a miracle, not because this Phillies team isn't great and aren't champions through and through, which they have proved time and again before our disbelieving eyes:

"People here feel like we can do some pretty amazing things," closer Brad Lidge said. "And if people out there feel like we're not that good, then maybe we have to prove it to them. And if we have to do it over and over and over again, so be it."

2008 felt like the actualization of the impossible because it had been so long since Philly had won a championship, over 25 years (28 for the Phils), more than any city in America with 4 major sports teams. In short, because it was happening to us. Sure, we could be good, but not the best. There would always be a N.Y. team or 14 years of Atlanta dominance in our division (we inherited them via baseball expansion and realignment at the exact wrong time) to put us back in our place. During the 2007 and 2008 regular seasons, every time Mets fans told me the Phillies' successes were wholly dependent on the Mets' failures and injuries, I adamantly defended our beloved Phils, while inside filled with guilty worry.

"It's just the Mets' bullpen," they snarled. "If they were healthy, they'd be holding the Phillies down, where they belong." Part of me, against my will, believed them. After all, this was the Phillies, the team that reached 10,000 losses faster than any other in sports history. Human civilization hadn't seen the likes of their losing. They were losing champions. They had clearly won at that.

"The Dodgers are going to cremate the Phils," cocksure Dodgers fans smirked at me before the 2009 NLCS, wherein the Phillies stomped L.A. in 5 games (4-wins-to-1) for the 2nd year in-a-row. At one of the city's largest Whole Foods Markets, several employees taunted me before the 2008 series for wearing a Phillies hat.

This year was different. Their taunts turned ugly, changed to hate. I represented something unnatural, a blemish to their born right to win. As I stood in the checkout line and the employees swarmed me with a fighting look in their eyes, I thought to myself, 'These people work here. Should they really be harassing me, a customer, like this?' Followed quickly by: 'Should I be paying $2.19 for an apple, anyway?' When I attended Game 1 of the NLCS, where I witnessed every Dodger comeback answered by a resilient and powerful Phillies' offense that refused to allow Dodgers Stadium, journalist's predictions, their own implosive errors or even Cole Hamels' bad location to beat them, fans jeered me and my few peer Philly fans present with venomous chants of "Philly sucks!" They spit on us and some engaged in fights that led to ejection.

After the Phils eliminated the Dodgers for the 2nd-consecutive year, Thursday's L.A. Times headline read, "Phinished Again." In the series, the Phils averaged 6.8 runs per game, double the Dodgers' NL-best season ERA. Meanwhile, the Phillies' pitchers held the Dodgers' NL-best hitters to a mere 3 runs per game.

Angelenos hate to lose. For them, it is the unexpected, a turn off. The Dodgers' Manny Ramirez embodied that during Game 4, when he went to the showers during his team's 'do or die' playoff game and missed Rollins' hit that gave the Phillies their historic bottom of the 9th comeback win. L.A.'s interest in their team is equal to its potential to win it all. Simple as that. If their team is in 1st place and on the verge of winning a championship, they care. If the team is in a dry spell and truly needs their support, the fan base is nowhere to be found. It is so L.A. and so opposite of Philly fans. We know everything about our team. We live and die with their wins and losses. We read the box scores every day, during a winning trend (brief moments in our vast legacy) or losing spells (our daily bread). We are fans, no matter what. We are the loyalist of loyal and boo because we care too much. We carry our starvation to win in our hearts and wear it on our sleeves:

"You have to understand what it's like playing in Philadelphia," said Jimmy Rollins. "You're playing in a city for a bunch of fans that are never going to be satisfied and that are never going to let you settle, never let you get comfortable. They want a winner every year."

The unique brand of entitlement displayed by the L.A. sports fan is a special kind of shallow, a superior form of fake. Like the abundant manufactured breasts and plastic smiles across the smoggy city, it trumps all other attempts at insincerity produced around the world. Philly fans are the polar opposite. We boo our players because we want them to know exactly what we think and how we feel, we want that emotional closeness, demand that level of intimacy.

Regarding his 1st HR trot in the '09 NLCS clincher, Jayson Werth said, "This place got really loud. You could feel it. It was electric. It was running through you. You're pumped up. You're flying around the bases, and the fans are right there with you. It was a pretty special moment."

We want to win so bad it hurts, and yet we think of ourselves as 'entitled to lose.' When we lose, it's not simply the result of being less qualified to win, it's because we are meant to lose. A wise waitress once told me, "Raising your kids Philly sports fans is a form of child abuse." And, true to victim mentality, when Dodgers and Mets fans tell us we will and should lose, no matter how good an exterior we put up, a huge chunk of us folds inside as we reflect, 'Gosh, when the Mets get Delgado back, we're in trouble.' Or, 'I guess Beltran has to start hitting, eventually. When their bullpen is full-strength, they'll crush us.'

We thicken our skin as we prepare for another bout of losing that will prove the final blow to our [insert year] playoff hopes. Why not, we've been through it so many times.

As Bill Lyon, 6-time Pulitzer Prize nominated Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter put it in an interview on Oct. 15th, 2009, "The Philadelphia psyche is: if you expect the worst, you're never disappointed. There's a belief and a confidence and at the same time just a cross your fingers, guys, that all the things that have happened to us in the past don't happen again."

In 2007, when the Phillies reached a losing milestone unprecedented in all sports history, the Sporting News wrote: "No team has lost quite like the Phillies. Now, make it 10,000 times."

USA Today wrote, "So the franchise that won only 1 World Series championship [1980] in 125 years, has 14 seasons of 100-plus losses, and once lost 23 straight games [1961], now has the ugliest number of them all in a city way too familiar with losing."

"It's just another one as far as I'm concerned," said 81-year-old Phils fan Ty Ayars. "They need pitching and until they get good pitching, they're not going to win a World Series any time soon."

“Dad, dad, who’s that guy?” an excited boy shouted to his father during a pregame media session that year. “Did he play for the Phillies?” The father stared at the pitcher once known as “Wild Thing,” and muttered a profanity under his breath. He shook his head and turned away before answering the child’s question: “Well, son, that’s the bum who blew the ‘93 World Series for us. He broke our hearts,” said Ralph Venuto, a 37 year-old among the millions sentenced as a lifelong Phillies fan.

"It's hard to be a Phillies fan," said another of the downtrodden. "They're the butt of a lot of baseball jokes-- and having 10,000 losses isn't helping any."

The most resounding failure in sports history belongs to the infamous 1964 Phillies, who were 6 1/2 games ahead with only 12 games to play. Miraculously, they found a way to lose and cement themselves and us in sports infamy forever.

My favorite newspaper headline of all-time was penned by Bill Lyon amidst the vast malaise between the Phils depressing World Series loss of '93 and today's new brand of Phillies. It might have been a snapshot describing any number of seasons in the team's history. The insert read:

"Latest Slide Ghastly, Even for the Phillies."

On July 15th, 2007, Bill Lyon composed for the occasion of the 10,000th loss:

"This is for you. You who have endured defeat after numbing defeat and never defected, who stayed on even when there was no good reason for doing so.

This is for you and your patient-beyond-all-understanding ancestors, who have remained truer-than-the-bluest-sky true . . . to the very end . . . and beyond.

You and the generations that came before you, redefining what loyalty means, handing over your hearts and your money even while knowing the first will get broken and the second comes without a refund."

On October 22nd, 2009, Lyon wrote of our beloved Phillies' present greatness: "Savor this. It comes along like, well, never."

Today, Mets and Dodgers fans must hold their tongues. Their argument that the Phillies don't deserve the winner's podium is dead. Perhaps it's even logically and factually incorrect to argue that these Phillies haven't earned their place among the game's great teams. Has there been a more dominant postseason team in a 2-year span than these Phillies, 18-5 during that time? Only 1 team won 16 of 20 postseason games before these Phils. That team is the Yankees, whose illustrious history is the winningest in professional sports. How fitting, how appropriate, how delicious that these Phillies will have a crack at that legacy as they define their own.

Would you have it any other way? Would they? After 127 years of losing like no one else could, while the Yankees were winning better than anyone, the 2 will square-off. (They faced each other in the 1950 World Series and the Yanks won 4-games-to-none.)

Team captain Jimmy Rollins had the winning hit in the bottom of the 9th with 2 strikes left in Game 4 against the Dodgers. Rollins is 5'7", 165 pounds. He beat the 294 pound, 6'4" Dodger relief pitcher to win one of the most incredible games in baseball history. "It was kind of like that David and Goliath story," Rollins said after the game. "I was able to knock the big guy off."

The 2009 World Series will be the David and Goliath series.

If someone had told you, after the Phils won it all in 2008, that Brad Lidge would lead the Majors in 2009, you would have thought in saves. However, Lidge led MLB with the most blown saves. If someone had said 2008's NLCS and World Series MVP starting pitcher, Cole Hamels will finish the season having lost more games than he won, you would have predicted the Phillies to end up in last place in their division.

What about injuries galore to this team? Losing Moyer and J.C. Romero-- so crucial to the '08 title-- prior to the '09 postseason, plus injuries to Durbin, Park, Hamels, Myers, Utley, Lidge, Victorino, Ibanez, Ruiz... during the year. So much was made of the '08 team's health as vital to their success that '09's hurts should have sunk the team. Yet, although all of these things went wrong, the Phillies went right. They won their division, then won the 1st & 2nd round of the playoffs by losing just twice in 9 games.

Who are these foreigners who have overtaken our beloved losers? They are impervious to their own team's history:

"I don't know too much about 10,000 losses," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "I try and concentrate on the wins."

"We didn't focus on 10,000 losses at all," GM Ruben Amaro said. "We let other people focus on that kind of stuff."

My friend Phil and I used to pay $5 and sit wherever we wanted in the Vet. It was well-known that you could buy the cheap seats, then move down to field level during the game. The Phillies didn't care. The fact that you were paying at all to watch their inferior product was terrific in their eyes. The assembled unit of players, born from a seemingly endless factory of mediocrity called "The Phillies Farm System" was on full display for your losing pleasure.

We walked down to behind home plate for a double-header with the Expos. We felt lucky, like we were getting something for nothing. Little did we know, we were getting nothing. We cheerfully peered through the netting behind home plate to root for Ozzie Virgil. After all, he was hitting .277 (mediocre to sports fans who didn't reside in Philadelphia) to lead the team. We cheered for pitcher Bruce Ruffin, who actually looked promising until he threw several balls over the backstop and appeared to be literally dangerous to the fan base. Those Phillies were always dangerous to us. They entered our hearts and poisoned our minds. We thought we were simply doing what everyone else was doing, rooting for our home team. We didn't realise then that they were permeating our psyches, affecting our relationships, tearing us apart, loss by loss.

Other teams were winning, at least some of the time. Other cities were celebrating, in at least one sport if not another. While we were savoring the bitter-sweetness of defeat at the highest level during the 1980 and 2004 Superbowl and 1993 World Series losses, other cities were turning the page, starting fresh, beginning anew. Then, from the ruins of the Eagles, the 1980 Phillies did something that got us stuck in that year for decades to come. Heck, recent pop culture has glamorized the '80's in retro-hipness, so why not hearken back to a time when the unilaterally recognized greatest 3rd Baseman of all time ("Major League Baseball All-Century Team") played for our team? After all, the '80 Phils did what no other had since their 1883 inception: they won it all.

We remembered Schmidt, talked about him to whoever would listen. He represented more than great baseball ability. His 18 years with our team and no other (during the last era before free agency price wars) was a beacon in a vast sea of oblique losing, a distant light at the end of our dark tunnel of monotonous defeat. His team won their division 3 straight times, but then painfully lost in the 1st round of the playoffs each of those years (foreshadowing the 2001-03 Eagles NFC title losses) by a combined 2-9 record. However, their dynasty culminated in a blissful World championship in '80, something we feel we must whisper, lest someone take it away and give it to N.Y. Tug McGraw even said at the city's inaugural World Series parade, "For years, Philadelphia has had to take a back seat to N.Y. City. Well, N.Y. City, we're 'number 1'!" I coveted my "The Phantastic Phillies" LP with its splendid disco soundtrack and Phillies broadcaster Harry Kallas's comforting voice detailing the highlights of our 1 championship season. On it, Schmidt says at the parade, "Take this World Championship and savor it, because you all deserve it." We savored for 28 years.

I went to Veteran's Stadium (left) to see my hero, Schmidt as a kid in 1986. Schmidt went on to win the NL MVP that year, the 3rd and final of his superlative career. However, none of that mattered to Phillies fans that night. They were 22 games behind the 1st-place Mets. Literally sick in the head from losing, Philly fans turned on their one ticket out of destitution and disparity and did what they do best, what they are known for internationally: they booed Schmidty on his 3rd at-bat, a feeble strikeout with men on-base, when he succumbed to the aura of his arena. Later, the stadium and field were voted by Major League players and managers the physically worst place to play in all of baseball. In 2004, they finally tore it down (although I still see some of its chairs at my cousin's house) and opened Citizens Bank Park (picture), so that even the house the current team plays in is a departure for their unprecedented achievements.

Before it was demolished, the Vet destroyed Schmidt's knees and cut his career short. He might be the all-time HR king in addition to the unanimous all-time great at 3rd Base, but the Phillies organization held him back with their inadequate facility, like a caged bird. Ted Williams ranked Schmidt in the Top 20 hitters of all-time and Schmidt has been argued as one of baseball's best players, period: "Schmidt is the Best Ever." I'll never forgive my peers for booing him that night. However, in their defense, losing in an unparalleled, unsurpassed fashion for almost all of 127 years does do things to your head. There's only so much character you can build in defeat. A relenting fan hung a sign in front of City Hall during the '08 World Series parade (below, right). [Schmidt talks about Philly fans' effect on him, the Vet's effect on his knees, etc.]

Throughout my life, I've imitated Harry Kallas. What Philly sports fan hasn't? His voice remains imprinted in my head as the voice of baseball. I remember an interview with Curt Smith, the author of "Voices of the Game," where he talked about baseball's all-time great announcers. "What about now? Is there anyone you listen to?" asked the show's host. "Harry Kallas and Richie Ashburn," he remarked without pause. Harry and Richie were the voices of my childhood. I tuned them in from near and far. After Richie was gone, the Phillies were channeled through Harry. He lead us all through the 2008 season and postseason, announcing the World Series win like only he could, before passing away.

His remarkable talent and golden voice were so pervasive that even illiterate beyond their own sphere Dodgers fans knew of it-- at least the one who sat behind me at the only 2008 NLCS game the Phillies lost did. It was my big chance to root for the Phils in person in the postseason (I'd been to countless regular season games) for the 1st time since my mom took me to the 1983 World Series, where we were squashed by Baltimore. In August of '93, I attended a Phillies game in Colorado. The Phils had a big lead, but managed to blow it when Gold Glove outfielder Milt Thompson (now the Phillies hitting coach) tripped in the field and flat-out missed the ball. My Philly friends, who I was visiting, were equally mystified. The next day, I read in the paper that the Pope's visit to the stadium (his lone U.S. stop) had been insufficiently handled by the grounds crew, which led to Thompson's anomalous mistake.

They blamed the grounds crew, but I knew better: the Pope and, perhaps, G-d had made the Phillies lose.

Oct. 12th, 2008, NLCS Game 3: Jamie Moyer allowed 5 runs in the 1st inning. The raucous Dodgers crowd was exploding, this was their moment. Their team, journalists across the country had put in print, was about to go to the World Series. Sure they had lost the 1st 2 in Philadelphia, but that wasn't going to stop them. After all, this was an L.A. team, one of the privileged vs. a Philadelphia team, the dregs waiting to be squashed. The fan behind me mocked Harry Kallas's voice in my ear all night long. He taunted and mocked me, too: my hat, my Chase Utley jersey, whatever. But his imitation of Harry hurt. Rather than superficial, it struck to the heart of the matter: Harry, the familiar voice in my head since childhood, was also tied to each disappointment and every loss I had encountered or endured throughout my life.

Perhaps that's why Wednesday night's 10-4 extermination of what was left of the Dodgers (after the Phils' 11-0 Game 3 humiliation of them and historic 9th-inning comeback in Game 4) felt like it was happening in a cloud. It felt far away, foreign, like a UFO or a man without wings flying, unassisted. The current incarnation of unprecedented winning doesn't feel like it fits here. It feels like it couldn't be happening to us, not really. The victim in the Philly Sports fan feels like we don't deserve it. Yet, we, above all fans deserve it. The Cubs complain to no end about their sorry state (and it is pathetic), but they had the Bulls and the Bears dynasty in recent history. The Red Sox moan and whine about their lot, yet they have won the World Series 7 times (twice this decade) and have Champions in basketball, football, and even hockey.

Philly sports fans have come to accept 2nd place as the greatest achievement we can obtain. We and our teams have made losing a work of art. And that's exactly why now is so rewarding. When you consider this Phillies team, this band of brothers whose mutual respect and endearment has been built on their steady ascent, you realize that they are not only making their mark on baseball history, but on our minds and our legacy as Philly sports fans. For the rest of time, these Phillies will illuminate a large portion of our collective history, because of the light they shed on our record books and our lineage.

Winning Ways

"It was just a mindset to be changed," said GM Amaro. "We started to believe things would go right rather than go wrong."

Jayson Werth hit 2 home runs in the final NLCS game. He was a Dodger before he played for us. He has helped as much as anyone to get the Phils back to the World Series in '09 with 36 HRs, 99 RBIs and a team-leading 5 HRs in 9 playoff games. He was Player of the Game last night and said this: “Big games call for big times,” appearing as his teammates have after each postseason win, focused and determined. "We’ve got 4 more games to win." He reflected:

"You know, it's not only the franchise that's different now, but the city. It's the fans, everything. It's all different now. I've only been here for three years, but I feel like I've seen a transformation … I feel like I was here for the old Philly and the old Phillies. And now I'm here for the new Philly and the new Phillies. We've got something special going on here. And hopefully, it's going to continue for a long time. We've gone from being doubters to being contenders, on both sides of the ball -- fans and team. It's been awesome to be a part of.”

"They were better than us," said 2-time World Series champion Manny Ramirez. "You saw what they were capable of doing." Ramirez is the superstar egoist who anchors the Dodgers. Bill Lyon wrote of Manny: "He treats each at-bat as a 10-minute self-aggrandizement. They should put him on a shot clock."

He is the fan favorite in L.A., where they sell fake dreadlocks to adulate fans who want Manny's appearance, the ultimate in L.A. intimacy. He is the perfect Dodgers' mascot: tanked up on superficial steroids, for-hire and signed by them at $22.5 million a year, double what MVP candidate Chase Utley is paid by the Phils, who contrarily play a team game.

"You try to get a feel for what drives people," said Pat Gillick, who largely built the current team. "People have different hot buttons. Chase and Jimmy and Howard, their hot button is that they like to play. They like to be on the field. The money is important, but my feeling is it's secondary. They just love to play. Unselfish. Their goals are team goals."

"We've got two MVPs and a potential MVP," Shane Victorino said. "We've got all-stars on this team. But it's like there are no superstars here. We're all committed to doing anything we can to win."

"We've been a confident team all year. We've just believed in ourselves and we're going to continue to believe in ourselves," said Ryan Howard.

"'Are you guys going to repeat? Are you guys going to do it?'" Jimmy Rollins said. "Around the city, everywhere we went every Phillies fan was asking. Now that we're actually in the World Series, we really have a chance to repeat."

"That's the only way you can be remembered as being great," Rollins said. "Everybody knows about the Yankees. Everybody knows about Boston. Obviously, we want that here, when people refer to Philadelphia not just as a team that was 1st to lose 10,000 games, but a team that was able to play with the best at their time."

"It will be interesting to see, 5, 10 years from now what we were able to accomplish," Lidge said. "Not just this year, but hopefully next year and the year after. Hopefully we did some pretty amazing things. Obviously, this is the first time this franchise has been to back-to-back World Series. We really want to win these next 4 games. We want to be a winning team. But with the players we have here, I don't think anybody is going anywhere for a while, so I think we have the opportunity to do something pretty special."

That opportunity begins Wednesday in Game 1 of the World Series.

It is Philadelphia's 7th trip to the World Series in 127 years. The Phils lost in 1915, 1950, 1983 and 1993. In 2008, we won it all, just like in 1980. The 2009 Phillies became the 1st Phillies team ever to reach consecutive World Series. The New York Yankees did it every year from 1998-2001.

"I can get used to it," manager Charlie Manuel told a cheering crowd Wednesday night. "We got one more step and we're going to get it!"

notes:

Is Charlie Manuel the best Phillies manager of all-time?

All-time managerial records (percentages above .525, minimum 100 games):
Arthur Irwin – 149-110 – .575
Dallas Green – 169-130 – .565 (1 World Series)
Pat Moran – 323-257 – .557 (1 NL pennant)
Bill Shettsline – 367-303 – .548
Charlie Manuel – 354-294 – .546 (1 World Series, so far)
Danny Ozark – 594-510 – .538
Pat Corrales – 132-115 – .534
Harry Wright – 636-566 – .529
Billy Murray – 240-214 – .529

Charlie Manuel:
games, win-loss, team's finish
1 2005 Philadelphia Phillies NL 162 88-74 .543 2nd place
2 2006 Philadelphia Phillies NL 162 85-77 .525 2nd place
3 2007 Philadelphia Phillies NL 162 89-73 .549 1st place
4 2008 Philadelphia Phillies NL 162 92-70 .568 1st place, NL & WS Champs
5 2009 Philadelphia Phillies NL 162 93 69 .574 1st palce, NL Champs (so far)

Totals: 5 years 810 games, 447-363 record .552 winning %
3 Pennants, 2 NL Champs and 1 World Series Title (so far)

With Wednesday's win, the Phillies repeated as National League champions for the first time in club history. Here's what the Phillies have done in the year following a World Series trip:

Year WS outcome Next Year Outcome
2008 Beat TB 2009 Advanced to WS
1993 Lost to TOR 1994 4th in NL East
1983 Lost to BAL 1984 4th in NL East
1980 Beat KC 1981 Lost special Division Series to MONTREAL
1950 Lost to NYY 1951 5th in NL
1915 Lost to BOS 1916 2nd in NL