Phils Fall Paves Road For Future By Way of Past

Utley after '09 Series loss, wherein he tied all-time HR mark.

There's no denying things have gotten really, really bleak.  It's like Charles Dickens wrote a novel about baseball and the poor, downtrodden team we've been left to root for is the one that inhabits the world of misery and suffering that Dickens paints in gory grey under a permanent cloud cover.

After a five-game win streak on the road against Atlanta and St. Louis, they had improved to 4 games under .500 at 34-38.  Best of all, they were only 3 1/2 games out of First Place!  Suddenly, the Phils looked like buyers heading into the trade deadline, a team mounting a charge in one of baseball's most underwhelming divisions amidst a triumphant mid-season rise.

Then, the bottom dropped out.  They lost the last 2 in St. Louis, got swept by Atlanta in an agonizing and embarrassing 4-game home-stand and continued a free fall for the ages--even by the team that literally set the mark for losses.  After going an improbable 3-13 in their last 16 games and losing 9-of-their-last-10, the Phils are 12 games back at 37-51, 14 games under .500, only 2 games ahead of Houston, the worst team in all of baseball.

The difference is that Houston is looked at as one of the most souped-up future stars (an unsettling many of whom were acquired from the Phils) teams in baseball.

The Phils?  They are speculated to be looking at a long, hard road of desolation and dismal days ahead.

It's nothing the only professional sports team with over 10,000 losses hasn't seen before.  After all, life at the bottom has been a consistent and vast experience spanning most of the team's history.

It's a fan base that has gotten used to heartache, which has seen more than its share of lean years.

Still, this one hurts.  As one Phillies fan told me yesterday, "I'm angry.  A couple years ago we were in first place.  Now they're in last.  I'm upset they let it come to this."

To fall so far so fast feels unreasonable and unfair.

Recently, we were the team to beat with 5-consecutive division titles and 2 World Series appearances.

Now, we're one of MLB's worst teams.  The offense, once the coveted star quality of the team and the pride of the league, is the worst in baseball.   Out of 30 teams in MLB, the Phils are 26th in runs, 27th in average and on-base percentage and 28th in slugging percentage.

Worse than the miserable on-field results is the bleakness, the desolate state of the ravaged minor league system.  The picture painted is a complete and perfect portrait of a franchise with no upside and a fan base consequently bereft of hope.

It's difficult to blame one particular guy, although it has become understandably popular to single out Domonic Brown (.222, 5 HR, 39 RBI), the player the Phils have arguably lost most on during their expensive gambling streak the past few years.


Phils GM Amaro Jr.'s frown won't save his job.

Let that not obscure the fact that there's so much blame to go around.  It now seems clear, for example, that Ruben Amaro Jr. must go.  Less because of his mistakes, which have been counterbalanced by his successes, and more because when you go from first to last the boss has to take the fall.  It's as simple as that.  Responsibility.  Blame.  A fresh start.  That's what's needed.

They cut down Charlie Manuel and got worse.  The buck now stops a head higher with Amaro Jr.

Will the Phils regain their competitive edge with a new GM?  Unlikely anytime soon.  However, it's the way of the world that Amaro Jr.'s head must roll.  He'll land on his feet.  They can always do what they've done with Charlie (and for that matter Pat Gillick and Lee Elia...): keep him around as a consultant of some kind.  His chief's badge, however, must be relinquished.

The stench emitting from this organization right now, every night on the ball field, is so strong it's reminiscent of Passyunk during a garbage strike-- in August.

They can't hit, they can't pitch, they can't field.    They have no depth on the field or on the bench or in the rotation.  They have no exciting call ups pending or sure thing prospects.  They have no ability to compete now or any hope of contending in the foreseeable future.

The homecoming of OF Marlon Byrd (on pace for his career-first 30 HR, 90 RBI season), resurrection of starter Cole Hamels (the best 2-game winner in baseball), and sudden arrival of rookie reliever Ken Giles (0.58 WHIP, 16 S.O. in first 10 innings pitched) are the stories of the season thus far.  Everything else has been inconsistently good or downright gory throughout.

These are the times that try fans souls.  Dickens wrote that-- sort of.

History shows that the current fall from grace that these Phillies are displaying is painful, but not unprecedented.

In 2007, the Phils won their first of 5-straight division titles.  It wasn't high priced additions like the present-day Dodgers have packed their roster with that ignited a city.  It was the birth of a nucleus, home grown and home harvested: Cole Hamels, Shane Victorino*, Jayson Werth*, Chase Utley**, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Ryan Madson... [*rescued from the trash heaps of the L.A. Dodgers **snatched from their (the Dodgers) clutches.]

These were players whose talents and abilities culminated and peaked together.  It was a team worth rooting for.  This team is not.  They will be again.  As low as they currently are-- and as painful as it is to watch-- "Hope springs eternal," Alexander Pope famously wrote in “An Essay on Man.”  Of course, he was probably a Yankees fan.

In 1915, the Phillies appeared in their first World Series, losing 4-games-to-1 to the Boston Red Sox, whose young slugger Babe Ruth batted only once in 1 game appearance.

What followed was, unfortunately, likewise a preview of what was to come.  Perhaps Baseball Almanac said it best, when they described the next, defining era in team history as:

"A dark and dismal period virtually unmatched in the game's history. During the next three decades they would finish last 17 times and next-to-last 7 times, losing more than 100 games for five consecutive seasons (1938-1942)."  


Bill Lyon penned this indelible article in the late 1990's.

They also lost 100 games in '36 and 108 in '45.  I tally 16 last place finishes rather then 17 during that time span, but that hardly diminishes the point.  When you consider the fact that their 7th and 8th place finishes were out of 8 teams, rather than the present day 5, it is actually more horrid than one might assume.

In 1950, the Whiz Kids Phillies were swept out of the World Series by the NY Yankees.  The Phillies had won 91 games that season.  Their average age was only 26.4 years old.  They were brash and exciting.  It looked like the beginning of a lot more winning to come.  Still, despite their talent and youth, Robin Roberts and company faded to 5th place the very next year.   

Dark days arrived and the Phillies would encounter numerous losing seasons, including last place finishes from 1958-1961 and next-to-last, then last from 1969-73.  Eddie Sawyer, who had managed the 1950 team and then returned to the helm in 1958, quit after the first game of the 1960 season.  “I’m 49,” Sawyer explained, “and I want to live to be 50.” 

The worst collapse in sports history, of course, belongs to the infamous '64 Phillies of that era.  They even wrote a book about it, the title of which says it all: "The 1964 Phillies: The Story of Baseball's Most Memorable Collapse" about the devastating 10-game losing streak at the end of the season that cost the team its first pennant in a generation after they had held first place for 73 consecutive days.

Schmidt on S.I. cover.

Then, in the mid-70's, guys like manager Danny Ozark, Hall-of-Fame pitcher Steve Carlton and All-time Great 3rd Baseman Mike Schmidt came to town and brought with them winning baseball, unprecedented by the Phillies, setting all-time marks in wins at 101 in both 1976 and 1977.  

However, three-straight first-place finishes from 1976-78 ended in postseason defeat, followed by a 4th place finish the very next season, 1979.  They appeared to be unable to finish what they started.  

Finally, in 1980, the team made good on its potential and rose the first-ever World Series trophy in a town whose team had played consecutively since 1883 as The Quakers and since 1890 as The Phillies.  Nearly 100 years, oodles of heartbreak and 1 ultimate title.

By the late 1980's, the Phils were at it again.  With consecutive last place finishes in 1988 and 1989 and the retirement of Michael Jack Schmidt (in May '89), hopes were dashed and misery fell upon the city once more.

In 1992, the Phils finished in dead last place.  Then, in 1993 a miracle occurred.  They famously went from 'worst to first', winning their division with 97 victories, then the NL, before falling in the World Series to Joe Carter and the Toronto Blue Jays behind goat Mitch 'Wild Thing' Williams closer follies.  It was a wacky, wonderful team that late great announcer Harry Kalas deemed his all-time personal favorite.


Utley hoists trophy in 2008.

Still, more mediocrity ensued the very next year with losing seasons all the way up until 2001, when Larry Bowa steered the team to 3 winning season in 4 years.  Charlie Manuel took over as manager in 2005, a young charismatic gamer named Chase Utley took over Second Base and a steady increase in wins and enthusiasm reverberated around the city.  Heard was the consistent sound of the Liberty Bell sign, which would ring with each new Home Run in the newly minted beautiful Ballpark.  The sound, often rung back-to-back by Utley-Howard or Howard-Werth epitomized hope, renewal and success in a city that fell in love all over again with the team that had broken our hearts and our father's hearts for over 120 years of mostly ineptitude.

Everywhere you went the were Phillies hats and favorite player jerseys.  There wasn't a city you could visit without seeing the white 'P' on the bright red background.  It was Phillies nation, except for what felt like the first time in as long as anyone could remember, there was joy, swagger, excitement and victory involved.


Phils 8 wins, 2 losses in '08-'09 NLCS vs. L.A.

It was no longer a curse to be a Phillies fan, like it was for most of my dad's life, it was suddenly a point of pride.

That team, of course, went to the World Series twice, won it once, won the division 5-straight times and set a franchise record with 102 wins in 2011.

Today, let's hang our heads and mourn the loss of that team.  Then, tomorrow, let's lift our eyes to the horizon and let's begin again.  Let's come together as a Phillies nation and accept the defeat of today to make room for the new successes of tomorrow's teams we have yet to know.

If Schmidt hadn't retired, there could never have been an Utley in our hearts.  If Carlton hadn't left, Hamels would never have taken his mound or secured the NLCS or World Series glory of 2008. 

Holding on to hope in the current incarnation, something this roster inspired us to do during their 5-game win streak in Atlanta and St. Louis from  June 16th-20th, will lead to certain ruin.  Embracing the present failure and mourning the loss of yesterday's glory is the only thing that will lead the lifer Phillies fan to look forward to more enthusiastic faces in days, or perhaps years ahead.

Let's encourage team president David Montgomery to mourn the loss of hope in the present day roster that this current losing streak cements.  Let's simultaneously anticipate, as he should, that in his tenure hope will spring anew and should be ignited by a visionary the likes of a Theo Epstein (lauded in Boston, controversial in Chicago), Ben Cherington (Epstein's meteoric successor in Boston) or Billy Beane (A's revolutionary "Moneyball" man), who can create a winning way all his own, maybe even in just a handful of years ahead.

Until then, we will enjoy the waning days of Chase Utley's career, eagerly anticipate Cole Hamels next outing and enjoy the bright faces that will hopefully appear, players like Ken Giles who signal a new horizon for the team and its fans.