If there is a team that defines the World Series, it is the New York Yankees. No team since the inception of organized professional baseball in the late 1800’s has won more World Series Championships or has had as many World Series appearances and the Yankees. Yankees players with names like Ruth, Jackson, and Jeter have defined the legends of the postseason for one hundred years. They are the highest paid team in baseball in 2009 and in many ways, to lowly Philadelphia fans like me, the mansion on the hill of professional baseball.
Growing up a baseball fan, the dynasty that the Yankees established in the late nineties was an untouchable behemoth of World Series perfection. Bought, sold, and shipped to October year after year the Yankees were always going to win the World Series. They were the best team and hundreds upon thousands of baseball fans playing the part of Charlie Brown waiting for their World Series like a Valentine that never shows up in the mailbox, we hated them.
The majority of us still do. We are the blue collar bums, the Philly fans. Up until 2007, the Philadelphia Phillies had made the postseason three times between 1980 and 2006. The Philadelphia Phillies in existence since 1883 also hold the distinction of having the most losses ever recorded by a professional sports team. So now, in October of 2009 the greatest baseball organization of all team is going up against the losers, the Broad Street bums, The Sillies, The Wheeze kids, us.
Robin Roberts is going to be watching. Robin played against the Yankees as a Philly in 1950 and he hated them then too. Richie Ashburn is gone but I can imagine that wherever Whitey is, if it is possible to watch, he will be. Generations of Philadelphia fans and baseball fans who cheer loudly for any team to beat the Yankees will be watching.
Tonight, our bums who aren’t as cheap as they used to be are going to enter the ornate, over-the-top, baseball cathedral that has been constructed in the Bronx to begin their quest to be the first National League team since the Cincinnati Reds in the late seventies to repeat. It would seem that the Phillies are the underdogs and I would have it no other way. Howard, Rollins, Werth, Utley, Victorino are guys that want to be labeled underdogs. The Phillies always have been. They will face an incredibly potent line up that is nearly our equal in home run production. They will face Jeter, Posada, A-Roid, and all the other names that are more frequently recognized than any others in baseball. They will face the bulk of CC, Burnett, Petitte and the greatest closer in baseball history, Mariano Rivera.
The battle lines have been drawn. The odds are against us. The Yankees look increasingly like that team from the late nineties that we all watched on TV wishing our team was in their place.
You know what, as crazy as it sounds, I believe that the Phillies are going to win. I have no reason to explain it and on paper our chances look about as good as a clear day of late. We’re going to win. It might not be easy and I am sure we are going to lose a couple of games (whenever Hamels starts); but this is it, a defining moment not only for The Phillies but for baseball.
The Philadelphia Phillies are about to become members of the World Series elite and they will do so by beating the team that defined what postseason excellence means.
Go Phillies!
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