Philly Dressed In Mourning
By Lew Freedman
Philadelphia believed it owned the 2011 season. Philadelphia thought for sure the World Series belonged to the Phillies this year. Philadelphia was certain there would be a gigantic, miles-long, attended-by-a-million-people parade down Broad Street this year.
Instead it’s pass-the-antacid. And as a former resident, I am with you guys. I’ve got heartburn the day after the Phillies were erased from the Major League baseball playoffs by the St. Louis Cardinals. Not a hangover, heartburn. Along with every other guy in the Phillies clubhouse and every fan in Citizens Bank Park.
I would have an easier time digesting a soft pretzel and cheesesteak right now than swallowing the fact that the Phillies were KO’d from the playoffs after just five games, going down the tubes in the National League Division Series, and eliminated by the Cardinals yet. The Cardinals were lucky even to be in the playoffs. Flash back a little more than a week and it took until midnight of the last day of the regular season for St. Louis to even qualify as a wild card team.
To tell the truth, I thought the Cardinals’ season was wrecked in spring training when pitcher Adam Wainwright went down with an injury. I felt there was no way for the Cards to make up for his loss. Yet here they are, still playing. Probably about once a week all winter I will say out loud, “I can’t believe the Phillies lost to the Cardinals.”
This Phillies team was built to win it all. There was more buzz about the Phillies’ starting pitching than Simon Cowell leaving “American Idol.” It seems that I read in more than one place, more than one time, that this Philadelphia starting rotation could be the best of all time.
Philadelphia has won five straight NL regular-season division titles. Pretty good. The Phillies won 102 games this season, the most in the majors. Very good. So if you work in player personnel for the Phillies, what do you do to revise the roster? You’ve already got all of the ingredients in place for a World Series winner, but you are not even playing in the NL Championship Series. The starting pitching is the best in baseball. The bullpen seems fine. Maybe you add another high-average hitter. But really, it’s not like there are too many obvious holes to fill.
Generally speaking, Philadelphia sports fans do not take losing well. They are especially short on forgiveness to teams that were supposed to excel and do not bring home the big trophy. At least I didn’t hear about any riots in Philly after Chris Carpenter shut the Phils down 1-0 on three hits Friday night. There was probably a whole lot of drinking going on, probably a whole lot of anger being spewed, probably a bunch of frustration coming out. But nothing rearranges the facts. The Phillies are still dead.
So far during this franchise-best half-decade run the Phillies have put together they have reached two World Series and won one. Three other times they made the playoffs and lost. Am I alone in this, or do others think this edition of the Phillies is starting to resemble the Bobby Cox-Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine Atlanta Braves? Maybe we are seeing history repeat itself here.