November 2008
A Wise Man Once Told Me…
I realize now that it’s
after midnight on the east coast so it’s technically not Thanksgiving anymore
but I’m going to go ahead with this post anyway.
Thanksgiving was always a day that put things into perspective for me year
after year. Lately, my turkey days have been about driving to Philadelphia from
Reading, enjoying dinner with the family that I rarely see followed my a nice
drive home in the dark to work early the next morning.
This year is no different in that respect but I did take a moment or two to
take a look around and think about what this world has come to on a day where
we are all technically supposed to be giving “thanks” to what we
have.
This year, America was introduced to an idiot…
Or two…
Three if you count the guy
in the background slaughtering a turkey while looking for some ill-advised
camera time.
But that’s not really my point. I just wanted to point out that Sarah Palin and
Glenn Beck (and the turkey farmer) are idiots.
I digress.
We’re entering into a holiday season that is projected to be rough. Jobs are
scarce, loans are down, the economy is bad and companies all over the country
are just trying to figure out a way to get us to spend money we really don’t
want to spend. Instead of exchanging gifts with everyone, my family is doing a
secret santa.
The outlook is dim. America right now is like the Royals in September; do we
trade away our assets and hope to rebuild for next season? or do we bring up
some of our better prospects and try to make a run at becoming a playoff
spoiler?
In baseball, there’s always next season, but America doesn’t have that luxury.
While some see turmoil, however, I see opportunity.
I see the opportunity to take a step back and look at what we’ve got right in
front of us instead of lusting over what we don’t have. I see opportunity to
take a new path in how we go about our everyday lives. I look around and I see
a country that has become infatuated with money, possessions, and power while
emphasis is all but lost on the one thing I think matters most. Family.
I have a great family. There’s always someone there to talk to, to ask for
advice, to be a shoulder to cry on. It’s easy to lose perspective on what’s
really important. It’s no flashy, it’s not cool and it doesn’t pay the bills.
We’re all guilty of it at one time or another. So while everything that takes
away from those we love is in financial distress, maybe we can take the chance
to find out what we’ve missed.
It’s always been my philosophy to believe that everything happens for a reason.
And even that which seems insurmountable may be just be the perfect chance to
explore the unexplored.
To quote Benjamin Franklin (hometown hero!): “Every obstacle is an
opportunity in disguise.”
Smart guy.
Blast From The Past
I just got done watching “Major League.” Funny movie. It’s a classic 1980′s baseball movie with more mustaches than Jason Giambi can shave.
Personally, I love the 80′s stache. If my facial hair wasn’t blond, I may consider growing one.
Anyhoo, the movie took me back to an awkward time in baseball. Ok, technically I was 4 when the movie was made but still, it reminded me of my early years as a baseball fan. Jake Taylor (Tom Beringer) reminded me of my very first favorite player: Darren Daulton.
Things were just a little different back then. Free agency was a time mostly used for ballplayers who couldn’t find a home, not guys who wanted to make more money. Every team had a legitimate shot each year. Some teams still wore teal away jerseys and no one wore ugly throw-backs as a publicity stunt. Teams were teams, too. There weren’t many 5-tool players like A-Rod and Beltran. There were role players. The big sliggers, the skinny speedsters, the hurlers and the johnny hustlers.
The 80′s are widely considered a downward trend for baseball but I consider it a time when the true baseball fans were separated from the pretenders. Football was making is emergence as the national sport as baseball was increasingly being tagged as boring and slow.
Sure, there were a few more players back then who needed bigger belts than today, but so what? They’re still athletes. Krukker was a king in Philly in 1993, but today he’d be a career pinch hitter.
Baseball has come a long way since the 1980′s. We’ve made a lot of changes, not all of them good. The Red Sox can actually win championships now, we’ve got instant replay, rookies can make a huge impact right away and a million dollars a year seems like chump-change.
We’ve baseball lifers. All of us. But sometimes you have to take a look back at where you’ve come from before you can understand where you’re going. There are a lot of difficult decisions that are going to be debated over the next few years regarding salary caps, revenue sharing, instant replay and a whole lot of other things that have nothing to do with the game we all love.
Maybe the 80′s weren’t the most popular years for major league baseball, but in so many wonderful ways… they were the best.
There’s More to Life
The subject of this column was not inspired by baseball, I
know, but nonetheless it brings up and interesting topic.
Those of you who don’t just follow baseball may have heard
of a young man named Myron Rolle this weekend. For those of you who did not,
allow me to fill you in:
Myron Rolle plays safety for Florida State, which is great
but nothing no one has accomplished before. He’s a talented player, projected
to be a first round draft pick should he enter the NFL draft. The problem is;
Myron may not be interested in playing safety in the NFL, no, he may be much
more interested in becoming a brain surgeon.
No, that’s not a typo.
Brain surgeon. As in
the guy who’s going to remove the brain tumor from every Cubs fan’s skull if
they don’t win a world series anytime soon.
Florida State played Maryland yesterday which didn’t mean a
whole lot in a grand scheme of the monstrosity known as the BCS (which is a
conversation I’ll have to have with Barack Obama later). And while his teammates were
busy playing the first half, Myron was busy trying to become a Rhodes Scholar.
That’s right, a Rhodes Scholar. A distinction normally suited for future
presidents, supreme court justices and a few other scientists but not normally
football players. Myron broke the mold on that one.
Not only is the guy a freaking genius, he graduated from FSU
in just five semesters! Let me put that into perspective for you: I’ll be lucky
to graduate from Penn State in five years!
The topic that interests me is this: What should Myron Rolle
do come the spring?
This topic has meaning because it raises an important
question in sports today. A lot of young athletes are recognized earlier and
earlier to the point where high school sports become nationally recognized from
time to time. LeBron James had his high school games televised on ESPN, and
this was way before we knew he could do what he does now in the NBA. Now
occasionally you have guys like LeBron and Tiger Woods who burst on the scene
and become superstars in their sport. But more often than not, you find a young
man who thinks he is going to spend his life playing a sport only to find that
his career is short lived.
I was almost one of those young men.
All my life I was convinced I was going to be a professional
baseball player. So convinced, in fact, I cared about little else besides
getting my next baseball fix. I was smart enough where I could pass by grade
school without putting forth too great an effort, a plan I still use today in
college. I was obsessed, to say the least, I even convinced my uncle to be my
agent when I made it to the show.
My parents did the right thing in warning me that a career
in baseball would be amazing, but highly unlikely. My rebuttal was usually
something along the lines of “baseball is my dream, there will be plenty of
time for everything else when I’m done.” I probably should have listened. But I
was a teenager.
I believed baseball was my destiny until I reached high
school and discovered that all my plans were for naught. I was 5’8″ 140 pounds,
played second base and even though I had taught myself to switch hit, I
tirelessly tried to be the next Mickey Mantle. I would have settled for the
next Yogi Berra.
I’m not bad at baseball; I’m just not Alex Rodriguez. Hell,
I’m not even Ivan Rodriguez. I’m average, mediocre, good at best. Even still, I
take my glove to big league games hoping someone will get hurt and they’ll have
to call me in from the stands to play right field. A guy can dream.
So while a couple guys I played little league with were
drafted by MLB teams, I was forced to explore alternative I never wanted to
explore, which was anything else besides baseball. I have since found my niche
but I feel I am one of the lucky ones; one of the few who are able to find a
place to fit outside of that which they love. It’s not an easy task to take on,
but one that so many young men and women have forced upon them.
Take Rolle, for example. His options include the NFL or
medical school; a choice any red-blooded American would be happy with but so
few actually have. Many would chose sports because it’s more American, it’s
more to our liking. There are plenty of surgeons out there, right? He can
always become a doctor after his career is over, right?
Maybe, it if it were guaranteed, I might agree. But it’s not
guaranteed.
Say Myron does decide to go to the NFL and plays a few great
seasons.
Say he even makes a couple pro-bowls and wins a super bowl.
Let’s also say he breaks his hand; shatters it even. Then
what?
Maybe it’ll heal, maybe it won’t. Hopefully he can still use
it to perform surgery, but then again, maybe not.
Then his football career and his surgical career are both
over.
I hope nothing like this happens to such an extraordinary
human being and I hope upon hope that Myron is successful in whatever endeavor
he pursues. He represents everything that a student athelete should be and he
should be an inspiration to everyone.
The fact of the matter is, however, that things like this
can happen.
These games we play are more than a game to so many of us.
They are more than a sport, more than just competition, more than a way of
life. They are a passion. They get inside us and beg to be fed day in and day
out. Baseball is still a leech in my brain today even though my potential
career is as good as dead.
More often than not, however, they remain just that, a
passion. Those who are like me are convinced that nothing else matters in life besides
sports only to realize they may have been premature. Myron Rolle may not be
able to teach us anything about physiology or organic chemistry, but if he
teaches us nothing else, he has taught us that there is more to life than
sports. I know, I know, its blasphemy to speak such things, but it’s true, and
we need to remember that every once in a while.
Sports are great. I wish more people were as infatuated with
sports as you and I. I wish we settled our differences in athletic competition
instead of war. But at the end of the day, sports are just sports.
They are a
part of life, not life itself.
What’s Cookin’?
The off-season is starting to heat up a little bit. Well it’s about time.
Dempster re-signed which wasn’t that big of a surprise and Coco “Fruit Loops” Crisp was traded to the Royals of all teams. 
I always have some sympathy for Kansas City because they’re in such a small market and they face a steep up-hill climb every year. But I just don’t understand some of the moves they make. It’s like the Royals trade away all their good-young talent (Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye) and take on good players who failed elsewhere (Jose Guillen). It’s like KC is a giant experiment gone horribly wrong.
It’s not impossible to compete in a small market. Just look at the two teams that played for a championship in ’08. The Rays have built a good core of young talent and made it to the World Series without signing a truck-load of free agents. The Phillies are in a huge market but
act like a small market team, but they’ve basically done the same in building a good core. 7 out of 9 starters in the ’08 fall classic came up through the Phillies farm system. What it takes is great scouting, a disciplined philosophy and a good manager.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens the rest of the way. An off-season says a lot about where teams stand and how they want to move forward. Some teams stick with bad habits while others are taking notice to what has worked the last 10 years.
Stay tuned.
Another Day At The Ballpark
Well, it looks like it’s shaping up to be another day at the ballpark in Major League Baseball this off-season. For some reason, football is boring to me this year, so all I have is the hope of winter transactions to keep me going until Christmas.
Here’s what I’ve gathered so far:
1. Surprise, surprise, the Yankees are after another big-time free agent.
What’s that? They’re not just trying to sign CC Sabathia? You mean they might make offers to A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe too? And they’re looking to trade for Jake Peavy?
Umm… WHAT?!?
Ok. This is getting ridiculous. I know how much Jane loves her Yankees and who can blame her? But do you all understand that Hank and Cash are destroying the game? They’re going to keep driving up the price on players until the collective salary of their AAA team is higher than the Royals’.
Would it make Hank feel better if the Yankees were the ONLY team in the league and they win the world series every year by default. Sometimes I think that’s what they’re going for. The will to win is respectable and the Yankees certainly have that, but this is getting out of control. I wonder is Abner Doubleday (right) is rolling over in his grave yet.
2. Bud Selig has determined that he is going to be “cautious” about extending instant replay in the future. As of right now, replay can only be used on homruns to determine whether the ball was over the fence or not, fair or foul and if there was fan interference.
I’m a baseball purist just like you, Bud, and I’m glad replay was accepted, it was just time. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Baseball officials have determined that there were plays in the world series that warrant further use of replay; Rocco Baldelli falsely being awarded first base even though he was not hit by a pitch, and Jimmy Rollins being called safe although he was clearly tagged on the derier.
Since it’s inception in late August, instant replay has been used 16 times. So instant replay, which was supposed to be a huge time waster, added a grand total of about 45 minutes to the 2008 season. Big deal. Get the calls right.
3. It’s almost Thanksgiving and for some reason, football (even the Steelers), is boring me to tears. ‘m holding on to the possibility of some early winter transactions to keep be going and so far… Not much.
What gives?
Aside from some awards, a few big offers, the Matt Holliday trade and a whole lot of rumors, absolutely nothing has happened, yet. So here’s my plan to get the ball rolling:
Manny, you’re gonna pick a team, I don’t care who. (preferably Philadelphia) But no matter who, I’m not gonna be mad. Just pick one. The rest of baseball is waiting to see what happens with you before they make their moves, so keep it moving.
The Yankees have until Friday to pick ONE free agent, and one free agent only. Whoever that may be gets ALL THE MONEY! But enough of this offering contracts to everyone available just to keep other teams away. Quit hogging all the potato chips!
Clearly I’m bored. Clearly I’m frustrated so please, someone, give me something to write about before I have a hissy fit over here!
~ SL
In other news: The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the San Diego Padres 11-10 yesterday in a wild finish… Oh wait, correction, that was the Pittsburgh STEELERS who defeated the San Diego CHARGERS 11-10… My bad.
The State of Baseball Address
Ok, so I’m in a little bit of a political mood.
President-Elect Barack Obama is going to deliver the State of the Union Address
for the next four years, so I thought I’d begin my own “State of Baseball
Address.”
Oddly enough, I see a lot of similarities between baseball and the U.S. right
now and not all of them are good. If you think about it, I think what’s wrong
with the economy right now is almost parallel to the problems Major League Baseball
has faced since 1994. Like the government, MLB officials have been adamant about
sticking to old philosophies and hoping they will eventually work the way they
should. Bush said that the economy’s “fundamentals” are good, but that’s just
it. The fundamentals are good, but everything else isn’t.
Major League Baseball’s lack of a salary cap is similar
to the free market system. Each team is a separate business free to do what it
likes. Teams in small markets like Kansas City and Tampa Bay struggle to
compete while the mammoths like New York, Boston and LA can freely afford
hundreds of millions to field the best teams. Every so often you get a team like the ’08 Rays or the ’94 Expos who can compete with a good core and young talent. But eventually, Longoria, Upton, Crawford and Pena will want more money that Tampa Bay can’t afford. So their time of glory is short-lived.
Is it fair? Absolutely.
Just? Of course.
Does it benefit everyone? Hell no.
Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Giants, Philles
and Mets that run in big markets don’t want a change because the current system
is slanted in their favor. Kind of like the so called fundamentally sound U.S.
economy that gives tax breaks and incentives to huge companies. But if you want
to look at a league that is beneficial as a whole, look at the NFL.
If Major League Baseball is the U.S., then the NFL is
Europe. No one team has any advantage over another economically and every year,
the playing field starts off level. They share revenue evenly across the board
like free healthcare for everyone. Anyone can compete year in and year out. In
the NFL, you have a Tampa Bay Rays team every year, it’s called the NFC South.
As much as I am a baseball purist, I want to see the
whole league benefit. Baseball used to be
America. World Series scores used to make front page news over world wars.
When women were called on to save the factories, they were called on to save
baseball too. (Seriously, they made a movie about it!)
Somehow, though, baseball has been surpassed as the
nation’s sport of preference. Why? Because it’s a lot more fun for everyone
when your team has a good chance to win every season. Teams like Tennessee and
New Orleans have a legitimate chance of winning, and even one or two down years
usually lead to a few years on the high.
Baseball purists want to keep the game the way it is, and that includes Bud Selig. How long, though, are baseball fans going to accept the excuse for major fundamental flaws as “part of the game”?
It’s time to level the playing field somehow. A salary cap alone won’t solve the problem, because teams like the Yankees will find a way to offer players $140 million bonuses. Maybe caps on offers? Caps on bonuses? How about every trade or free agent has to go through waivers so each team has a chance to make an offer instead of going right for the big markets.
I don’t know the answer, but I am willing to work on one. There needs to be one.
With the economy the way it is, it seems criminal for any team to spend that kind of money on one person. Men who work an assembly line are struggling to feed their children while guys like Sabathia and Manny are about to cash in big-time for playing a sport. That concept gets lost sometimes, but it never goes away.
Maybe it’s time baseball took a step forward and joined
the 21st century.
Maybe it’s time America did the same.
~SL
Is it just me, or does the baseball offseason seem just as exciting as the regular season?
Maybe I’m still riding a high from the Phillies world series victory, or maybe I’m just crazy.
But here it is mid-November, a time when baseball is on sleep-mode, and I am still glued to MLB.com (cheap plug), ESPN.com and any other web-site that could potentially provide info on recent free-agent news.
I’m excited because this is such an exciting time of year for so many teams, a time when everyone can put last years failures behind them and look forward to 2009 with all the hope in the world. It is a time of year where the makeup of a team can change over night and one player added or subtracted can turn a pretender into a contender.
Here are a couple of off-season stories that I find particularly interesting:
Holliday to the A’s, who’d-a-thunk it?
I really wasn’t aware the A’s were a player in the Holliday sweepstakes, but then again, none of the Oakland A’s transaction make sense to me. What blows my mind every season is how the A’s can trade away another solid player (Jermaine Dye, Miguel Tejada, Barry Zito, Tim Hudson, Rich Harden, Dan Haren) and somehow replace him with someone you’ve never heard of who’s just as good. There’s something in the water in the Oakland farm system because it appears anyone you plug into the A’s lineup comes out solid.
The problem is while the team always come out solid, it’ amounted to a big goose-egg in the playoff series win column. This year, however, they’re the ones adding the all-star and former MVP candidate. Maybe this can give them the spark they need to put them over the hill. Who knows?
Is Peavy going to the Braves or not?
Atlanta is another one of those teams in the NL that looks good on paper but just doesn’t seem to be able to pull it together at the same time. They’re another one of those teams with a solid farm system to plug in a new guy when an old guy leaves, most recently, Jeff Franceour. But most of that farm system, if not a whole Single-A franchise, went to Texas for Mark Texieira last season, so that’s another big question mark.
Chipper Jones could have hit a bottle cap with a pencil in April-early June, and they’re hoping he can do that for a whole season again in ’09. Hampton’s contract is up so he’s looking for somewhere else to go collect $100 million for doing absolutely nothing.
Simply put, they need pitching to compete in their division against the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies (I’ll take any excuse to throw that in there) and the New York Mets who are becoming the Junior Yankees by spending ridiculous amounts of money each season resulting in absolutely no change. Peavy might be a good fit, but they have more problems, like finding a new Single-A team.
Who are the Yankees gonna buy for Joe Girardi for Christmas this year?
“The Boss Jr.” seems to be sticking by George’s old philosophies that haven’t worked since the 90′s and this offseason shows no indication of that changing. In my mind, I see Hank going after Merk Texieira and C.C. Sabathia who might be the two best free agents not named Manny Ramirez. Both players fit their needs (a power-hitting first baseman and a solid starter) and Texieira gives them the powerful switch hitter they haven’t seen since Bernie Williams. But he’s not the second coming of Mickey Mantle and won’t hide the fact that the team is not as much of a team as they are a collection of All-Stars wearing the same uniform. There’s a reason they haven’t won it all since 2000. It’s time for a change in philosophy from the top-down.
Manny will be Manny no matter where he is.
LA wants him, there’s no doubt about it, but like I’ve said before, the Dodgers need more than him to get any further than they did last year. Manny’s probably the best hitter in baseball, but if I were the Dodgers, I think I’d rather spend $100 million on 3 or 4 solid players than one superstar. Maybe they can get him to sign for less, maybe not, but Manny wants years.
Yes, I’d love to see him in a Phillies uniform, there’s no doubt about it. Anyone have a problem with that?
Manny’s won rings, so he’s not looking to get any monkeys off his back. He wants a home. He wants to settle in somehwere to end his career on a high-note instead of becoming a slugger-for-hire. Whoever can offer him five years or moe will get him regardless of the dollar figure, I think.
Any disagreements? I would love to start a discussion. Please comment.
~SL
It’s EASY Being a Yankees Fan
No offense Jane, your Yankees are one of the top 5 greatest franchises in the history of sports. In fact, if you put the Yankees against Denmark in anything, I’d pick the Yankees.
But it’s easy being a Yankees fan.
It’s easy because it doesn’t take any work.
There’s no agony in being a Yankees fan, no frustration, no heartbreak.
And please… Not winning the world series every year doesn’t qualify as “heartbreak.”
They’re winners, and Yankees fans are passionate, I’ll give you that much.
But talk to a Cubs fan, talk to a Sox fan prior to ’04, most of all, talk to a Phillies fan.
Cubs fans have come to the point where they’re selling their loyalty on EBAY.
Red Sox nation had gotten to a place where they expected to lose, and the phrase “wait until next year” lost all meaning.
Phillies fans, though, had a different dynamic.
We can’t always be called as “supportive.” When our teams aren’t playing well, we let them know. But we’re always there, and we always believe. This year’s championship was a surprise to no one in the city of Philadelphia, we knew it would happen, we just didn’t know when. We never gave up, never game in, never assumed the worst.
The Yanks have had problems the last few years. But who else can you blame but the Yankees themselves. For some inexplicable reason, their entire team dynamic has all but disappeared and their solution to the problem is the same every year. It’s like a doctor who keeps prescribing a medicine for a disease when it hasn’t worked the last eight times he prescribed it.
Why, I don’t know. But this year looks to be exactly the same thing. They’re probably going to sign CC Sabathia, maybe Mark Texieira and who knows, Manny as well. What the hey? Why not, right? But based on the last few seasons, I don’t think anything will change.
How does it feel Yankees fans? How does it feel to always be excited about what your new free agent will do this season?
From my perspective, being a Yankees fan is like being a rich teenager. You crash your convertible so daddy just buys you a new one.
Being a Phillies fan, or a Cubs fan or a Sox fan is like being the teenager who gets the hand-me-down Jetta. It’s nice. Not very flashy, not very fast but it’s reliable and we’ll drive it until it’s last dying sputter.
Keep your convertibles. If it doesn’t work again this year, maybe Hank will buy you a Hummer next year.
Why The Phillies Need to Make a Play on Manny
Ok.
In case you have never read my blog, I am a Phillies fan, so I am predicting some of you may chalk up this post as bias, but I pray you, read on.
The Phillies have just come off of a World Series Championship, and what has been a trend for world series teams the year after?
They dismantle.
Colorado, Detroit, St. Louis, Houston, Chicago, Florida, San Francisco, the list goes on.
The exceptions are Boston and Anaheim, who were able to stay in contention following a world series appearance. The Rays are a young team under contract and look to remain a core group for at least the next couple seasons. The Phillies, however, have the potential to be broken up and sold piece by piece withing the next year or two. Their time to win is now or they may suffer another rebuilding phase.
The funny thing about Philadelphia is once we get a few wins under our belts, we are spoiled. It happened with the Flyers, Sixers, the Eagle most recently, and now the Phils. So my guess is that anything less than another championship next year will be seen as failure in the eyes of Philadelphians.
What can I say?
We have high standards.
I know a little too much about sports business to know that’s much easier said than done; and while my love for the team is greater than most, it isn’t enough to blind my judgment.
I heard someone on ESPN say that the Phillies dubbed Manny Ramirez as “too expensive” for the club. Well, that may be, but now is not the time to get cheap, Ruben. If it’s money you’re worried about, don’t. Philly fans would hand over their mortgage to see him in left field. I know I would (if I had one). We’re that phanatical.
Pat Burrell may or may not sign. If he does, great, he’s a cornerstone to the organization. But if he doesn’t, they need to go after Manny and go after him aggressively. Burrell leaves a big hole in the field and in the lineup. Manny’s not the type of player to fit into the 5-spot but that’ll be Charlie manuel’s problem.
The Phillies would also need more power from the right side of the plate without Burrell. Utley and Howard who provide most of the lineup’s power hit from the left and the switch-hitting Rollins and Victorino hit for more power from the left as well. Werth is a solid role player but isn’t consistent enough as a power-hitter to fit the need. If they can’t replace Burrell with a righty of comparative power, they’ll have more trouble against leftys in 2009 than in 2008. Overall, even the left-handed hitters in their lineup had good numbers versus southpaws in ’08, but the absence of a righty may change that.
If I were in Ruben Amaro Jr.’s position, I would want Manny just to show the organization, the team and the fans that winning is his prime objective.
But I’m not Ruben Amaro Jr., and maybe I’m not in his position because I’m a complete moron and I should stick to blogging. I have faith that the team will do what they can to continue to win championships. I don’t want to see a great team like the 2008 Phillies be dismantled like the 1997 Marlins. I know that won’t happen this year, but I am more than familiar with the rise and fall of Philadelphia teams.
The window of opportunity is small and closes fast. That is what I think the true curse of Billy Penn. The Phils were able to get a championship in before the window closed but who knows how much longer it will be open?
As a fan of the game, I normally advocate a different team win every year, but that was before my team won it all. I don’t want to be a spoiled fan, but I know in the back of my mind that if we don’t win another one soon, it could be another 28 years.
I don’t want this city to go through that again.
Make a play.
~SL
Fanhood
I take a lot of heat for being a Phillies fan. If its not the fact that we have 10,000 losses it’s the fact that we have a tiny ballpark or that we’re cholk-artists. I thought that winning the world series would change all that. I guess I was wrong.
Now I am relentlessly accused of being a “bandwagon jumper.”
I wear my 2008 post-season Phillies sweatshirt wherever I go along with the 2008 world series championship hat. I’ve been waiting for this since I was 8 years-old. Ever since Joe Carter hit the homerun off Mitch Williams. I want to show my pride and excitement for my beloved Phillies; a team my family has cheered on for 50 years, and I want to show it for more than just a week.
Aside from the Phillies, I am a fan of sports more than I am a fan of individual teams. My year runs on three seasons instead of four: Baseball, Football, Basketball. The year begins in January with NFL playoffs to the superbowl, then transitions to the second half of the NBA season followed by the playoffs (which seem to last three and a half years) mixed with opening day of baseball. I ride baseball all summer long and will hardly pay any attention to football until the Phillies are out of it. During each of these seasons, I get into “modes” where I don’t care about any other sports but the mode I am in.
Here it is November, a time when I am usually knee deep in NFL and college football, and I can’t get baseball off my mind. I still pick up a baseball bat and take practice swings in my living room and I keep bugging my friends to have a catch.
What bugs me though is how other people can call me a bandwagon jumper and ignore the entire Tampa Bay fan-base. Until this season, the Tampa Bay Rays’ fan-base consisted of Dick Vitale and the collection of team mothers (most of them, at least). Yet somehow, Tropicana Field was flooded with people sporting ray-hawks and cowbells. If that’s not a stadium full of bandwagon jumpers, I don’t know what is.
To find out, ask anyone with a ray-hawk to name the starting lineup from last year. Then you’ll know.
I watched a lot of people claim to be Red Sox fans in 2004, a lot of which were Marlins fans the year before. I really have no problem with it. If a great postseason like 2004 or 2008 converts you, admit it. Just don’t claim to be a lifelong fan and act like you were in agony for 100 years.
I haven’t quite waited a century to see my team win it all; and the curse of Billy Penn doesn’t quite measure up to the curse of the Bambino. But I finally have a reason to justify wearing a Phillies cap outside of eastern PA without getting laughed at, and I’ll do it with dignity.
I’ve earned it.
Philadelphia has earned it.
So please, don’t call me a bandwagon jumper just because my team won and your team lost. That’s not very good Fanhood.
~SL
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