Ladies and Gentleman, Presenting Yer World Cham-peen

[Perknose]

Few people outside of this area can truly understand what their World Series win meant to our long suffering sports fans. The short answer is, "It meant everything in the world."

Burdened by decades of losing -- the Phillies have lost more games than any other team in any other professional league at any level in the entire history of North American sports, more than 10,000 and counting -- and an inferiority complex a mile long and ten miles deep, etched into our psyches with the bitter acid of loss and deep disappointment, our passionate and highly knowledgeable and yes, sometimes brutal, sports fans were finally, if only temporarily set free.

For those of you who live in sunnier climes, with scarcely a shred of despair and desperation scarring you like a supurating wound that just won't heal, that may never heal, Jason Stark tries to 'splain what the Phillies triumph meant to us.

Some excerpts:

For years, for decades, these people had been so consumed by the accumulation of all this frustration that kept swallowing them whole, it was almost as if they woke up every morning and thought, Who can I boo today? And now, already, they were different: transformed, liberated. After a quarter-century of waiting for a team like this to end their torment, that team had finally arrived. This team. Jimmy Rollins' team.

"You realize," I told him, "you've set all these people free."

He laughed.

"Prison break, huh?" he quipped.

Right; prison break. After 25 years of heartbreak, 25 years of neverending misery inflicted by four star-crossed teams in four professional sports, these people had finally tunneled their way out of their excruciating sports torture chamber.

[...]

I saw grown men and women crying as we were passing by. Literally crying. You know, I'm just a baseball player. That's what I do. I don't hold myself up on any pedestal; I play baseball. And then here I am on this float ? with people looking me in the eye and thanking me, with tears flowing down their faces, for bringing them a championship. That's beyond anything I ever imagined. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. That's an experience that's going to live with me for the rest of my life."

The tears. The men who rode on those floats keep talking about the tears. And the faces. The looks on the faces. You don't see those looks often in life, especially not on 2 million of those faces at once. Theoretically, that ought to be impossible, right? To have that many people walking around at the same time on the same day, wearing that same look in their eyes -- that blissful, life-is-great glow you wait your whole life for?

"That's the thing that really got to me, that became my No. 1 moment in baseball," said Phillies chairman Bill Giles, a man who rode down the same parade route with the only other World Series-championship team in Phillies history, back in 1980." To see the real love in the faces of all those people was unbelievable. It wasn't quite that way in '80. Just the expressions of admiration and love on the faces of those people was awesome.

[...]

"It just showed me the humanity that's attached to the relationship between these fans and this team," said Greg Dobbs. "Seeing that, it has to be unlike any other team-city bond anywhere. Maybe I'm wrong, but just [after] that experience, I can't imagine it being more intense anywhere. ? Going through that, that's when I realized that what we do in that ballpark is much bigger than what I thought it was."

[...]

But that could be the ultimate test of the magnitude of winning. Is it actually possible that in Philadelphia, of all places, even the booing might not be the same?

"Oh, yeah. They'll still boo," said Phillies broadcast witticist Larry Andersen. "They have to. They're born to boo.

"Just now," Larry Andersen chuckled, "they'll only boo with two Os instead of like four."

So, now, as we enter a new season, the experts are nearly unanimous in picking the New York Mets to win the NL East, just as they were last year and the year before that.

That's right, not only aren't the Phillies picked to win this year's WS, they aren't even picked to get there.

And not only aren't they picked to get there, they aren't even picked to win their own division.

And not only aren't they picked to win their own division, most prognosticators aren't even picking them to win the NL wild card.

And, you know what? That's perfect! That's exactly how it should be.

We Philly fans wouldn't have it any other way, it's what we expect, it's how our universe is ordered and we would seriously distrust any other scenario.

So, if and when the Sports Gods somehow improbably smile down on us once more -- a guy can HOPE, you know -- and let this band of scrappers and gamers, this band of brothers clutch-perform their way to yet another title, it will be all the sweeter, praise Allah, may peace and blessings be upon his name.

:laugh:

Edit:

GO PHILLIES! :thumbsup:

 

[bunnyfubbles]

i define my life by a sport other people play

 

[Nik]

I like pie.

 

[bignateyk]

Who gives a shit, it's baseball. Not only is it baseball, but it's philly.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
i define my life by a sport other people play

You have over 7,000 posts on a lame-ass message board.

Just look at your post above. You take time out of your busy, important life to respond to supposed inconsequentialites with cliches.

Yeah, you're one focused and superior master of the universe, Chico!

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Who gives a shit, it's baseball. Not only is it baseball, but it's philly.

The sweet delicious ironing of you giving a shit enough to respond that you don't give a shit seems to be beyond your feeble capacity to comprehend.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: Nik
I like pie.

Well, at least you kept your disdain simple . . . and unassailable. I like pie, too! :laugh:

 

[LarryS]

I'm psyched for the season to start tonight! GO PHILS!!!!

 

[BudAshes]

The phills are fantasy baseball treasure.

 

[Fenixgoon]

it's great that they won, but baseball = meh to me. hockey, soccer, football, basketball... basically anything with lots of movement. that's where it's at

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
...basically anything with lots of movement. that's where it's at

So you LOVE turning on the light in the kitchen late at night and watching the roaches scurry for cover and yelling "Fire" in a theatre but HATE rush hour gridlock, fossils, or your g/f during sex! :laugh: