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Philadelphia Philles: 2008 National League Champions.\u00a0 It’s a beautiful thing.<\/p>\nPhiladelphia Philles: 2008 National League Champions.\u00a0 It’s a beautiful thing.<\/p>\n
As I watched the fairly easy Game 5 win, I was obviously excited, but\u00a0I wasn’t\u00a0completely appreciating the magnitude of this Phillie team’s accomplishment until my man Joe Buck started recounting the previous five Phillie teams to win the NL pennant.\u00a0 For life-long Phillie fans, they are years that stick in your brain: 1915, 1950, 1980, 1983, and 1993.\u00a0 The Whiz Kids, the Wheeze Kids, and the ’93 team that somehow never ended up with a nickname that stuck.\u00a0 It’s pretty amazing to think that the ’08 group\u00a0has now matched the accomplishment of those teams, even if they’ve done it with slightly less memorable characters on the team.<\/p>\n
They’ll move on to the Fall Classic now, attempting to\u00a0match the one Phillie team that stands alone above the rest: the 1980\u00a0Champs.\u00a0 The\u00a0silver lining in playing for (and rooting\u00a0for) a team with\u00a0a history of failure, is that the few teams that find success are revered for\u00a0entire generations.\u00a0 I\u00a0was born two years after 1980, but I can name\u00a0most of the 25 players on the\u00a0championship roster.\u00a0 I couldn’t tell you a single thing about Bake McBride, other than the fact that he was\u00a0an impressively afroed member of the ’80 Phils.\u00a0 As a kid, I watched guys like Lonnie Smith and Bob Walk with special interest, knowing that they too had been members of that team in ’80, even if they were young and didn’t contribute much.\u00a0\u00a0Every\u00a0player on the\u00a0’08 Phillies\u00a0now\u00a0has the chance to be entered\u00a0into Phillie lore, to be a member of the team’s pantheon, and\u00a0be remembered\u00a0by a generation of Philadelphians and Phillie fans that aren’t even born yet.\u00a0 That’s pretty cool.<\/p>\n
The post-game on-field interview with Jimmy Rollins also brought the win into perspective for me.\u00a0 As a fan, any time your team has some long-awaited success, it’s the guys that have been on the team the longest that make it that much more satisfying.\u00a0 Jimmy is the leader of the team, and my favorite Phillie, and it’s great to see him with a chance to play on the stage of the World Series playing for a championship, and doing it with the Phils.\u00a0 I’ve never been a huge Pat Burrell fan, but he’s grown on me this year, and it’s great that he’s here for this, after having been with the team so long.<\/p>\n
To back away from the nostalgia for a moment, it will be interesting to see what the Phillies do with the rotation once they get to Games 3 and 4 in the Series next weekend in Philly.\u00a0 My guess is that it will be Blanton in Game 3 and Moyer in Game 4, but they will have an option to consider:\u00a0 Is it time to take the kid gloves off of Hamels and send him out there on three days rest in Game 4?\u00a0 They’ve obviously refused to do that so far, but this is the World Series and he’s going to have\u00a0six days off before his Game 1 start on Wednesday.\u00a0 This would really only make sense if they are willing to pitch him on three days rest again in Game 7.\u00a0 I don’t see it happening, but it’s a possibility, especially if they’re down in the series after 3 games.<\/p>\n
As for the ALCS,\u00a0I’d still rather play the Rays than the Red Sox, but it would probably be good if the Sox win Game 5 on Thursday night.\u00a0 If nothing else, it would force the Rays to use James Shields (clearly their ace right now)\u00a0on Saturday, making him unavailable for Game 1 of the Series, unless they throw him on three days rest.<\/p>\n
One last concern will be the six days off for the team before they play again.\u00a0 After a 7-2 tear through the first two rounds, they could lose some momentum with this long lay-off.\u00a0 The Rockies and Tigers had long breaks before the last two\u00a0World Series, and they ended up looking flat.\u00a0 That may just be a coincidence, and there’s nothing that can be done about it, but it has to be a slight concern this week.<\/p>\n
The concerns won’t be too great though, the Phils are World Series-bound and maybe 10 years from now, young Phillie fans will be closely following J.A. Happ for no good reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Philadelphia Philles: 2008 National League Champions.\u00a0 It’s a beautiful thing. As I watched the fairly easy Game 5 win, I was obviously excited, but\u00a0I wasn’t\u00a0completely appreciating the magnitude of this Phillie team’s accomplishment until my man Joe Buck started recounting … Continue reading