How Sweet it is...

Well another season, another playoff appearance for those Fightin’ Phils. Not really a big deal, its expected at this point, in fact, if we don’t get there, it is a disappointment. So, who really cares? WRONG… Think about how lucky this city is to have the Philadelphia Phillies for a second. About 5 seasons ago, we were just about the lowest of the low in terms of sports franchises in America, maybe in all of professional sports. We were the first sports franchise to lose 1,000 games and that just seemed to set the laughing hyenas off even more. Then, came this group. This young, talented, Phillies group that had the core makeup of a championship caliber team. We had to suffer little by little by taking one step back to then we took one BIG step forward.

The step forward…

It all started with Jimmy Rollins coming in as a kid in 2001 (his rookie year) and really starting the culture change in Philadelphia from a perennial loser to a playoff lock. Some of the steps back involved Jimmy enduring a lot of losing seasons where we were sellers at the trade deadline (Bobby Abreu for example) and not really seeming to make any progress. But as trade deadlines passed, and drafts kept going, the supporting talent finally began to surround Jimmy. A big part of this was some of the more risky moves that our GMs made, moves that paid off. In 2003, a little known UCLA talent came up from the minors to fill in for an ailing Placido Polanco and shined from the very beginning, leading off his career with a grand slam in his first major league start. Management made the tough call and eventually shipped out Polanco to the Tigers so that the young Bruin could continue to grow and develop. During the continuing growth of the team, management also started using the term “you gotta spend money to make money” in their philosophy. They signed Jim Thome in 2003 to a 6 year $85 million deal, which started to peak interests in Philadelphia with a fan base who was dying for a winner. He brought a lot of fans to the park, but when he got hurt in 2005, another piece came into play, you might even call him the BIG piece. Howard was called up to fill in for Jim in 2005 and he would never look back. Howard preceded to win NL ROY honors, and that left management with another tough decision. Of course, we all know they eventually made the right call by sending Thome to the White Sox and letting Ryan come out of his shell in 2006 where he won the NL MVP and adding another dynamic piece of the core to this Phillies lineup. Another decision that the Phillies’ brass made that paid off big was the Rule 5 selection of a young Hawaiian native from the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Flyin’ Hawaiian, or Shane for short, burst on to the scene with his speed and athleticism and never looked back to Los Angeles as he became an East coast kid for good. He became one of the biggest components of this young core that was heading for great things.  And finally, the major addition to this team came in 2006 when the young south paw, Cole Hamels, came into existence. From his first day in the majors, the fans knew he would be something special almost every day out. His fastball was electric and his changeup proved to be almost unhittable. Through all of this, there were the mainstays who had to deal with a lot of losing. The most important was Pat Burrell. He got booed plenty in his career, but stuck with it throughout his entire career here. He deserved the winning seasons almost more than any of the others for the awful times he went through for most of his career. All of these little pieces made up something special, something that would forever be talked about in the homes of Philadelphia.

Fast Forward a little…

Well, we all know how this goes. For the first time in a long time, after a historic collapse by the Mets, the Phillies made the playoffs in 2007 only to be swept out by the Colorado Rockies in the first round of the playoffs. This wouldn’t be the end of the boys of summer though, as the next year they would return, and return in the biggest way possible. This team finally had so much hype around it and so much excitement surrounding it, that something had to break through, and it did. The Phillies won the first professional sports championship for the City of Brotherly Love since the Sixers won the NBA championship in 1983. Hamels emerged as one of the most dominant young pitchers in baseball, Jimmy Rollins was of course one of the best SS in all of Major League Baseball, Howard was the biggest homerun hitter in the league, Shane was finding his grove and starting to become known as the best center fielder in baseball and Chase… what can be said about Chase except, he was quickly being known as one of the best all around players in the game.

Fast Forward to the present…

Another year, another trip to the postseason, business as usual

Its now 2011 and we are on our way to our fifth straight postseason appearance. We are one of the teams expected to make a run at the postseason every year. We have actual starts that WANT to come to play baseball for the Phillies and have in big ways: Doc Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, and we also have a couple who have left: Jayson Werth, and Pat Burrell. Every year at the trade deadline, we are no longer sellers, but buyers. But through all of this, the major core has stayed and continued to change the winning culture in Philadelphia. The fans can’t get enough of this team as proof of our 208 straight sellouts (and going), and have made this team into one of the most profitable in professional sports. This year we have won 96 games already and are aiming our sites on our 3^rd EVER 100 win season. It hasn’t happened since ’77 and if we win 102 this year, it would be the most ever by a Phillies team. If you think about this group of core guys, it should feel good to know that they didn’t give up on this city or this team, even though no one would have blamed them if they did, after all, we were a “lost cause”. We continue to climb out of the hole to be one of the best in baseball, but considering where we came from, it is well deserved and its about time.

This team isn’t done yet, and in a couple months, there will be another chapter to write about in the great history of the Philadelphia Phillies.