Wish You Were There

As I watched the Eagles' season opener slip away in the Crisco hands of J.R. Reid and Greg Lewis, Fox's B team of commentators wistfully reminded the audience that championships are not "won" (and very rarely "lost") during the first game. And though it seems like things shake out pretty quickly in the NFL, year after year there are usually multiple playoff spots up for grabs right until the last weekend of the season. Thus, a unique mix of a short schedule and a relatively small percentage of competitive difference between even the best and worst teams means more teams--and most importantly, more fans--are invested in the season until the very end.

I restate the obvious only because there is a major disparity between the psyche of the Eagles fan throwing himself under a bus for a few flukey special teams plays (the Packers were doing absolutely nothing on offense) and the Phillies fan patiently and loyally awaiting another playoff run thwarted by a bad bullpen, mental mistakes, swarms of locusts, whatever.

Truly, breaching the subject of the Phils' lack of achievement despite stretches of more-than-mediocre seasons elicits an eclectic mix of optimism and ambivalence. Why, then, is the mere idea of contendership exciting to the Phaithful? These are sports fans who coincidentally have a lot of contempt for professional sports (one championship in over 120 years kind of gives them the right).

Once again I turn to the prodigious wisdom of my father, who, when pressed for an explanation for the Phillies' lack of accomplishment in eras where they were relatively accomplished for a Major League Baseball team (i.e. the mid-70s until the mid-80s) could only offer the following nugget:

"Aaaah, they were right there in '81."

Indeed, Philadelphia made it into a four-team National League playoff during the 1981 split-season. It created in situation in which you could legitimately claim the Phils' success really was achieved in only half a season, their postseason spot guaranteed by virtue of the best "first half" record in the NL East. Naturally, they sleepwalked through the second half and wound up falling to the Montreal Expos in a best-of-five division series.

These Phillies have done their best to emulate what now seems like an annual tradition--the skittish, wildly fluctuating month-to-month inconsistency of the clubs of the late Carlton/Schmidt Era. A .500 team on July 8, they are eight games over the break-even point since the All-Star Game, a swing that brings to mind the torrid/tepid dichotomy of 1981, the inception of the wild card replacing a midseason strike as an excuse for the occasional incompetence of a so-called serious pennant contender. Except that now this happens almost every year. Thanks, Commissioner Selig.

They are doing exactly what it takes to remain in the pennant race without looking like they really have what it takes to make it. They exist in the deeper end of the talent pool but still often find themselves an arm or two short (paging John Ennis), looking sharp but ultimately treading Perrier. They are the hype and hoopla of Snakes on a Plane culminating in something that's neither solidly scary nor funny. They are the "Also Receiving Votes" in the AP Poll, Miss Congeniality at the beauty pageant, and the recipients of the "Participant" ribbon at the Pinewood Derby--they are the quintessence of the also-ran.

They are the dreaded moment when I may someday have to explain to my own children that, even with a league MVP, a potential MVP, a potential Cy Young, and one of the best offenses of the decade in a hitter's park, the 2007 Phillies were "right there."

And with apologies to Harry Kalas, if that's where the Phils plan on staying while waiting for the dam to burst, I'd rather be outta here.