I hate to
put so much pressure on one mere mortal, but I'm counting on Andy Ashby to help
cure my inferiority complex. If he can win 15 games this season, the
Philadelphia Phillies may have a shot (albeit a distant one) at making the
playoffs!
You see,
I have been a Phillies fan for over 20 years. And in recent years, the Phillies
have…uh…sucked. They have managed exactly ONE
winning season in the last 13 years. Think about that: 13 years and just a
single season over .500! When they began
this dry spell, Ronald Reagan was president! How have they done it? You
have to be really good at losing to reach such impressive levels of sustained
ineptitude!
I have
grown up witnessing the Phils' enduring failure every spring and summer. I was
16 years old when The Phillies began this incomparable run at incompetent fame
(The year was 1987). Aside from one fluke year in 1993, my Phils have been
perennial losers since my 16th birthday! As I write this, I’m 28. I'll be 29
before opening day.
It is
simply impossible for me to ignore the impact of the Phillies' consistent
futility on my life. An adolescence spent rooting for the laughing stock of
Major League Baseball must have certainly played a role in determining who I am
today, right?
And what am
I today? I'm a writer who champions beautiful losers and neglected souls. Do I
love losers because I'm a Phillies fan? Or do I love the Phillies because I
love losers? I honestly do not know! Perhaps if The Phillies had won a pennant
or two in the late 80's, I may have grown up to become a successful,
well-adjusted pillar of society. Perhaps I'd have a good job and a beautiful
wife and season tickets at The Vet. Instead, I'm a struggling writer. I'd be a
starving artist if mom and dad decided to kick me to the curb. After spending
all those summers hoping against hope that the Phillies could crack the
.500-mark ("Oh, wow—if only we could be average! That would be so
swell!"), can you blame me for having a somewhat unusual vision of
"success"?
So what happened to the Phillies? They were a fearsome bunch in the late ’70s and early ’80s. My childhood heroes were Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton. When I grew up, I discovered that both of my childhood heroes were complete assholes. Needless to say, I no longer believe in hero worship.
But I
still like Pete Rose. Sure, Pete was/is a douchebag. But he's so up-front
about being a douche bag that I can hardly mind. I knew he was a scoundrel when
I was 10 years old! But I loved to watch old Pete play. He ran the bases the
way Johnny Rotten sang. His line drives cracked like Johnny Thunders' guitar
lines. He was obnoxious and brutal, just like the Dead Boys. And the results
spoke for themselves: in five seasons in Philly, he led his team to three
division titles and two World Series appearances. He was pushed out the door
after the '83 season to make room for the immortal Len Matuszek. Since then,
the Phillies have gone down the proverbial toilet.
'93 was a
sick joke. It was destiny's ironic statement. I graduated from college that
spring just as messieurs Dykstra, Daulton, Kruk, and Schilling were starting to
make believers out of the baseball world. I kept staring at the standings and
telling myself that it was all too good to be true. In spite of the fact that
their bullpen closer threw only 6 pitches over the plate all year, the lovable
losers managed to beat the Braves in the playoffs. Then came the World Series,
Mitch Williams, and Joe Carter. I was right—it was all too good to be true.
In the
ensuing years, the Phillies have made an art form out of failure. One could say
that I do the same with my life. And perhaps I really do prefer it that
way! After all, it's hard to be a success! You've got to spend lots of money
and work your ass off and sacrifice for the greater glory of capitalism. And
for what? For a nice car? For cable television? I'd rather work my ass off for
the glory of literature! I toil away in my little writing dungeon, composing
tales of longing, depression, and obscure punk rock bands who will only be
loved by those of us who can see the beauty in failure! The Phillies might be a
bad ball club, but they are never boring! Remember 1997, when they
flirted with the Mets' record for the worst season in baseball history?
Remember the J.D. Drew fiasco? I love my dreadful Phillies and all their
incurable flaws!
So if
Ashby turns out to be a bust, I won't sweat it. If Curt Schilling doesn't
recover from his surgery, I won't sweat it. If Bobby Abreu's mega-massive '99
season was just a fluke, I won't sweat it. But if the Phils work a miracle and
win 90 games, imagine how many trend-hopping poseurs will jump on the Phillies
bandwagon and claim to love my team! I will not allow one of my great
passions to become just another ephemeral craze! If you wish to jump on the
Phillies' bandwagon, do it now or forever hold your peace!
All in
all, I still remain confident that the Phillies will once again find a way to
lose in 2000. They always find a way to lose. That's the only thing in life
that I can truly depend upon.
[ED Note:
As we went to press on Zisk, Andy Ashby has just come off the D-L for an
infected finger, and is likely to be traded to a contender before the
deadline.]
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