Monday, July 09, 2007

I'm going to break with tradition here and try to be postive about the recent and inevitable events with the Phillies. so, here are 10,000 reasons why 10,000 losses aren't such a bad thing to worry about:

1 -- The Phillies have been around forever.
The reason the Phils have so many losses is because they're officially the oldest team in baseball (124 years, to be exact). No other MLB team has been around longer under the same name -- the Phils have always been the Phils, never the Beanaters or Alleghenys or Redlegs. So of course they have the most losses.

2 -- Those are mostly away numbers.
While the Phils overall record is under .500, their home record since 1883 is 4,840-4,576 -- a healthy .514 winning percentage. So more people have seen the Phils lose when they are the visiting team. When they're around fans, they tend to do better.

3 -- The Braves will be there soon enough.
Currently they're in second place on the all-time losses list, at just under 9,700. By the end of the 2012 season they'll reach the dubious milestone too. Only when they hit it, there won't be thousands of extra fans at the park to boo. They'll be the typical apathetic 15,000 attendance for the lousy Hotlanta fans.

4 -- You don't have to worry about the next bad benchmark.
Even if things keep going downhill at the same rate, 20,000 won't come until around 2140, well after we're all watching games from the bleacher seats up in heaven. True, we could still be around for loss 15,000 in 2072, but nobody cares about those midway milestones.

5 -- At least they won one World Series.
Fans in Milwaukee, Seattle, Tampa Bay, Colorado, San Diego, and San Francisco can say their teams have fewer losses, but they also have a combined zero World Series. And the state of Texas has never seen a World Series winner. So at least Philly has a few (very few) glory days of baseball to look back on.

6 to 9,999 -- Why don't you shut it up over there before Chase Utley comes over and makes you shut it up?

10,000 -- It's the ultimate trump card.
Boston had another four-game losing streak? The Niners were supposed to be good this year and they stink? The Red Wings haven't won a title in five years? Tell them to cry you a freakin' river. Your baseball team has lost 10,000 games, and you're still rooting for them. So they can just quit their complaining or admit to being the lousy front-runners they are.

And, if they don't take kindly to that, Chase Utley has something to say to them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good job Captain, I feel much better now but I'm still mad as hell about Ryan Howard not being on the allstar team. I turned the game off when they announce that watermellon head was in the starting line up. I think they lost a few more fans with that farce. Not that any of this matters. In another month we'll be watching football. I think I saw Dawk helping a little old lady accross the street last week. She tried to tip him but he just smiled and said "this one is on me". BG

Anonymous said...

I don't have anything to say about the Phillies. I just wanted to say that I was just reading your blog from July of 2006 and I am glad and thankful that you are home and safe in Bowie.