I Believe!!!

Phillies fans: Dare to dream

By Phil Sheridan

Let's try something new.

There's a chance of proposing the Philadelphia-sports equivalent of the Edsel or New Coke, but we have 25 years' worth of reasons to take this risk. Call it a big civic experiment that maybe, just maybe, will help restart that championship drought clock at 0:00.

When the Phillies begin their playoff series here tomorrow, let's pack up all the built-up anxiety and unhappy history and put it on ice somewhere. Everything from 1964 to Black Friday to Joe Carter to Kaz Matsui gets tied in a sack, weighted down and thrown into the Schuylkill.

On Saturday evening, over the din of the clinching celebration, oracle and shortstop Jimmy Rollins said something that stuck.

"The fans here, they were expecting us to win," Rollins said, gesturing toward the still-giddy faithful cheering and smiling in the stands. "When you expect a team to win, believe me, that goes a long way."

Laugh if you want. Roll your cynical eyes. Show up for Game 1 just knowing in your shrunken, shriveled Grinch heart that Cole Hamels will get lit up and the offense will go missing and you will be doomed to another year of misery - but at least you'll get to tell all your friends you just knew it would happen.

Go ahead. Make my case for me.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. Imagine a parade down Broad Street. It's easy if you try.

We can do this. We have nothing to lose except losing.

Rollins is right, by the way. There is an unprovable but absolutely real connection between the energy in the stands and the play on the field. We have seen it here over and over, almost always in a negative way.

If you were at the last ever Eagles game at the Vet, you know what it was like when Tampa Bay took the lead in that NFC championship game. And if you were at the first big games at the Linc, you know there was a carry-over, a pervading sense of dread that weighed down on the players as if they were wearing lead boots.

That's not hard to explain or understand, and it is up to the extremely well-compensated players to handle big-game pressure. All of that is true. But if Rollins is right, and he is, there is an equal and opposite reaction when the players sense the fans expect them to succeed.

It is encouraging that these Phillies are acknowledging what happened to them in the three-and-out loss to Colorado last October. They had done what a lot of teams do after breaking through to a higher level. They had arrived in the playoffs wide-eyed and just happy to be there and then gotten bulldozed by the looser, more confident Rockies.

One reason the Rockies were looser: They were here, where all the burden of fan expectation was on the Phillies. And if you were in the ballpark for either of those games, you know the joy of the pennant drive disappeared almost immediately.

Matsui's Game 2 grand slam was a crushing blow, but the Phillies hit .172 as a team in that series. They were tight. They were pressing. And they know it, which is the first step toward correcting it.

"We know that there's more than winning the division," Rollins said. "It doesn't bring you a ring, and it doesn't bring you glory. We won the division last year. Three games later, we were watching with everyone else. We don't want that to happen again."

Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jamie Moyer all echoed the basic sentiment: The team didn't handle itself well last year, knows it and believes that experience will make a big difference this year.

The Eagles parallel holds. The 2000 team lost a wild-card game to the Giants. The 2001 team won the NFC East, won two playoff games and then lost the NFC championship game in St. Louis.

The progression stalled at the threshold to the Super Bowl. The Eagles lost two NFC championship games at home, games they should have won, before getting over the hump and making it to the Super Bowl.

The Phillies can do themselves and their fans a huge favor by seizing the moment this week and beating Milwaukee. The sooner they get over this next mental hurdle, the easier it will be to move on.

And isn't that what every wounded and disillusioned but still loyal Philadelphia sports fan wants, to end this ridiculous drought?

It isn't in our shared civic nature to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" and expect good things to happen. Maybe it's time to take a leap of faith and try.

After all, we've done it the other way for decades. How's that worked out?

What I'd Like to be Doing

I Take Back the Take Backs

Rebecca Traister in her article for Salon, The Sarah Palin pity party, let me know that it was okay to talk about the ineptitudes of Sarah Palin and not feel sorry about it.

She says: "Sarah Palin is no wilting flower. She is a politician who took the national stage and sneered at the work of community activists. She boldly tries to pass off incuriosity and lassitude as regular-people qualities, thereby doing a disservice to all those Americans who also work two jobs and do not come from families that hand out passports and backpacking trips, yet still manage to pick up a paper and read about their government and seek out experience and knowledge."

Partisan Partisan Partisan

I haven't really posted my thoughts regarding the vote yesterday because I haven't really been sure what I thought about it. I didn't love the bailout plan; it was an awful lot of money to put the taxpayers on the hook for, and, frankly, I was sure how much I trusted the same guy who said just a month ago that the economy was fine. Plus, the lightening speed with which they wanted to bill passed was just a little too reminiscent of the Patriot Act.

The WSJ gives a good rundown of what happened yesterday, what is likely to happen now, and some of the politics that have been thrown about like a high school cafeteria food fight.

I still don't know if I'm happy or upset that the bill failed yesterday, although my initial reaction was OH GOD. What I do know, however, is that this partisan blame game is just running circles around my brain. Well, we came out to do this in a nonpartisan way, but then they came out and were all partisan, so we were like, well then we're going to be partisan, but now something has to be done that's not partisan, even though it's their fault for being partisan. Personally, I think all of Congress should be banned from using the word "partisan" for one week and we'll see what kind of progress we make.

Oh and also, I would be more sympathetic to Republican representatives in the House if they hadn't used the lamest excuse ever: Nancy Pelosi's speech made us not support the bill. Come on, really? I love Barney Frank's response to this. Like, why couldn't they just say "Our constituents have let us know over the past week that they were strongly against this bill"? That would have been a logical and acceptable response. I know it's an election year and all, but their idea that you can't just give the American people honest answers about real problems is not helping them.

She's an Easy Target

Every day I sit and the computer and vow to myself that I am not going to write about Sarah Palin. It's obvious I don't agree with her, so I am probably beating a dead horse. Plus, I feel like I'm feeding into the McCain campaign's strategy of Sarah The Media Darling.

But then every day she goes and does something that just makes me smack my head in disbelief and run to the blog to let you know that yes, this is what we're dealing with here. This isn't some blog blogging about celebrity blogs and the dumb shit they say. This is the potential vice president of the United States. Do you want to know something I hadn't thought about? My uncle called me on Friday night to tell me about something unrelated, but we inevitably got into the debate and the election. He said what scared him was that we are faced with the possibility of 16 years of this woman. 16 years. It's unusual that this election we do not have the Vice President running for president, increasing the likelihood that if McCain wins, the GOP would go with the VP for the 2016 nominee. Bristol Palin's baby would be having a baby by then. (Okay, cheap shot, but I wanted to illustrate my point clearly.)

Anyway, here's the latest doozie from the Most Qualified Woman John McCain Could Find. In a part of her interview with Katie Couric that has yet to air, Palin cannot name another Supreme Court case other than Roe vs. Wade.

"After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence."

Okay, now I know she didn't go to law school, and I didn't either. But did she ever take a history class? Like, I know remembering the names of court cases is sometimes not easy, especially under pressure. But Plessy vs. Ferguson? Brown vs. Board of Education? Bush vs. Gore? I mean, jesus, the only reason she is in her current situation is because of Bush vs. Gore.

Look, I'm not trying to make fun of her. Sometimes our minds go blank when we're under pressure. But if she is elected to Second in Command, she's going to have a lot more pressure than Katie Couric.

Daily Dose

Shout Out to My Homies

So I've had the blog for like two weeks now. It's been a fruitful couple of weeks, which I owe in part to the constant news stories coming out of election politics, the economy, and baseball. But it's been totally fun (and sometimes addicting), so thank you for reading. I hope to contribute to more of your procrastinating habits in the future.

Since I've been enjoying blogging so much, I figured I'd just take a minute to give a shout out to my friends who also have blogs.

Lauren at LMNOP

Megan at Inside the Troll's Den

Jeff at Manayunk Free Press

Jacqui at Chacos and Stilettos

Emily at The Media Nerd

CSPAN Hysteria

I'm watching CSPAN right now for the House vote on the Bailout. It just failed, but they might do a revote? Anyway, CSPAN is now accepting callers for comments and they are hysterical (both funny and crying).

Caller 1: I'm glad they shot down this vote. Ron Paul doesn't support it and neither do I. Everyone should listen to Ron Paul.

Caller 2: My grandmother used to talk to me about the Great Depression and how they had to eat canned peas over the stove every night. I don't want to eat canned peas! I just can't do it!

Caller 3: This is socialism! It's socialism! It shouldn't pass and I won't be a socialist.

Word of the Day

Okay, does this ever happen to you? You find a word that you don't know, you look it up, and then all of the sudden the word pops up everywhere. Well that's happening to me today and I thought I would share. Today's word is schadenfreude.

From Merriam Webster:

"Main Entry:
scha·den·freu·de
Pronunciation:

\ˈshä-d^ən-ˌfrȯi-də\

Function:

noun

Usage:

often capitalized

Etymology:

German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy

Date:

1895

: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others"

It's been used in reference to John McCain and his links to the Indian casino lobby, to the Mets demise, and now on Gawker about a book on literary revenge.

"I can see Alaska from Walnut Street!"

Sarah Palin was in Philadelphia on Friday night. Aw, shucks, I missed it! But Jonathon Martin has an excellent account of what went down, Philly style.

Also this:
is almost worse than this:

Playing Palin, Part II

In case you haven't seen it yet, Tina Fey reprised her role as Sarah Palin on SNL this past weekend. Although in general, I don't think the skit was as funny as the first, it's still very telling of the GOP vice-presidential candidate. Remember my post last week about Palin and Miss South Carolina? Well watch the last long answer Tina Fey delivers before her "specifics" for Iraq. Unfortunately, that's not a script written by Fey and the writers at SNL; that's exactly what Palin said in the Couric interview and the same excerpt I posted last week. See for yourself:

Debates and Sports

Watching the debate Friday night was like watching a sports game. My friends and I sat around the tv, drank beers, talked shit on the other team, and geared up for what we expected to be an intense match-up. Perhaps this analogy does little to detrivialize an American election tradition that has become increasingly aware of its audience's short attention spans; the verbose and eloquent exchange of complex ideas has been traded in for snide comments and zing moments. But these debates aren't about trading ideas for the good of furthering the conversation regarding the problems that face our society, they are about sticking to your team's playbook, seeing who can get the other team to make a fumble, who can seem tougher and deliver more punches, who can score more points not with the strength of their arguments, but with the confidence with which the argument is delivered.

The difference on Friday was that there wasn't an objective or clear way to keep score. That leaves audiences at home deciding for themselves who won and then checking their scorecard against those of the pundits the next day. Perhaps being trained in the Philadelphia sports school of thought, I tend to be slightly pessimistic about my team's performance. I thought, after watching on Friday, that McCain had won. I adamently disagreed with everything he said. But I was afraid that others would view his constant assertion that "Senator Obama just doesn't understand" as truth instead of an attempt to feed into his campaign's narrative that Obama is naive and inexperienced. I thought Obama's refusal to press into McCain about misrepresentations about Obama's record would paint Obama as weak and unconfident in his own ideas.

According to polls, pundits, and other politicos, however, I underestimated my own team.

I think the most telling of all the debate analysis is the instant poll taken by MediaCurves.com. In each subset, based on topic, Republicans always thought McCain was stronger and Democrats always thought Obama was stronger. This isn't a surprise, but it says something important and very logical on a basic level about the debates: they actually matter very little. At this point, voters have already picked their teams for the most part. They don't watch the debate to give the candidates one last look before they cast their votes, they watch the debate to affirm what they already believe. The strategies of each campaign are now: 1) don't make any catastrophic mistakes, 2) hope your opponent makes a catastrophic mistake, and 3) get out as many of your team's voters as you can on Election Day. Again, this is by no means a novel idea or a genius observation on my part. I just find it fascinating that these elections get wrapped up in complex strategies and momentum and media soundbytes that we forget how basic the whole thing really is: getting more votes than the other team.

There are a lot of things I could expand upon here. But I will say one last thing. If you look at the indepedents polled in the MediaCurves, in each topic they thought that Obama won. Now, I don't really believe that there are, at this point, any true independent voters; the ideologies of both candidates are just too different to be on the fence. Of course there are completely uneducated voters who are voting based on cosmetic issues--which, I guess could be a lot of folks--but I still believe that each one of them deep down know exactly who they are voting for. Either they want to be considered "mavericks" in their own rights by not chosing a candidate, or they are embarrassed for one reason or another to admit who they are voting for. But the swing of independent voters towards Obama means really good things for him. Let's just hope that they do indeed cast their votes and, furthermore, vote for the Blue Team.

Monday Sports Update

It was a great weekend for me and sports and a lot of my weekend revolved around precisely that activity. I went 2 for 3 this weekend and if it weren't for the Eagles last night, it may have been one of the best sports weekend ever. And as extra bonuses, in each of my sports a rival team lost, so that made me even happier. Let's recap.


The Phillies. So Friday night the Phillies beat the Nats 8-4 and the Mets lost to the Marlins 6-1. So that meant that the magic number was now 1: either we had to win or the Mets had to lose on Saturday for us to clinch the division. And if for some reason the Phils lost and the Mets won on Saturday, we still had Sunday to work with. The Mets played before the Phillies on Saturday afternoon and they won 2-0, so it was up to the Phillies to control their own destiny. I had been out shopping most of the afternoon and I was nervous about the Phillies, but I came home just in time to see the 9th inning. Brad Lidge, our ace closer who hasn't blown a save all year (41 for 41), had loaded the bases with only one out in a 4-3 game. My boyfriend's father, a lifelong Phillies fan, texted him that it would be ironic if Lidge blew his first save in arguably the most important inning of his season so far. Ha ha, yes very ironic. However, a clutch team effort double play by Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard saved the save for Lidge and the Phillies clinched their second NL East title in as many years. We popped the bubbly and celebrated.

So the Phillies clinched a day early and could take it easy on Sunday. We started pretty much all of our second string, except for a few pinch hit curtain calls for some players who were clutch in the last month, like Jayson Werth and Ryan Howard. Sunday was actually Howard's 162nd consecutive game, the only player on the team to play every single game this season. Even with our starters out, the Phils still beat the Nats 8-3. To make the day even sweeter, the Mets collapsed for the second season in a row. After losing on Friday, they were tied with the Brewers for the NL Wild Card spot. Playing at roughly the same time yesterday afternoon, the Brewers managed a big rally with CC Sabathia pitching his arm off. The Mets, however, blew it against the Marlins at the last game at Shea Stadium. Booooo hooooo.

The Phillies take on the Brewers on Wednesday in Philly.


After a joyous celebration of the Phillies win, we then went out to a bar for the Penn State primetime game against Illinois. The game itself was exciting, but too close for comfort in my opinion. The Lions won it 38-24, aided by a great performance by Derrick Williams, who ran, caught a pass, and returned a punt for 3 touchdowns. I would have loved to be at Beaver Stadium for the game; the White Out looked awesome and my brother said it was a high energy game to be at. Now the Lions are ranked #6 after the win and some upset losses by other teams. One of those teams were Wisconsin, the only Big Ten team to have been ranked higher than PSU last week. They lost to Michigan, who suck this year. So too bad for the Badgers; there's only room for one Big Ten power house this year, and that's the Nittany Lions.

Okay so my weekend was going great and I was on a spiteful high after the Mets loss yesterday, so it was really late to me when the Eagles came on at 8pm. We've been plagued with injuries this last week and I was in agreeance with the coaching staff that Brian Westbrook should not play on Sunday and should concentrate on resting his hurt ankle. Well the Bears came out and roughed us up in a close game, ultimately beating us 24-20. But I think we did the most damage to ourselves. The play calling was terrible (the classic nonsensical short passes 5 yards behind the first down line on 3rd and long), we couldn't capitalize on several turnover opportunities, and there were more dropped passes than I can remember. Really not a good showing by an Eagles team that is better than what they put out last night. Now the Eagles move to 2-2 in the toughest division in all of the NFL.

The only thing that made the Eagles loss not so horrible was that the Cowboys lost too. To the Redskins. The supposedly best in the business get housed by the Skins and in Dallas. It was great. And Terrell Owens started his bitching again that he didn't get the ball enough. I'm so glad that whining isn't directed at my team anymore.

So for the most part, great weekend for my sports team. And great losses for my rivals. As you can see, my sportsmanship runs deep.

Deep Thoughts From The Debate

I didn't live blog the debate (I was drinking). But here are some bullet points of my thoughts while watching:

-Obama looks blacker than usual. Mississippi apparently doesn't have Oprah lighting.
-God, Jim Lehrer really does have the creepiest beady black eyes ever.
-Why won't McCain look at Obama? Did Barack forget to put the cap on the toothpaste again?
-McCain totally seems like an old man with the anecdotal stories. It's very "When I was a boy, we had to walk to school barefoot in six feet of snow." Even worse, he sounds like Al Gore.
-McCain only said "my friends" once. Obama never said "look."
-McCain is wearing a striped tie. Very unpresidential.
-McCain should stop trying to crack jokes and snickering. No one else is laughing and he looks dumb.
-This whole thing seems like an exercise in couples counseling. Lehrer keeps trying to get them to talk to one another.

2008 NL East Champions

[AP]