Phillies Deserve Excitement

Today on WIP, sports analyst and former Eagle Ike Reese brought up an interesting point on how the Eagles get heavily criticized while the Phillies have a lot more wiggle room.  Reese brought up that due to the fact that many of the Eagles teams came up short in the playoffs and never delivered a Super Bowl, the fan base is understandably fed up.  Many of the Eagles teams in the early 2000's had such high expectations, and on multiple occasions failed to get it done come crunch time.

Reese then compared the Eagles to the Phillies and stated that the one obvious difference between the two teams is the Phillies delivered on a championship in 2008.  The highly anticipated Phillies teams of 2009, 2010, and 2011 weren't criticized as heavily because of the fact that they gave this city a championship in 08.

I stopped for a second and thought about Reese's points.  In my mind they are very accurate and they are very relevant as we gear up for yet another highly anticipated Phillies season.  Although the Phillies have let us down the past three years, they deserve our utmost optimism and excitement because of the fact that they delivered on a World Series.

But the points made by Reese also bring up an extremely intriguing question: what if the Phillies hadn't won the World Series in 2008?  Would we be laughing at them and bashing their front office like many fans are currently doing to the Eagles?

I think that even if the Phillies hadn't won in 2008, I don't think the fans would be as hard on them for two main reasons.  Number one is the obvious fact that even without 2008, the Phillies still won the World Series in 1980.  The Eagles on the other hand have zero Super Bowl titles to their name.  Another point as to why the Phillies wouldn't be as highly criticized as the Eagles has to do with build up and fall back.  After the early 90's, the Phillies were an absolute joke.  They lost games, went through managers like crazy, and nobody really cared about them.  But then in the early 2000's they got a new star in Jim Thome to usher in a new era of baseball.  They moved out of the Vet, and went to the Bank and steadily over the years they got better and better.  Finally in 2007 they made the playoffs.  Although they got booted in the first round, it was seen as a major accomplishment given the fact that the Phils were basically a laughing stock just a few years earlier.  Then in 2008, they captivated the city and won the World Series.  In short the build up was perfect for the Phillies.  And after failing to get it done the past 3 years, fans really can't get too angry given the World Series title achieved in 2008.

But now let's analyze the the Eagles.  In the late 90's, the Birds were also awful and Andy Reid ushered in a new era by drafting Donovan McNabb.  But in 2001, 2002, and 2003 the Eagles reached the NFC Championship game but failed to get it done every year.  In 2004 they lost in the Super Bowl, and then that was it for four years.  Unlike the Phillies the Eagles had no real build up.  They jumped out of the gates in the early 2000's and were basically right there as early as 2001.   Then after 2004, the Eagles again lost in the NFC Championship game in 2008.  But after 2008, the Eagles had nothing to fall back on.  They couldn't say to the fans: "Well at least we won it all in 2004."

Basically the Eagles fan base is understandably fed up.  The Eagles have never won a Super Bowl and until that happens, fans will continue to be extra hard on the Birds.  The Phillies on the other hand have 2 championships to fall back on, one as recently as 2008.  Deservedly, the Phillies have more wiggle room and  deserve all of our optimist and excitement heading into this season.