I am a pure-bred, die hard New Yorker, except when it comes to baseball. That’s because I grew up loving the Philadelphia Phillies of the 1970s – Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Gary Maddox, Steve Carlton, Larry Bowa, Bob Boone, etc. – so I will be rooting against New York this fall.
The Phillies, in case you don’t know, are the first professional sports franchise to lose 10,000 games. Their list of season collapses extends as far as the Yanks’ dozens of pennants. For years, we were the Futile Phils. But no longer. We’re World Champions, in fact.
When I was young, before the age of the Internet and ESPN, I used to sit in my upstairs room in the Catskill Mountains, listening to a very faint and static-filled station from Philadelphia report Phillies games. Until the post-season. That’s when we’d watch Reggie Jackson hit screaming home runs and the Yankees rip up almost any opponent in sight.
Now, we will witness the ultimate World Series. Phillies vs. Yankees. Great pitching, great hitting, solid fielding.
A real east coast affair.
Good luck to you Yankee fans out there. This year’s playoffs have really shined. Let’s hope the action continues. And how about the picture of the Philly Phanatic dressed as Rocky?