Results tagged ‘ Phillies ’
Obsess Much?
Cole Hamels of the Phightin’ Phils is at it again. The Phils are showing themselves to be classy, quiet, dignified winners in the spirit of, well I can’t think of anyone right now. That’s because most world championship ballclubs don’t spend as much time thinking and talking about the second place team in the division as the Phillies talk about the Mets. Jose Reyes said it best last week before the new Hamels comment came out.
“We don’t worry about Philly. I don’t know why they worry so much about the New York Mets. They can talk about whatever they want to, because we worry about us. They are the one to win the World Series, not us, and we don’t say nothing about them. We just say congratulations to the Phillies. We focus on them when we play them, but they always seem like they’re talking something about us, and I don’t know why.
“We worry about the New York Mets, not other teams. They have to be happy because they won the World Series — why do they focus on us? What did I do to them? If we win the World Series, everybody is going to be happy and not worry about other teams.”
Jose, I couldn’t have said it better than that so I won’t even try. I will say this. The one thing you never want to do is keep poking at a sleeping bear. Even with the two collapses, the Mets only finished 1 game behind in ’07 and 3 games behind in ’08, so it’s not as if the Mets were pounded into oblivion. The Mets until they prove that they can overcome whatever adversity they face in September or just blow the doors off the Phillies will have to deal with barbs thrown their way.
Who really is The Team to Beat?
My best friend Andre is a great guy. Has a wonderful family, a beautiful wife, the prettiest baby girl for whom I am proud to be godfather. He is a Mets fan, but baseball is his number 2 sport. He is first and foremost a football fan and his team is the Philadelphia Eagles. He has family there and we’ve driven down there on occasion to visit them and to bring home a carload(that’s no exaggeration) of cheesesteaks. I’m a Jets fan so we really don’t have any real beef over football. The problem I have is that the Eagles play in Philly and I have developed a deep-seated, almost irrational dislike of Philadelphia. It is solely because of their baseball team. The Phillies irk me, not because they’ve beaten us the last two years. Heck, the way we played we didn’t deserve to win it anyway. It’s the way that even in victory they have a way of coming off smarmy.
From their homer media guys, to their announcers openly wishing Reyes would get drilled in the head after celebrating a huge homer the night after a bad loss, to Jimmy Rollins taking time out of his victory speech to rub the Mets noses in it again, what used to be a nothing rivalry has become our version of Yankees-Sox. Which makes comments like what K-Rod said over the weekend, almost apologetically saying that the Mets were the team to beat, both endearing and annoying. Because until we can drive a stake through them in September or just blow them out through a season like ’86 and ’06 all the talk doesn’t mean a thing. However, I like the fact that he came here committed to taking them on and his willingness to stick his neck out with really no proof (yet) that his new team has what it takes to hurdle the Phillies in September.
So for now I have to grudgingly give them the nod as the team to beat. They seemed dead in the water in ’07 and ’08 and played their best ball exactly when we didn’t. They have a room full of tough, if not entirely gracious, winners. Good for them. I look forward to every battle. I just want to have the team that brings home the trophy this year. Maybe that will make the next cheesesteak run with Dre all the more sweeter.
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