Ineptitude, Thy Name Is Philly

The Phillies suck. I'm not the first person to point this out, but it's kind of fun to pile on. Especially when I can do it from the safety of Texas and no one from the infamous 700 Section can get at me. Because Philly fans know their teams suck, and it has made them permanently angry, bitter people.* My kind of fans.

The Phillies became the first team in pro sports history to lose 10,000 games. Ten thousand games. The Red Sox haven't even lost 8000. The Cubs lag 575 games behind. They are a truly remarkable 1,190 games below .500. That's more wins than the Florida Marlins have in their entire 15-year history. If the Phillies won 100 games a season every season, it would take THIRTY TWO seasons before they would reach .500 as a franchise. That's just a staggering level of suckitude.

And that's why it sucks to be a Phillies fan. It's not just that your team sucks, has sucked, and will continue to suck. It's that the Cubs and the Red Sox hog all of the loveable loser karma (ok, maybe not the Sox so much anymore). Hell, even the Indians had a movie made about them based on the premise that they suck. So did the Angels (twice, bet you didn't know it was a remake). Just to peak at the all-time World Series scoreboard:

Red Sox: 6
Cubs: 2
Indians: 2
Angels: 1
Phillies: 1

Mitigating fact: the Angels started playing in 1961. The Phillies have been losing since 1883. Hell, they even spotted the Cubs a decade.

The Phillies can't even lose right. By all rights, they should be the team synonymous with losing, but for some reason, they slip under the national consciousness. Why? Because Phillie fans understand this basic fact: Losing isn't cute. While the Cubs market their ineptitude as somehow fun, the Phillies actively try to win every year, and every year they manage to lose. It's really quite amazing. Hell, if it weren't the Phillies, the Orioles might have lost the 1983 Series. Joe Carter wouldn't have that famous home run in 1993. Mitch Williams imploding is the Phillies best baseball memory of the past twenty years. Now that's just depressing.

To sum up the Phillies, you must understand Phillie fans. this is a town which held two genuinely great players, Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt, at arm's length. Now, granted, both were sort of prickly guys, but who is beloved in that town? Dick Allen, who can best be described as perhaps having a bit of anger management problem. which is why he fit in well with Philly fans. they can all be angry together.

Go celebrate the only way you know how Philly: by going outside and beating up some Met fans.

* Ed. Note -- The two most infamous incidents are booing Santa Claus and pelting Buddhist monks with rocks during Lollapalooza. I defer to my friend from Philly who justifies these two incidents this way: "It wasn't rocks. We threw mud. And they were running long." And my personal favorite "In our defense, Santa was drunk". Just be fair. Now you know their side.