October 2009 Archives

Damn Yankees. Wouldn't you know they'd keep us waiting. It seems like weeks since the Phillies clinched , but the Yankees had to go and make the American League championship series "interesting." With all due respect to the California Angels, this isn't about you. This Phillies-Yankees World Series is more than just a great matchup, it's destiny. The baseball gods could not have scripted a more perfect and unlikely pairing than this: the defending world f. champion Philadelphia Phillies versus the New York Yankees. The ultimate Us versus Them. Oh, the humanity. This will be Armageddon.

In my first year of life the then-reigning world champion Yankees swept the Phillies 4-0 in the 1950 World Series, a baptism of failure that seared itself into my hometown DNA. Philadelphians my age grew up knowing that the Yankees represented everything the Phillies were not. And we hated them for it. And not in a good way like the way we hate the Mets. Phillies and Mets fans are like brothers in misery and disbelief with brief periods of joy. We have smelled each others stink in battle. The Yankees on the other hand are like the French at Agincourt, superior numbers gathered on a hillside; haughty, distant, exotic. Like orchids in a field of dandylions.

In a memorable moment during the Phillies 1980 World Series celebration, Tug McGraw spoke the unspoken for our city and for the ages when he bellowed,"New York can take this championship. . . and STICK IT!" Remember we had defeated the Kansas City Royals in the 1980 World Series, but then as now, everyone knew it was the Yankees we wanted. Why? Because they have it coming.

This is getting ridiculous. Not that I am not the least bit less excited about this Phillies team's march to the world championship as compared with last year. I was confident last October the same way I am confident now (as if MY confidence matters). But it does matter to me, and this new, newer, newest-found confidence in the Fightin' Phils goes against my grain in some weird inexplicable way. Like black means white. Like warp means woof. Like the way things have always been don't have to be that way. Not this year. Not next year.

Not. . .

And this is where the dream gets too weird. I begin to believe that the Phillies can win every year. I had that dream last night. During the deciding NLCS game on TV the so-called marquee brand name Dodgers had the look of deer in the headlights from the national anthem until the wasted champagne. The Phillies, and their fans, and their city, blew L.A. and the Dodgers out of here like gnats before swine. The swine, of course, would be the Yankees.

Every Philadelphian wants to beat the Yankees. It's been in our baseball DNA since Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn and the National League champion Whiz Kids were swept by the American League champion Yanks four games to zero in October 1950. Sixty years ago this month. Who would remember such things other than us? We forget nothing or we forget everything but the grudge. We keep score and somehow it matters that we do so.

Face it, the Yankees represented -- and still do today -- everything that the Phillies never were and aren't today. We are the losingest franchise in major league history, they are the Yankees. So what else can we do now except roll down the windows and fuck'em in the World Series like we know we can. Like we will.

"Like we will." That's the new feeling I'm feeling. Confidence rather than hope. Expectation rather than anticipation. Feel the same way? Call us the Dead Yankees Society. Let the broken hearts stand as the price we've got to pay.

Philadelphia has always been a dick of a city. Newcomers find that offputting. We understand ourselves so well we can feel the unspoken, And we don't care if you, let alone the whole world, understands what we don't say out loud. But "we" know. That's the point. If you don't love Philadelphia, then listen to the sound of me not caring. If you love Philadelphia then you know exactly what I mean. Perhaps you and I will nod at each other as we walk down tree-named streets: Walnut, Locust, Cherry, Pine/Chestnut, Lombard, Spruce and Vine. William Penn was big on green centuries before green cities became the enviornmental rage.

Philadelphia is a secret city with a code about as hard to crack as hello. If you say it right, Philadelphia will notice, If you fail the test of hello, we will notice and then we'll talk amongst ourselves about you later. Philadelphia prides itself on being a city that will stab you in the back right in front of your face. It's the big F.U. -- you know, Florida University. Most native Philadelphians grew up thinking that F.U. was in the Big Five. But we are an irresistible people, cultured in the art of in your face, and yet always willing to save your ass. We will break your heart in the process of defending your honor. Because that's what we do. It's the nature of a confident city that knows something noone else knows. Philadelphia, frankly, is phallic. Check out the statue of Willliam Penn on top of City Hall. Now that's what you call Founding Fatherhood on display.

NOT BAD FOR AN OLD MAN. Especially for a 60-year-old old man from New Jersey who looked as fit and fresh last night as the first time I saw him play the Spectrum almost 30 years ago. Bruce Springsteen is more than an American icon. He is a force of nature, a hurricaine of music and values and questions that pose themselves as statements: God have mercy on a man who doubts what he's sure of.

LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT.  On the same day that the President of the United States won the Nobel Peace Prize, America bombed the moon. That would be a rimshot cue if it weren't true. Barack Obama's selection as the Peace Prize winner almost seems ludicrous on the surface. Until you think about it. And the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. About as much sense as bombing the moon in search of water. Some people think that way.

I heard about both events late Friday afternoon when it was already old news. Everyone I spoke to seemed to know more about it than than I did. They were already citing the news media spin that this choice by the Nobel Committeee is actually a slap at George Bush and a "repudiation" of American foreign policy during the eight long and eventful years of the President Stupidhead Administration. Then this moon bombing story that piggybacked like the perfect Ginsu Knife commercial news event --"Don't believe that? You'll never believe this!" -- barking after the Obama prize story like a bloodhound of irony. President Peaceprize bombs moon. You couldn't make that up. Truth always trumps fiction.

Open mouthed reaction to the Obama Peace Prize announcement swept through Philadelphia like "What the fudge?" through a candy factory. Most people I talked to, both conservative and liberal, said the Nobel Prize could end up being a political liability for Obama. Can you imagine? A week ago the guy's a loser for not getting Chicago the Olympics. This week he wins the big one, the Gandhi one, and people seem to be suggesting that it might be a liability to Obama because some big fat drug addicted windbags like Rush Limbaugh will bloviate the Nobel Peace Prize into some suspect foreign honor. Late Friday night on Hamilton Street in West Philly a playah in his mid-20's offered his opinion of Obama's accomplishments as a peacemaker after ten months as president, "He ain't did spit."

Yeah, all he did was change the world's opinion about the United States, about it's government, about the decision making ability of the American people in a presidential election. I believe the Nobel Committee's decision was not a repudiation of a past president but a confirmation of the better judgement of the American people. We elected this president. And I do believe we just heard the world of science, art, literature and peace shout, "Bravo."