YES!!!

The Phillies finished off the Dodgers in game 5 of the NLCS, winning the series 4-1, marking their third National League pennant in my lifetime (1983, 1993). The last time we made the Series, we had a team full of mulleted misfits who had gone from worst to first. Then the Mitch Williams-Joe Carter incident happened and pretty much ruined my life that year. I was only eleven, so there wasnt all that much that could go wrong. Id like to see the Red Sox come back and win the ALCS because in my mind, a Phils victory in the World Series is vengeance for Super Bowl 39. However, it looks like those whiz kids in Tampa Bay will be our opponents. Anyway, last nights win brought back a feeling I hadnt had since I was eleven, and it was pretty fucking cool. It made me think about the 1993 team and how we realistically had no chance in hell of beating a Toronto Blue Jay squad that boasted six All Stars (Alomar, Molitor, Olerud, Carter, etc.) and a pitching staff that would be hard to keep up with. We had Lenny Dykstra, Curt Schilling and a bunch of guys who looked like your company softball team. In many ways, the team was the personafication of Rocky Balboa, our favorite cultural icon. The team wasnt supposed to even get that far, they played an opponent that was a proven winner and engineered from the ground up to win. We gave them all they could handle, but came up short.
It was bittersweet. I still hate Joe Carter with a passion...and that asshole manager of theirs, Cito Gaston. Im hopeful that the 2008 team will succeed where the 93 group failed, as this years team has All Stars, MVPs and a future Cy Young award winner all on the roster...we didnt have that in 1993...although we did have some interesting characters.

Lets go Phils!!!