"It feels good from a personal standpoint because I'd never won anything in the National League. I guess it proves you can switch leagues," he said mildly.
"It's good to win. It's nice to win. That's all I can say. I lost for a long time. I remember 30 years ago when we started out in Toronto, we were losing 100 games a year. It got pretty old. At first, if we played three games and won one, we were jumping up and down. Later we got good and if we played three games and lost one we got upset.
"This brings a lot of pride to the city. It makes the fans feel good. It kind of says, 'We can do it, we can win, we're not going to fall short.' ''
The Phillies are still short of every team's ultimate goal. And while it's true that they only won 89 games this season, it's also true that it's only one fewer than Arizona, which led the league with 90.
"There's a lot of parity this year. Some would say a lot of mediocrity," Gillick conceded with a laugh.
Still, once you get to the postseason, you never know. The Cardinals won only 83 games during the regular season last year and then rolled to a world championship. The hardest part can be just getting to the playoffs.
Then again, nobody has to remind the Phillies of that. *
