That edginess between players and fans, players and media, fans and media, is either the fuel of this city's sports passion or a byproduct of it. Truth is, Philadelphia fans aren't tortured by losing teams and losing seasons. They've developed a wonderful gallows atty-tood about that.
They're tortured by coming close.
Ask Mitch Williams.
Or Gene Mauch.
Or Danny Ozark.
Last month, on Comcast SportsNet's "Meet the Phillies," manager Charlie Manuel spoke about playing and managing for so many teams in so many places, including Japan, over more than 2 decades, and that, "I never really stopped to think about what it was like for a fan to come to the ballpark every day and cheer for their team.
"When I was a kid, starting to want to play baseball, I used to stand out there and hit rocks in southwest Virginia," Manuel said. "And now I understand that passion I had and the determination. And that part of it, from a fans' standpoint, once they've been around the game they have that same kind of passion. And I never realized that until we won a World Series and I saw how happy the fans were and how big our parade was."
Before the 2008 season, the Phillies of this decade were defined by just-miss. Four times they had finished second. Three times in this decade they finished with the same 86-76 also-ran record. And when the Mets and Braves finally dived out of their way in 2007, the Phillies ran down the division pennant but then ran out of gas, swept by Colorado.
Before the 2008 postseason, a question about fans evoked one of two things from most players: a roll of the eyes, or some sing-song quote, uttered in monotone, about how important fans are to the team's success or some other similar nonsense. There were players you sensed a bond with, but for much of the time, it was more us against them.
Remember when Jimmy Rollins dubbed us "front-runners"?
Remember that was last season?
