Phil Sheridan: Life goes on: Gloom now, but Phils' future still bright

Five postseason series in a row had ended with the Phillies spraying champagne in clubhouses from Milwaukee to Los Angeles to Denver to South Philadelphia. The ritual of donning swim goggles and dumping buckets of ice and water on teammates' heads, a novelty in 2008, had become almost routine by the time the Phillies won their second consecutive pennant.

So it felt very strange to step into the quiet of the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium as Wednesday night slipped into Thursday morning.

A knot of reporters had gathered around Cliff Lee, who had given the Phillies hope with two stellar pitching performances against the Yankees. Scott Eyre and Brett Myers were telling a couple of beat writers that they would like to return to the Phillies in 2010. Ryan Howard turned from his locker to face a couple dozen media types seeking an explanation for his record-setting 13 strikeouts.

The mood was somber, to be sure, but the players were not devastated by losing their championship to the Yankees. That may seem surprising to fans, who live and die with their favorite team, but it was typical of other runner-up locker rooms and clubhouses I've been in.

When Howard said he was "cool" with his performance, an anguished fan might take that to mean he didn't care. But the reality is that Howard wouldn't be anywhere near the player he has been if he couldn't shrug off adversity in this way. You strike out, you move on.

Players understand that competing at the highest level comes with the very real, very reasonable risk that you'll lose. The Yankees played better than the Phillies over a six-game stretch. It was no more complicated than that.

Before the Series started, general manager Ruben Amaro sat in the dugout at Citizens Bank Park and talked about the vagaries of postseason baseball.

"It's just a matter of the ball rolling right and executing," Amaro said. "It's not about the talent. All eight teams that were in the playoffs have the talent to win the World Series. It's really about which team is playing the best and which team has the ball roll right for them. Fortunately, for us, the ball has rolled right the past couple of years."