THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AND GREAT - The Phillies Are On The Clock
By Joseph Santoliquito
Driving through the side streets of Philadelphia on National League Championship clinching night, you can see almost every corner bar had spilled out into the street, their displaced patrons craning their necks to watch each pitch on the large-screen TV in the corner. Everyone clad in Phillies red-and-white gear wanted to be part of the ongoing euphoria that’s gripped the city the last two years.
Even the riot police in their black body armor that ominously patrolled Broad Street seemed to be enjoying the build-up before the explosion Wednesday night, despite making them look like they were the thought police from the movie 1984.
My question is: Does this baseball carousel ride end here? Can we stamp this Phillies’ team with the mark of a successful year?
Some are already proclaiming this Phillies’ team as the greatest in franchise history—no argument here, they are by creating a new standard as consecutive National League champions.
Now it’s time to place this Phillies’ team on a higher plain. How about this one: Are we content on this team being the best in Phillies’ history, or among the best in baseball history?
That’s the challenge we’re all faced with now. Sure, every Phillies’ fan has a right to be elated over the current success of this team. This isn’t intended to dampen that feeling. But are we content on being good, or do the Phillies have the right kind of stuff that makes them great?
Beating the New York Yankees will do that—it will make a good Phillies team great in the annals of baseball. It would put them on the same plateau as the great Cincinnati Reds teams of the 1970s, the Big Red Machine (these Phillies do lack one thing—and that’s a catchy nickname), or the Yankees team of the late-1990s and early-2000s, winners of three-straight World Series titles and a team that made four-straight World Series appearances.
Who knows what we’re molding here over the next few weeks. Instead of the intense, vitriolic-filled attitude this area has toward one New York will be transferred onto another. I can see, can’t you?
But it starts with not being satisfied for just this—a National League championship. It starts with daring to think beyond the parochial shackles that our sport’s history has chained us to throughout the years—that just getting to the “big game” is some measure of success.
A number of sports columnist in this city recently told me that if the Phillies reach the World Series this year, it’s been a success. I’m not willing to accept that. This team and this city surely aren’t.
Now it’s all about winning. It’s all about being great—instead of just being good. The Phillies, their fans, this region want the New York Yankees. The Phillies actually need the New York Yankees, the greatest pro sports franchise in the history of organized sports. This is a team that’s 26-13 in World Series Championships, a team that’s won more than any other in the history of the majors—with over 9,000 victories—almost matching the all-time number of franchise defeats by the Phillies.
In fact, a strong argument can be made that the Phillies throughout their history are the antithesis of the Yankees.
Conquering the greatest is the only way to know how great you are.
The 2009 Phillies are now on the clock. Joseph Santoliquito is an Emmy Award-nominated writer based in the Philadelphia area who can be contacted at Jsantoliquito@yahoo.com.
