The Phillies winning the World Series — or any sports team winning anything — is not the best thing that can happen to anyone who has a life.
There are families and friends and loved ones and careers, and with them births, weddings, graduations, promotions and honors.
But being a fan is different than those things. It's more public. It connects you with thousands of people who otherwise share nothing. No, it's not as big as your daughter's wedding. That doesn't mean it's not big.
Anyway, being a modern fan (or media person) is so much about the 24/7/365 churn of information and debate and analysis and commentary that it's easy to forget how much fun sport can be. Huge fun. Joy.
Remember joy? Thanks for reminding me, Fightin's.
And now, back to the churn of information and debate and analysis and commentary ... .
Can they win it again next year?Probably not.
In the last 30 years, only the Yankees (1998-2000) and Toronto Blue Jays (1992-93) have won it in back-to-back.
Even if the Phillies become the offensive team they were from 2004-07, while continuing to pitch the way they have this year (which isn't going to happen), the odds would be against them winning six straight playoff series.
They can and should be good again, but that will involve 1. keeping this nucleus mostly together, 2. not getting satisfied, 3. lots and lots of cash.
Just three important Phillies, Pat Burrell (who made $14 million this year), Jamie Moyer and Scott Eyre, are eligible for free agency.
Both pitchers should come reasonably cheap and should be signed. Burrell, who will have serious value as an American League DH, probably should not.
Left fielders on the market this winter will include Manny Ramirez (insanely expensive) and Matt Holliday, being shopped by Colorado with a year left on his deal.
Where the club's $104 million payroll figures to really balloon is in salary abritration, for whom the following 10 Phils are eligible:
Position players Ryan Howard ($10 million last year), Shane Victorino ($480,000), Jayson Werth ($1.7 million), Greg Dobbs ($440,000) and Eric Bruntlett ($600,000), starting pitchers Cole Hamels ($500,000) and Joe Blanton ($3.7 million), and relievers Ryan Madson ($1.4 million), Chad Durbin ($900,000) and Clay Condrey ($420,000).
Perhaps more important than all of those is the apparent retirement of general manager and future Hall of Famer Pat Gillick, probably to be replaced by the thoroughly uninspiring Ruben Amaro Jr.
Amaro told the Philadelphia Daily News last month that, "Nobody who is contributing is going to leave our club because of finances. There may be other reasons guys leave, but it won't be because of that."
Were they the best team this year?Again, probably not.
Put it this way: They aren't the 1998 Yankees, a great and maybe even historically great team that dominated the regular and postseasons.
But they just as obviously aren't the 2006 Cardinals, probably the worst of the eight playoff teams that year, who managed to win it because, well, because that's just how baseball works.
This year, four teams — the Angels, Cubs, Rays and Red Sox — won more games than the Phils. It's probably good fortune that they got through the postseason having faced only one of those.
But Philly did have the third-best run differential (plus-119) in the sport, which means they easily belonged in that top five group. And because of Cole Hamels, Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge, they may have been, of that group, the best equipped for short-series, postseason baseball.
And it's not like they left much room for doubt. Beginning with the tide-turning four-game sweep in Milwaukee Sept. 11-14, the Phils won 14 of their last 17 regular-season games, and went 11-3 in the playoffs.
That's 25-6 when it counted most. That's not a hot streak, folks. That's grabbing it by the throat.
The Baseball Prospectus folks this week ranked the 14 world champs of the Wild Card Era by regular-season won-loss record and average ranking on their weekly Hit List power rankings. The Phils were ninth, with the '98 Yankees at the top and '06 Cards at the bottom.
The Phils also finished slightly ahead of both Florida Marlins' champs, 1997 and 2003. Those teams are perceived, falsely, as examples of a franchise going "all-in"; making a one-year push to win it all before liquidating the assets and starting over.
The Fish just weren't good enough to be proof of that kind of manipulative intelligence; like most modern championship teams, they simply hung around and got hot at the right time.
This fact has been written here before in other contexts, but the Phillies are one of three big-league teams (with the Yankees and Red Sox) to have won 80 games or more every year this decade.
Now that's hanging around. And this is the payoff.
You will not be asked, anytime soon, if you remember joy.
Mike Gross is assistant sports editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at mgross@lnpnews.com.
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