This Series With The Yankees Is Both A Wake Up Call And A Blessing In Disguise
One of the worst feelings in the world is that of being inferior. It makes you feel hopeless when you are the lesser opponent. For the Phillies and the sports fans in the city of Philadelphia, that’s what we were this week. The Yankees came in and beat our team while their fans came in and took over our stadium. We can do better, we will be better. This humiliation was exactly what we needed.
The Yankees have now won the first two games in this late June series at Citizens Bank Park and the fan situation is 60/40 Yankees at best in the stadium. Baseball attendance in Philly this year isn’t a new issue, just one brought to light by an influx of bandwagon sellouts. I myself am part of the problem. I am coasting on a Super Bowl high while so emotionally invested in The Process working out, I’ve lost touch with the team that brought me the first championship in my lifetime. I stopped going to the stadium at 7:05pm. I stopped tuning into games. I became the frontrunning fan Jimmy Rollins warned us about. As I watch our team fall victim to what the Nationals fans feel when we call their stadium, “Citizens Bank Park South”, I realize that this series is the kick in the rear I needed to energized about baseball.
That stadium these past few nights, that’s not Life of a Philly Fan. We are the most passionate fan base around it’s not up for debate anymore, but we’ve neglected a big part of what got us that reputation in the first place. The Phillies have a good, not great team. They are where the Sixers were in October/November and where the Eagles were when they finished 7-9. The raw talent is there and blossoming but they are young and they make a hell of a lot of mistakes that lead to losses. Will they win a World Series this year? Hell no. But we need to get in from the ground up! If you invested in Microsoft in the 1980s, you would’ve reaped the benefits way more than if you invested now. Buy into the product at CBP now so by the time Enyel De Los Santos and Sixto Sanchez are ready, there’s already a path to October lit.
Even if we were filling this stadium to the brim every night, we’d still have to deal with the parasite that is Yankees fans. They will still pour in no matter what we do and THAT’S OKAY.
Yankees fans can scream about 27 rings until their little hearts to give out but Philly fans will always have something they never will, a place to call home. The Yankees are just a corporate brand, they are the evil empire. Their fans don’t even live in New York City and why would they? It’s the most overrated city in the country. It’s too crowded, it costs three grand a month to live in a shoebox, you could get better pizza in Scranton and let’s be honest, The Hudson is huge I could’ve landed that fucking plane. When you don’t have that hometown attachment and you just cling on to something based off brand recognition, the raw emotion and pure elation that comes with winning is erased. The titles don’t have meaning. The people in those seats these past few night are the same people that are anxious to see what the Lakers do in free agency and think Tony Romo is still the quarterback of their beloved Cowboys.
Where’s the heart and realness in that? You’ll never forget how much emotion you poured into the Eagles winning a Super Bowl. That’s what makes Philadelphia and it’s fans a more authentic sports city, no matter how many Yankees fans show up at our ballpark.
So, the last few nights we got our ass kicked in more ways than one. In a way, it was a blessing in disguise. We have a good baseball team. Let this series with the Yankees be the ignited that makes us pay attention to it.