Cardinals Hand Phillies 10,000th Loss
PHILADELPHIA - It was the kind of game Phillies fans had seen thousands of times before. Now, make it 10,000 times. Bad starting pitching, brutal relief and hardly any hitting. Oh, and lots of booing. Loss No. 10,000 came Sunday night when Albert Pujols hit two of the St. Louis Cardinals’ six homers in a 10-2 rout of Philadelphia…. From Connie Mack Stadium to the Vet and Citizens Bank Park, and at ballparks all over, the Phillies have cemented their place as the losingest team in professional sports. The franchise, born in 1883 as the Philadelphia Quakers and later called the Blue Jays in the mid-1940s, fell to 8,810-10,000.
I’ve always been one of those sick (&^%s that loves the anticipation leading up to a train wreck. I think that’s why the prospect of the Philadelphia Phillies becoming the first professional sports franchise to reach 10,000 losses appealed to me so much. The Phillies cumulative record hasn’t been over .500 since 1922. Now’s THAT’S some kind of futility, eh? Just to get to .500 again, Philadelphia would have to go on something close to a 1200-game win streak- that’s roughly 7 1/2 seasons.
Last night the Phillies finally hit the 10,000 loss mark. They did it in historically typical Phillies fashion, losing to St. Louis 10-2 in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated. Only two meaningless runs in the bottom of the ninth made it look as if the Phillies had a pulse. Though they’re nowhere near as horribly inept as they were in the early 20th century, the Phillies last night looked as if it was 1935 all over again. The only thing missing were the sheep/groundskeepers from the old Baker Bowl.
Baseball historians talk about the Chicago Cubs being lovable losers. Well, they may be lovable, but no team has done losing quite like the Phillies, who’ve been putting the “ph” in “phutility” for a long, long time.
After 125 years of futility…hmm, I’m sensing a pattern here…. :O)
