Underdogs R US
Yo. The Phillies are number one in the entire MLB. Yankees are a half game back and in our own division, the hated Braves are 7 games back.
This is awesome. This is incredible. This is….not us.
Don’t get me wrong. I am over the moon. I am beyond excited and happy and loving it.
And yet….it is a strange feeling. One with which I am not really familiar, being from Philly and all. I can’t seem to really relax into it and trust it. There is underlying anxiety, like waiting for the bomb to drop and smash our lead position, along with our hopes and dreams, into smithereens.
For those of you from Philly that are reading this, you might know what I am talking about.
We are the city of underdogs. We invented and defined the underdog. I don’t think it even exist before us. Truly. It goes back to the year 1776 when we were the center of the American Revolution, where the Continental Congress was located, where the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were written, and where the US Capitol was located. That is until Hamilton pulled the rug out from under us in a side deal with Jefferson and Madison to move the Capitol to VA in exchange for their support of his financial plan. The beginning of that chip on our shoulder.
From there, it wasn’t too far an expanse of time before NY started to overtake us. And once that Erie Canal opened up, well, fuhgeddaboudit. Bye bye Philly, hello NYC as the center of trade and commerce now with easy access to the mid-west and west. Chip now firmly planted on shoulder.
So yeah, we are the scrappy, tough, blue-collar city of underdogs. Nobody likes us, we don’t care.
We have a series of films about a fictional guy, goes by the name Rocky, who has become the personification of Philly Underdog. We even have a statue of him that proudly stands at the base of the Art Museum (another underdog, have you ever seen the crowds at The Met?). This was after he stood atop the Art Museum steps for many a year.
More people come to see and have their picture taken with the Rocky statue than actually go in and visit the Art Museum. I know this because awhile back my marketing coworkers and I did some pro bono work for the Art Museum to help them with this problem.
I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be from one of those other cities that aren’t underdogs. Cities that get to use the word dynasty when talking about their teams. Here in Philly, dynasty is a tv show from the ‘80’s. We scrap, we fight, we earn every inch of a World Series or Superbowl or NBA Championship or Stanley Cup. And then once we win, usually in come-from-behind-nobody-saw-it-coming fashion, we languish in decades long droughts until we maybe come close to the mountaintop again.
So yeah. With all that history is it any wonder we all can’t relax and fully enjoy our leadership position in the MLB? Dare I even mention the Phold of ’64? I dare not actually, don’t want to put that out in the universe, so let’s just keep that quiet. Forget I mentioned it, please.
Which is why we look at the standings and while we acknowledge the lead, we also start hedging our bets and saying things like, “It’s early in the season still” or “They can’t really sustain this can they?” or “They might be peaking too soon” or “Can they stay healthy?”
Because that’s how we roll in Philly. We have had too many years of disappointments to tempt the Fates with anything that smacks of too much confidence. We need to prepare ourselves for what always seems to be the inevitable. This way we can even feel good about ourselves and say things like, “See, what did I tell you? I was right wasn’t I?” Somehow, that helps to take the sting off the pain a bit. I am sure it’s some sort of trauma coping mechanism.
All of which is to say, that when those Championship winning moments do come, no matter how infrequent they are? Well, nobody, and I mean nobody, appreciates, loves, bleeds red, green, blue, or orange, and goes b#*^tsh#*^t crazy like the Philly fan.
But don’t grease those poles yet. Ranger Suarez just got hit by a line drive to his pitching hand and there are still 114 games to go. Welcome to Philly.