Why Can't Us Again?

Because the Yankees, that's why.

Well, the WFCs will have to relinquish their title, apparently, having lost Game 6 to the Yankees in rather convincing fashion. It was clear pretty much from the beginning which was the better team in this Series, but the better team does not always win and so I held out hope for the Phillies.

I do like this bunch of players that they have now - they don't quit, and they always think they can pull one out of the fire. They play hard.  They seem surprised when they lose. I hope the team can keep together for a few more years.

I didn't watch too much of the Series, really. I missed the first half of Game 1 handing out candy at Not Bad President Elementary. I missed all of Game 2 attending a fundraiser for the local YWCA, who eased my pain by having a number of local chefs put me into a calorie coma with their donated skills. And the stress levels were just too high to watch all of the innings in the other games - I'd peek in here and there to see how they were doing and often watch a couple of innings before heading off to do something else for a while. This was true even for Game 5, which the Phillies won. Although honestly, a six-run lead with one out in the 8th inning should not be that exciting nor should it end with the tying run at the plate.

During this World Series I have discovered that I seem to have raised two genuine Phillies fans.

Oh, it's not just that Tabitha and Lauren watched almost as much of the Series as I did, or that Tabitha especially would ask me questions about the games as they progressed. It isn't even that Lauren was excited to wear her Phillies shirt to school on the same days that I wore mine to teach at Home Campus (my students put up with me good naturedly).

No, I think it became clear that you can take the gene pool out of Philadelphia but you can't take the Philadelphia out of the gene pool when I flipped over to the game during a commercial break in tonight's episode of Mythbusters (of course we were watching Mythbusters - be real). The girls instantly looked to the corner of the screen, where it showed the Yankees winning by a score of 4 to 1 at the time. "We're getting crushed!" they cried. "We're going to DIE!"

Optimism is not the byword of the true Philadelphia fan.

And so others celebrate somewhere else, and last year's WFCs have to go back to the drawing board for next year. On the plus side, though, I get my life back, and it was quite a ride while it lasted.

Go Phillies!