Philly needs our support in confronting a common enemy

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When you get past all the finger wagging, it turns out there was only one consequential punishment for the Houston Astros’ years-long cheating campaign.

It wasn’t on them. It was on the rest of us. For their sins, we are forced to root for Philadelphia in the coming World Series.

I know. It’s not fair. But in today’s America, no bad deed can go punished.

This isn’t a knock on Philadelphia, as such. It’s a lovely city to visit. Philadelphia is New York before Manhattan was turned into an open-air shopping mall.

It’s got that earthy, nineties feel of gentle urban decay. Sure, people will yell at you, but in a fun, “whaddayooselookinat?” sort of way.

Philadelphia’s great. But Philadelphia sports is unbearable. These people act like they invented the game. All of them. What they invented was the Constitution, but they’re not so proud of that anymore, are they?

Philadelphia is not the absolute worst. That would be Boston, followed closely by anyone anywhere in California. But it is close.

The last time we got a really good look at it was the 1993 World Series, Toronto Blue Jays vs. Philadelphia Sweat Hogs.

I get that a pro athlete is a species of actor. They adapt themselves to their environment in order to achieve an authentic performance. But the ‘93 Phillies acted like they all lived together in a bar. Not over it. In it. They were so cartoonish they ought to have been illustrated.

They carried on as if the final was a formality. Who would dare deny baseball’s dirtbagging-est team their Sports Illustrated cover shoot?

We would.

My second-best memory of that World Series was the Joe Carter home run. My best was the look on the Phillies’ faces right afterward. They could not believe they’d lost in Canada.

Canada was at it again in 2019 when Kawhi Leonard stuck a fork in the 76ers, but nothing’s going to top 1993. That was our tortoise victory over the hares in the U.S. media industrial complex.

Now things have changed. We must join forces with Philadelphia to confront a common enemy. It’s Houston vs. Philadelphia, and all right-thinking non-Texans have only one choice.

A while back, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred tried to explain how not penalizing the Astros for staging an elaborately stupid, garbage-can-based, long con on baseball was itself a kind of penalty.

“I think if you watch [Houston’s] players, watch their faces when they have to deal with the issue publicly, they have paid a price,” Manfred told ESPN in 2020. “To think they’re skipping down the road into spring training, happy, that’s just a mischaracterization of where we are.”

I missed the “Astros Skip Into Camp, Happy” headline, but it must exist. Otherwise, Manfred’s bad point is even worse.

The only team sport equipped to deal with perfidy on this scale with this result is soccer, with its relegation system. Baseball didn’t have the administrative equipment. So the best it could come up with was absolutely nothing.

The Astros were arguably baseball’s top team when they were caught cheating. Since then, you could still argue the same thing.

No player was punished for the player-conceived and player-executed scheme. A couple of people on top got torpedoed, but the on-deck crew remained the same.

A few slippery apologies were delivered. The Astros were booed a few times in a few places. But as always happens, people got bored of being angry at them. If baseball wasn’t going to do anything about it, why should the fans bother?

Maybe MLB was hoping karma would do the job for them. If so, that will have to be in the next life. In this one, the Astros are living like kings.

Houston has scythed through the playoffs to date. It slapped Seattle around. Then it sunk the Yankees in a four-game sweep. Everyone in the American League should feel the ripples.

The great question for the Jays going forward is not if they’re good enough to contend. That is the question they’ll want to talk about, because it avoids the more important question: Are they good enough to beat the Astros in a seven-game series?

Based on the most recent evidence, the answer is, “Are you kidding me right now?”

The World Series starts Friday in Texas. The Astros aren’t just looking at winning their second title in six years. They are on the verge of becoming one of the most convincing champions in baseball history.

They won 106 games this season. They won their division by 16 games. They haven’t lost in the playoffs. No team has ever swept three straight postseason series.

Going forward into next year, only one of Houston’s core players, Justin Verlander, is a free agent. And where else is he gonna go? Nowhere. A few of their top players aren’t even arbitration eligible yet. More than any team in baseball, the Astros are built for today, as well as tomorrow.

The Phillies must be built for tomorrow, because you could argue they aren’t totally built for today. They won 87 games this year, which left them 14 games off the top of the National League East. In the final month of the season, they went on two five-game losing streaks. One is bad. Two seems careless.

However, armed with the carefree approach of a team with nothing to lose, Philadelphia has galumphed through the playoffs. Most playoff winners do it with pitching. Philadelphia’s done it hitting – averaging more than five runs a game. It isn’t its ‘93 predecessor, but you can tell it would like to be. It’s the growing tendency to preen.

Houston is allowing a little over two runs per nine innings in this postseason. You’d say “something’s gotta give,” but Houston can score, too.

On paper, this thing is already over. But I suppose that’s how the Phillies felt 30 years ago, so who knows? Someone has to stop Houston’s evil empire before it grows too powerful.

It’d be better if we didn’t have to back Philadelphia to do it. If it wins, we’ll never hear the end of it. But in times of great need, an annoying hero is better than no hero at all.