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Phinally phree: What the World Series meant to me
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Being a living, breathing baby of the eighties, I’d never seen a Philadelphia team win a championship before last night. I literally don’t know how to react to this. It would be only natural that I’d want to seek out every Mets/Giants/Rangers/Red Wings/Devils/Michigan/Tampa Bay Anything fan I’ve ever known and gloat like they’ve all done to me. But truth be told, it seems entirely beside the point right now. This couldn’t possibly be less about any of them. If anything, let this World Series serve as a reminder to fan bases everywhere of what being a fan is all supposed to be about.
True Red Sox fans (the ones who locked themselves in a room when this happened) know this feeling. They were here a handful of years ago. This is about a sigh of relief as much as it is about celebrating a championship. It’s about burying a quarter century’s worth of sports nightmares which have haunted an entire city. And it’s about lifting the impending sense of doom which has been a part of my entire generation’s worth of Philadelphians for our entire lives. Practically everyone born in that city since 1975 is a sports fan, and has no previous memory of winning. And my lord, do I pity the child who remembers being eight in 1983 when the Sixers last won and then had to endure the last 25 years of what can best be described as character building experience.
So what does this mean to me? It means I don’t have to feel so conflicted about hating the Eagles right now. Even if they lose every game the rest of the season, as I’ve been not so secretly rooting for, it won’t be adding anything to our collective misery. It means that I can take the same pleasure in watching these Flyers grow as I had doubts that the Phillies had the slightest clue what they were doing. There is nothing in the water preventing the young Philadelphians from reaching their obviously endless potential. It means I NAILED it when I predicted Phillies in five. Hello, bragging rights! It means I can finally look down Broad St. at William Penn’s statue and think “now that is one beautiful picture of Philadelphia.” But more than any of that, it means I’m not the curse. For a lot of people I know, that means the most by far.
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