"LET'S-GO YANK-EES (clap-clap, clap-clap-clap), LET'S-GO YANK-EES (clap-clap, clap-clap-clap)"

It's cold, rational, practical thinking: During 2005-2009, those oily Philadelphia Phillies fans have caused ME more indigestion than Yankees fans. In my baseball world, they've been the more pervasive, abrasive scumb@gs (on a personal level...are you listening Stan Kasten??) so they must die an epic sports death. They are a loud and smelly people, those Philadelphians. Me? I'll be holding my nose and rooting for the Yankees. Sick world, ain't it, folks? IT'S AN INVESTMENT IN THE 2010 NATS PARK EXPERIENCE.

Tora, tora, tora. Die Phillies die! ;-)

-MontCoNats

If I follow your logic, if the Phillies win there will be more Phillies fans traveling to other parks than if they lose. I wish I could buy that, but it seems to me that RFK for three seasons and Nats park for the first season were just as badly infested as this past season. My solution is to stay away from Phillies games. I realize that I'm not helping the situation, but the way I look at it, I do believe they will stop coming here once the Phillies eventually regress back to their rightful place in the world order (the losingest sports franchise in history), and I'll just wait for that and hope it isn't too long. Perhaps a year or two. But the difference between winning and losing a World Series, I don't think it's going to effect their enthusiasm that much. So they won't be able to call themselves world champs, they'll still be able to call themselves NL champs, and be just as obnoxious about it.

You been drinking alot of coffee lately, haven't you? lol

"Tora, tora, tora. Die Phillies die! ;-)"

If the Phillies win again, their fans will purchase even more World Champions merchandise, leaving them without that extra spending money to buy all our unused Nationals tickets next year. Every man and woman will have to determine for themselves whether that would be a good thing or not. Generally, I'd say fewer Phillies fans would be a good thing, but then I don't have many seats I need to unload during the season.

"If I follow your logic, if the Phillies win there will be more Phillies fans traveling to other parks than if they lose...."

What, Ray? I didn't write that... please re-read...

Actually, there's no "logic" at all to my post! :-) My gut feeling is, the PAIN felt by Phillies fans will be more profound than whatever gain (and, therefore, any increase in obnoxiousness) by Yankees fans, if/when the jaded New Yorkers win another MLB title.

Phillies pain = Nationals glee!

Here's a comparison: Try chanting "1960, 1960, 1960" to any Eagles fans. They get it...no NFL title since 12/26/60. That hurts them. No matter how much our Redskins s uck NOW, chanting "1960" helps keep the cheesesteakers in line (three Lombardi's, no matter how dusty they're getting, will do that. They have zero. Ha!)

Back to baseball, in twenty years, I want that 2008 Phillies team to seem like a Tampa Bay-beating flook. Look, Phillies fans have been emboldened for twelve months...enough!...their undoing begins tonight! Go Yanks.

-MontCoNats

ps: For the record, I've always liked good ol' boy, Charlie Manuel.

After careful consideration, I'm pulling for the Phils.

It's the misery quotient. Far more misery will accrue to Yankee fans if they lose than to Philly fans if they lose.

Former Expo farmhand Cliff Lee went the distance in the Phillies' 6-1 win in Game 1.

Is the doubt of this decade's failures creeping back into the minds of Yankee Universe?

Well, alarmingly, I became a Philly fan last night, and in particular watching Lee. it was just too much fun seeing the Yankee fans' anguish.

Let's hope Pedro has a night similar to his masterful September 10, 1999 win over Pettitte at Yankee Stadium. No, he won't notch 17 K's over 9 innings, but putting the Phillies up 2-0 would put serious pressure on the Evil Empire.

www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=199909100NYA

why are they the evil empire?
Is it becaus ethe fans demand a winner?
Is it because the owne r trys to win every year?
Is it because anything short of a WS victory is failure?
Is it because it is a class orgainization from top to bottom?

I'll take taht evilness every year

Because they won 26 World Series titles when the next-most is 10 (St. Louis Cardinals). And the whole superiority complex combined with the fact that the season is a total failure if they don't win it all. And that a player is not a "True Yankee" unless he helps them win the World Series.

Because they spend $200 million every year on their 25-man roster, when the next-most is whatever the luxury tax threshold is ($149 million by the Mets).

Because FOX and ESPN seem to care about the Yankees far more than any other team -- including the Mets, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, Angels, Phillies, etc.

Because the Yankees have more bandwagon fans than any other MLB team -- and that includes the "pink hatters" who joined Red Sox Nation during the 2003 and 2004 hype.

Are those reasons enough to call Yankees Universe the Evil Empire?

except for the winning part and the more obnoxious "nation" and a few million I would have thought you were describing the red sox

I actually agree with all your points, Eric...I hated the Yankees during the tail-end of the Senators days in DC, took off a decade, then hated them all over again when I followed the Orioles. Now my NL East card trumps all. Not theoretically; I genuinely FEEL the hatred of the Philadelphia Phillies and their fans! They're pigs!

I feel for ya, brother. Yankee-hating is a full-time job and I realize your main team is the Boston Red Sox, so I understand. It's the same as me knowing that no one will ever twist my arm enough to EVER hate ANY team more than the Dallas Cowboys, period. It's in my DNA. But, for now, the Yankees are my Flying Monkeys...doing my dirty work to the Phillies. They're tools for the job...the end of the 2008 Phillies flook-job. Phlook 'em!

-MontCoNats

Obviously in my case, the AL East card trumps all, so I'm rooting for the Phillies. But I'm no fan of them, or of any Philadelphia team for that matter. But in mentioning the term "business decision" with regard to who you want to win the series, I have a friend that literally has taken that to another level. This guy is truly a "company man" in every sense of the term, and basically his job has replaced his family as his life. Nevertheless, he works for a company where the owner is also a small minority owner in the NY Yankees. This guy is not a baseball fan (or a sports fan for that matter), yet when the owner was in town last week he decided to buy a Yankee hat and leave it on his desk. Honestly, it's really sad when you see people who're willing to give up their identity because they think it'll let them get ahead in the world. To me, the teams that I root for are part of who I am, and I refuse to change that simply for a boss. (Incidentally, I met this guy when I worked for this same company, and I told the owner what I thought of the Yankees.)

I am probably the only one but I have to several of the Phillies games at RFK and the new stadium each year and have never seen anything bad happen--maybe because I had my Phillies hat on?

I did see some Yankees fans get quite upset after the Saturday afternoon game a few years ago at RFK when the Nats came way back. In the parking lot after the game, all one of them could think to say was "how many rings do you have?" I never knew fans got championship rings but I guess in NY.

In the end even if it wasn;t the Phillies, I would root against the Yankees--generally root for the National League and the Yankees fans just think they have some sort of divine right to win all the time.

I now wish I hadn't used the term, "business decision" when describing how I'm solidly entrenched AGAINST the Phillies (which, in my mind, was just my brainless throwaway phrase). I just meant rooting FOR the Yankees was NOT from the heart...it was just business.

I mingled around Broad St. last Saturday night before Pearl Jam's Halloween concert finale @ the Spectrum. Seeing those two fanbases in one spot across Pattison Ave. (for Game 3) was frightening. I mingled among the maggotry. I hated them ALL...lol.

But because of the Yankees' undeniably storied history, I feel loudmouth Phillies fans are far more easily beaten down so that's where I am, as a die-hard WASHINGTON NATIONALS FAN, on a mission to (rooting-wise) beat down the Philthies 'til they're a bloody mess! Philly loves violence! Bobby Clarke, Frank Rizzo and Little Nicky Scarfo would all understand. Ka-pow!

-MontCoNats

Believe me, I have no uncontrollable urge to see the Phillies do well. I find Phillies' fans a bit more tolerable than the rest, but that's probably because they're not in my division and I don't see them 18 times per year. But I deal with them in football, basketball, and hockey, and it's pretty much the same people I suppose. We've all heard the stories about going to games in Philadelphia, and I experienced it myself going up there with the Redskins a few years ago. A guy I work with is a Dallas fan, and him and some friends went up to see the Cowboys and Eagles at the Vet one year. He said that the people he was sitting with were okay, but one guy gave him a "friendly warning" to the effect that if the Cowboys won (which they did) he should plan on leaving early because otherwise he might not make it out without getting hurt. In fact, he said that he left with about three minutes left, and people were throwing things at him on the way out.

Sad, because Philly is such a nice city otherwise, but their sports fans are still idiots. They feel it's their birthright (and civic duty!) to be total a-holes. The team/city PR spin is, Philadelphia has tried to "clean-up" bad behavior from the days @ The Vet, but not true. Read these well-known 2008 posts from Nats320. According to the bloggers the 'pack mentality" sometimes even extends to the police. I wasn't there, but those two Nats fans seem pretty darn credible.

-MontCoNats

<http://nats320.blogspot.com/2008/09/classless.html

<http://nats320.blogspot.com/2008/10/phillies-respond.html

PS: Looking good! As of 10:00 p.m., it's 7-1 Yankees...heartburn in the Cheesesteaktown. ;)

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