The Phillie Pharm

When I first looked at the eight post-season teams entering the 2009 Major League Baseball playoffs, I found it hard to root for any one of them. As an Oakland A's fan with professional ties to both the Cubs and Padres, I was pretty much out of luck. A quick look at my options left me as uninspired as I could ever remember entering October.

The Evil Empire was out, as were the Angels, (see: die-hard Oakland A's fan). The Red Sox had lost all of their pre-2004 appeal as an underdog, spending nearly as much money in payroll as the Yankees. Sure the Twins' frantic scamper to make the playoffs was entertaining, but anything short of a sweep in the first round at the hands of the Bronx Bombers seemed unlikely.

When I first looked at the National League, I didn't fare much better in finding a surrogate rooting interest. The Dodgers were out, given the Manny scandal coupled with my continued belief that Joe Torre is the most overrated manager in baseball and, well, Kirk Gibson. No, it hasn't been long enough. The Cardinals were somewhat interesting as a choice, but with my Cubs ties and a lingering feeling that the redbirds never really deserved 2006, St. Louis was out. The Rockies were intriguing, as the true underdog, with a shot at another Rocktober, but much like the A's post-Jason Giambi, it just never felt the same without Matt Holliday. That left only the Phillies, the defending champs who had already tasted glory in 2008.

I almost considered just scrapping the whole thing (gasp!) and waiting for next year. Nevertheless, I found myself rooting (albeit mildly) for Philadelphia. Maybe it was the presence of Jimmy Rollins, I pondered, the Alameda native who gave me a a hometown hero to root for. But I knew it was more than that. I just didn't realize why.

It wasn't until the day after Philadelphia's thrilling Game Four victory that it hit me. I was watching an interview with Ryan Howard from the night before. He was asked about Carlos Ruiz, the catcher who was almost an afterthought on this roster, who came scampering around all the way from first base on Rollins' game-winning, two-run double to propel the Phillies to a 3-1 lead in the NLCS. Howard laughed, saying "I haven't seen him run that fast since Clearwater."

My mind flashed back to a conversation I had a couple of weeks prior. I was in New Orleans, attending the Minor League Baseball Promotional Seminar when i ran into an executive at an open bar event during the first night of what turned out to be four steady days of drinking. We chatted for a minute about the upcoming NFL weekend (the Jets were in town to play the Saints... remember when that was the Super Bowl preview? Yeah, me neither) before the talk turned to baseball.

We discussed the farm systems of the teams for which we both worked, and compared similarities and differences. He told me about how his organization had made sure that they brought their young talent up together, level by level. They had essentially grown up together, some guys even being held back longer than the normal progression to form the real core of a team. He gushed when he talked about how great the group of guys had become, maturing into responsible, professional men of the game. As someone who downplays the importance of chemistry and readily dismisses ideas like "mystique" and "aura" in favor of hard, statistical evidence, I was nevertheless impressed by the organization's commitment to fostering a sense of community and raising their athletes as brothers.

After a nice chat, the executive and I shook hands and traded business cards. It turned out he was the Assistant General Manager of the Philadelphia Phillies Florida LLC. He worked for the Spring Training operation, as well as the team's Florida State League affiliate, the Clearwater Threshers.

He had seen Howard and Ruiz play together in A-Ball, along with Cole Hamels and Ryan Madson in 2003. It was hard to imagine a Yankees' minor league employee relating a story of any of their current roster playing together in the minors.

After all, in this day and age, there are no real hometown teams. Players are drafted from all over the country- and signed from all over the world- by each organization. Sure, the occasional attempt is made by a franchise to take talent closer to home, to create that sense of civic or regional pride (see: the Atlanta Braves and the first round of the MLB Draft). But really, the sense of community within a team is gone after college, and arguably past high school. The only way to build that same sense is to create it again from within.

The Phillies' commitment to that sense of team and community is something I can get behind. Guys like Howard, Utley, Rollins, Ruiz, Hamels and Happ are the core of that team. Sure they have had help from veterans and free agents, but everything starts with them. It reminds me of those 2000-2001 Oakland A's- guys like Tejada, Chavez, Giambi, Hernandez, Hudson, Mulder, Zito- who came up through the system together and built something special as a unit.

Of course, that team never won a championship. They were forced to go through the Yankees both years that the team was still in tact, losing in the deciding game both times.

Here's to hoping the Phillies can do better.