A Conspiracy of Hope

By Bob Herpen
The Phanatic Magazine

From the first uttering of that magical phrase “pitchers and catchers report,” to the nervous anticipation that accompanies the hours between the last exhibition game and the first pitch of a new season, a torrent of emotions come to the surface regarding our red pinstriped diamond dwellers.

But what is it that allows a Philadelphia baseball fan to simultaneously renew hope each April for a season worthy of a pennant, yet so willingly also profess doom at the very first misstep the club makes? How can the harbinger of renewal and rebirth also become twisted into a series of murky omens?

Perhaps the syndrome is hardwired into our collective conscious, as baseball becomes a part of our lives from the very start.

For our grandfathers, it was the lure of the “knothole” at the old Baker Bowl at Broad and Huntingdon, where young fans of the Chuck Klein era could grab a spot in the old wooden fence beyond the outfield bleachers and sneak a peek for a nickel. Then, fifty years later, they spend inordinate amounts of time with their male grandchildren reminiscing about fighting for that last knot even though it meant you were guaranteed to see the Phils lose, and lose badly.

There would be no mention of specific names of the home players from that time; only vague recollections of a never-ending series of “bums” on the mound, at the plate, and in the dugout. You’d hear great tales of the Cardinals’ Gas House Gang, the Waner brothers of Pittsburgh, Johnny Mize and Ralph Kiner’s Herculean blasts, and almost nothing of the home club except certain epithets surrounding the fact that at least it didn’t cost much to see some “expletive deleted” baseball during the Depression and into World War II.

For our fathers, it was the joy of a special trip Uptown or into North Philadelphia to see the “Fightins” at beautiful Connie Mack Stadium. During the '50s and '60s there was an endless parade of has-beens (Frank Howard, Elmer Valo, Lew Burdette), never-weres (Bo Belinsky) future Hall-of-Famers (Fergie Jenkins) and controversial figures (Richie/Dick Allen), some of whom - like Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn and Jim Bunning - actually stayed with the team for a number of years and became beloved names in franchise lore.

That generation passed down to its sons and daughters the clear memories of the emerald grass, the fancy architecture of the building itself, and the fact that you could never trust the neighborhood – and maybe couldn’t even trust someone to watch your car for you while you spent endless Sundays watching doubleheaders that passed in the blink of an eye. Of course, there also was the bottomless heartache of September 1964, which still reduces men about to become grandfathers to vacant stares, awkward silences and furtive curses. But it still was mentioned with an air of pleasant nostalgia all the same.

In these times, the endless stream of newspapers, ESPN, and sports radio does its thing like a sledgehammer to our frontal lobes. Fills our heads in the course of a single day with multiple separate and distinct opinions that all can convince you in moments of weakness that they are all either simultaneously true or forever diametrically opposed. The hosts, talking heads and writers play with our emotions under the guise of being liaisons between team and fan base, effectively splitting us into two camps: those who undyingly believe that each successive year is “The Year,” and those who stubbornly (and perhaps wisely) refuse to believe that every new year is nothing more than different interchangeable parts which inevitably lead to the same conclusion.

The payoff for our grandfathers finally came with the Whiz Kids’ 1950 National League pennant. From 1918 to 1950, the Phillies only made it above the .500 mark three times, two of those in ’49 and the following season, a four-game loss to the Yankees. Our fathers only had to wait a little more than a decade to erase the memory of that infamous Collapse, as the combined efforts of Danny Ozark, Dallas Green and Paul Owens coaxed six division crowns, two World Series appearances, and one title between 1976 and 1983.

Sadly, I think the payoff for our generation has already come – that magical ride called the 1993 season – which still ended in horror as only one other World Series previously had concluded. And what of today’s youth, weaned on the Terry Francona years, and constantly sent the confusing signals that the Phillies are still a source of never ending misery despite five winning seasons since 2001? They must view 1993 in the same wondrous vein that we think of the decade of the 70’s and 1980.

As William Shakespeare once wrote, “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not within our stars, but within ourselves.”

Our older relatives, peers and many media mavens have poisoned the well for decades by harping on the one World Series title in 125 years, the dark times between the world wars, 1964, and countless other lost weekends from 1984 until now. We believed it all, wanting to bond with everyone around us, even if it was in commiseration. We are also to blame in the switching of allegiances or in becoming embittered under the constant battering the franchise takes over the airwaves just because five 80-plus win seasons in the last six failed to produce one single playoff berth or division title.

Take a look back in history. Save for the lost years of the '20s, '30s and '40s, the Phillies have not been so horrible. They were an average team from the end of the 19th century until the end of World War I. Those so-called “second-division” teams your father and uncle complained about? Between 1951 and 1968, Philadelphia sported 10 years of .500 or better baseball, and enjoyed six consecutive years (1962-68) nowhere near the National League cellar. Winning seasons every year from 1975 to 1983. Another small period of wandering in baseball’s wilderness came along from 1985 to 2000 (1993 excepted), but there has been a renaissance of sorts from Larry Bowa’s 2001 hiring until now.

Hope is a tricky thing, and a dangerous seed to plant in the minds of future generations. Whether it is the false hope of the cynics who believe the Phillies will always succeed at failing, or those who unfailingly cling to the hope that each April will be the one to chase away the demons of seasons past.

All I’m asking now is for fans to plow a road right between the two extremes, and carve out a path where young and old can simply share memories and experience, and spend some time praising players and recalling games that punctuated the disappointment. Let the talk of good guys like Johnny Callison and Rico Brogna mingle with the derision of Steve Jeltz and Chad Ogea.

This is only baseball's beginning. There shouldn’t be room enough for either camp to make their claim. Let’s just enjoy the game itself for what it is.