The Reason I Post (part 2): Cause Sometimes Life is REALLY Funny

Now I'm a Phillies fan. If you read the blog with any regularity (hard to do lately, I know, but I'll get some posts back up here, I promise... er... well... I'll try) you know that. As such, I've long past learned to never get too cocky about my team's fortunes. I'll always be grateful for any season over .500 after the dreary days of the mid-to-late 90's. Ugh.

Still, I think it's hilarious that the new off-season sensation in the NL East is guessing who on the Mets will "reclaim" the mantle of "team to beat" that Jimmie Rollins claimed for the Phillies two seasons back. That's right, it's not even like he threw down that gauntlet last year, after season after the first time the Phillies visited the playoffs this decade. Nope, he made his prediction at a bold moment where the Phillies really needed a leader who would step up and say, "Hey everybody, we've got a pretty kickass team."

Now even Rollins' leadership didn't mean that the Phillies still didn't need a historic collapse by the Mets to get to the playoffs in 2007, but here we are looking down the start of 2009 Spring Training in oh... what... 3 months? It's two years later and the Mets have best the Phillies... how many times since? I'm sorry, it just cracked me up today when K-Rod, the newest Rod to be payed megabux by a NYC team rolled out his own cocky pronouncement, that the Mets are (very creative here), the "TEAM TO BEAT" in 2009.

Honestly, now that they've bought themselves a respectable bullpen, who knows? They just might be. I, however, think it's all pretty silly here in the dead of winter. Meanwhile, the Phillies are making some interesting moves of their own, so we'll see what is to come, but for now perhaps we should all just get ready for the Iggles on MNF, dontcha think?

Oh, and apologies to all the Mets fans I love. Nothing personal, let's just either a) see some original smack talk from your guys this off-season. Come on, look at Cole Hamels, he really took it up a notch, and yes what he said was kinda dirty in just the right way. OR b) let's wait until at leas Spring Training starts so that we can have some actual non transactional reason to talk smack. Huh? Whatta ya say?