Greg Dobbs Knows Jack Schmidt About Phillies History

Even as a lifelong Phillies fan, it's hard to believe their win over the Brewers was only the fifth series victory in the team's entire post-season history.  Now imagine the surprise you might feel had you not followed the team and seen the futility for yourself year after year.  ESPN's Jayson Stark finds the best place to start for those reactions is right in the home team's locker room.

"You know, I was watching ESPN the day we beat the Brewers, and I saw that," said catcher Chris Coste. "They said it was only the fifth postseason victory here. That stunned me. It really did. I don't know how many of us knew that."

Think about it.  An MLB clubhouse is about as diverse any place there is, with players coming from all over the country and even the world.  They weren't Phillies fans.  The guys that came up through the system were undoubtedly aware of the team's struggles in the past decade or so, but none of them truly knows how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Coste was clueless.  Chase admits he knew "zero" about the history before he arrived.  Dobbs can kind of sort of name some of the greats.

"I mean, I knew about Steve Carlton," Dobbs offered, just so he wouldn't flunk this test too disastrously. "I knew Jack Schmidt -- I mean Michael Jack Schmidt. I knew those names. I knew [Bob] Boone. But being a West Coast guy, playing in Seattle all those years, I had no clue what I was walking into."

For some reason, I found this whole idea of not knowing or understanding the past very refreshing.

Double dipping from the same piece, Stark's story does a great job as painting Jimmy Rollins as one of the major catalysts for change in Philly.  We've been hard on J-Roll this season, but there really is no question that we may not be at this point without the MVP.

"I always said, when I got here, that I wanted to try to change the tradition," said Jimmy Rollins, a man who actually thinks these concepts through -- and verbalizes them right out loud, in front of real witnesses. "I said it to myself, 'We need to change the mentality, change the way people think about this organization, change the way the young kids feel about being in this organization.' And the only way you can do that is by winning."

"I think step one, phase one, was getting out of the Vet," said Rollins, "and getting to somewhere where you could kind of erase the history of all the wrongdoings that happened there and only winning one World Series. The 1980 squad, that [was] their home. No matter who you were or what you did, you were always playing where Mike Schmidt and the 1980 squad won the World Series.

"So I told [former Phillies manager] Larry Bowa [before the Vet was imploded], that was the house that he had built, and across the street is going to be the house that we build. And this is a step in the right direction."

Love it.  Go Phillies.

Comments

[i cant stand joe morgan]

is it perfectly acceptable to be playing 'phillies fever' throughout the office on loop? cause thats whats happening.

BEAT LA.

[Josh]

Go Phillies!

[enrico]

Good 'ole jimmy comes through with the money quote there. Amazing.