Sports Update

True Believin’

Written by Joe Korn

When April arrives every year, everyone and everything undergoes a change. It’s the first month that is entirely spring; it has no winter like March. Everyone goes from feeling all cooped up inside to feeling free and joyful over the promise of the outside warmth. For me though, April has a much bigger meaning to it than just the outside air; it means baseball season is starting up. Spring training has already rolled through and the normal season is about to start. Teams are looking forward to a new year; they might be striving for a better one, or maybe they are trying to repeat last season’s success. I love this sport in its entirety but am a huge fan of two teams specifically: the Philadelphia Phillies and the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles are coming off a huge year with winning the Al East and making it all the way to the ALCS. They are primed to have another good year this year in my eyes. The Phillies, on the other hand, are a completely different story.

Have you ever heard of the saying, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”? That basically sums up the Phillies’ entire 2014 season. They had moments of brilliance and certain players shined brightly, like Chase Utley and Cole Hamels, but they were masked by a horrible 73-89 record. They were last in their division, the NL East, averaged 20th out of 30 in batting statistics and pitching statistics, and overall did extremely poorly as a team. A team should play as one, as if they had glue attaching them, and work together to achieve harmony on and off the field. The Phillies are like a kindergarten art piece: poorly done with certain parts of the paper falling off because of a lack of glue. I mean really, if there are players wanting to leave their team, then something is wrong.

Nevertheless, I’m sticking with the team in hopes that someday soon, they will become that team they were in 2008 or 2009 when they reached the World Series. It’s situations like this that test a fan’s devotion to their home team but all you need is one simple thing to pass the test. You need hope, a hope that your team will fix their mistakes, and will become the team that you know they can become. In other words, you need to be a true believer in your team. If you don’t believe, if you don’t have hope for their future, then you won’t be able to look past the team’s bad streak and see a future where they perform well together. Be that one true believer, even if all of your friends are abandoning them and jumping on the bandwagon for another team. Go Phillies!