Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies are quite positive this season. The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team who belong to the Eastern Division of the National League since 1969. The franchise is based in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . The Philadelphia Phillies are the longest standing one-name, one location team in all professional American sports. The Phillies have won one World Series title in 1980, five National League Pennants and six East Division titles. Until 2005, the Phillies claimed the longest National championship drought in baseball history. Finally the Philadelphia Phillies had attained place in the National League wild card race until the final game of the 2005 season, but missed the playoffs for the 12th consecutive time. This loss agitated the fans in the City of Brotherly Love so to soothe the crowd general manager Ed Wade moved forward but at the end he couldn't heave the cause on the type of dicey trade that crypts a team into the postseason. Wade had to vacate the post and Pat Gillick was hired to fill the vacancy, one of the most respected front office guys in all of baseball.

Gillick has a thriving profile as a general manager and each of the three clubs he put together reached the postseason. Though Gillick's was a bit a unsuccessful to inspire Phillies' fans, but he plugged some gaps in the roster. Wagner was substituted by pragmatic but aging reliever Tom Gordon and Arthur Rhodes was drafted to be the set-up man. An effort was made to replace All-Star outfielder Bobby Abreu as trade enticement for an ace starting pitcher, but couldn't find a better option. Like most of other teams, the Phillies have several question marks regarding their starting pitching. The top of the rotation requires an ace in Jon Lieber, Brett Myers and Cory Lidle, but Philly hopes those hurlers can make up for that with mutual consistency. Still, Abreu, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Pat Burrell and Ryan Howard give the Phillies a solid streak to confront for the NL East crown. Abreu, Rollins, Utley, Burrell finished in the top-15 in last year's NL MVP balloting. The Phillies nickname is the oldest still continues to be in use by any Major League team from any league, the franchise had two other unofficial nicknames but neither of them was officially recognized by the Phillies, by the National League or by Major League Baseball.

The Phillies finished the 2000 season is last place with a 65-97 record. The acquisitions of Andy Ashby and Mike Jackson could not also help out the team. The Phillies heed to Curt Schilling's request and traded him to the Arizona Diamondbacks before the trade deadline in exchange for Pitchers Vincente Padilla Omar Daal, and first-base Travis Lee. The Phillies also signed an agreement with the city to build a new 43,500-seat ballpark scheduled to open in April 2004. In 2001, the Phillies played under the new Manager Larry Bowa who helped the Phillies to finish the season in 2nd with an 86-76 record.