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Game 7 of the National League Championship Series is in Philadelphia tonight, and I am torn. Pulling for Texas in the American League Championship Series was a given. Picking a team to root for in the NLCS is a lot harder.
A lot of times in games like this, games that do not involve Boston and have no implications for a Boston team, I want both teams to lose. A recent example of that was last years Chiefs/Eagles Super Bowl. That’s not the case for tonight, though. There are good reasons to pull for each side tonight. Even Philly!
First, let’s take a look at Arizona. They are easy to root for because they are (checks notes) not from Philadelphia. It’s also fun to root for an underdog. Arizona was the last team in the playoffs this year and are one game away from the World Series. And while their current uniform offerings are a bit of a mess, millennials everywhere look back fondly on these beauties:
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The Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen is also a local guy and former Red Sox front office executive. If that’s not enough, he recently re-upped with the D-Backs instead of potentially returning to the Nightmare on Jersey Street. Good for him, and enjoy the warm winters in the desert. And that brings us to the case for the Phillies…
Hazen’s last year in Boston was 2016, when he worked under Dave Dombrowski. Dombrowski of course is now the head baseball man in Philly. There are lots of reasons to root against Philadelphia in anything, including but not limited to the abhorrent behavior of so many of their fans. I’d sooner wear a Red Sox hat in the Bronx than a Patriots jersey to Lincoln Financial Field. But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about reasons to root for each side, and a win for Dombrowksi and the Phillies would be a great way to stick it to John Henry and the Red Sox.
Dombrowski was Boston’s top baseball man for nearly four full seasons (2016-2019). In those four seasons, the Red Sox won 58.3% of their games, including a team record 108 in 2018, three consecutive division titles for the first time in team history, and the 2018 World Series. He also hired Alex Cora in 2018, one of the top managers in the game today. In the midst of all that winning, though, I guess he didn’t pay enough attention to the farm system. And winning isn’t cheap. So for those crimes he was fired in September of 2019.
Dombrowski is a hall of fame executive. He is one of the last old school baseball guys and not an analytics-obsessed GM. It’s hard to forget how dirty the Sox did him when they showed him the door. His successor in Boston, Chaim Bloom, also met a similar fate as the Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer. While Bloom didn’t have nearly the success Dombrowski did in Boston, it’s tough to see a guy get fired for doing what he was asked to do (cut payroll, rebuild a farm system, and still field a somewhat competitive major league team). I say that as a guy who is only somewhat more hesitant than peak George Steinbrenner when it comes to making firings.
Which is why the Red Sox find themselves where they are today. There appears to be little interest from qualified candidates for what should be one of the best jobs in North American sports. So a win for Philadelphia tonight could be seen as a rebuke of the way business is being done in the Fens these days.
That being said, it’s also never a bad day when Philly loses. I just hope the light poles are greased.