No question, problem is no matter what the times, it is widely understood that the pitchers of recent vintage are "babied" far too much. Even today, Halladay is an anomalie. That is why they can't come close to matching records of those other eras and that is even with a LONGER schedule!

It's just nice that the Phils are a destination team. for years growing up we were like the nats r now

Oh puhleeze! Phillies have 2 World Championships, 7 Pennants, and 12 Playoff Appearances. And they've never relocated to Minnesota or Texas.

I don't think there has been a Washington baseball team in the playoffs since 1933, and they weren't exactly a dynasty then.

With the possible exception of expansion/relocation teams that have never been to a series, I don't think there is a greater tradition of futility in professional baseball than in Washington.

Let's remember that until fairly recently, Boston was pretty pathetic too.

Boston went from pathetic, to a fun team to watch to now an annoying team is baseball. I guess thats better than being pathetic like the Blue Jays.

Love baseball, love the Jays. Miss Roy, but wish him all the best. Hope he gets a Cy Young and Series this year. Look for Cole Hamels to have a great bounce-back year too; what Roy did for Burnett, he'll do for Hamels.

The Jays have had it tough, that's for sure. Toughest division in baseball, but it's not without hope. Riccardi torpedoed the team, but I have a really good feeling about Anthopolous. He has done everything right since he's gotten there, and he just seems to know baseball. Three/four years from now, we should have a great team.

I have been an Astros fan for many years but I don't follow baseball nearly as closely these days. Roger Clemens soured me on the sport. I was a big J.R. Richards and Nolan Ryan fan for many years. Now those guys could bring the heat!

I have to agree with you David, I also haven't felt the same about sports in general since all the cheaters started getting exposed.

Raccardi made some mistakes with the signings of some overpaid veteran players (BJ RYAN, the big hurt etc). Rios turned out to be a disaster and was grossly overpaid to early. These are just his mistakes within recent years. Wells can't seem to bat when there are men on base (he did have a great opening game).

Anthopolous looks like he is building around a core of young players. Its the correct move.

Washington also didn't have a team for many years. If you want to talk about numbers on the bad side, the Phils did hit 10,000 franchise losses recently. I was born in '74, so I have some small memories of the 1980 Series title. For whatever reason (maybe because the Phils didn't win) I remember the '83 Series loss even less. Beyond that, it was almost 25 years of not very good seasons, with the exception of '93.

Plenty of guys (Schilling off the top of my head, but there are others) couldn't wait to get out of town years ago. So it is great to have people that want to come play here now.