Donnellon: This Ain’t “Whatever It Takes”

After the Phils most recent swarm of victories, it seems everybody wants to compare these guys to something.

Sam Donnellon tackled the 1993 team and realized these teams were nothing alike.

“The 2008 Phillies expect to be there. They are defending National League East champions, a title forged by more than a month’s worth of playoff-like baseball. You can see that in the way they play right now, in the way they take big hits and keep coming at you, by the way they close the deal and own ninth innings. You can even see it by the way they talk. Before you can come down from the high they just gave you, they’re talking about tomorrow’s game.

“The ’93 team was a hope more than a plan, which is why it dissipated so quickly. You hoped Darren Daulton’s surgically repaired knees would handle the grind. You hoped Lenny Dykstra would stay off the disabled list and play more than 85 games. You hoped Danny Jackson’s shoulder and elbow would hold up and that Jim Eisenreich could handle big-city pressure and that Pete Incaviglia, after a promising comeback year with Houston, had something left in the tank.”

I don’t like these comparisons, so I’m glad Donnellon shot down any thought of this being like 1993. Those two teams were starkly different. ’93 was a flash-in-the-pan group of dirt dogs. This team seems more like the blossoming of a greater cause. We should enjoy the team the way it is and not think about other versions. Appreciate what we have here, in 2008.