Phillies Named 14th Worst Franchise Of All Time By GQ
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – It hasn't been a good week for Philadelphia sports franchises in the national media. ESPN The Magazine ranked all 122 franchises in the four major sports, and all four Philadelphia teams scored poorly. GQ magazine just took it one step further.
In their issue outlining the 20 worst franchises of all time, the Philadelphia Phillies ranked 14th.
"For some sports fans, losing is poetry. And the longer it goes on, the more literary it becomes, like an aria of suffering," author Rob Tannenbaum writes. "The teams on this list are not those teams. These teams suck. They suck epically, inventively, in all kinds of ways. They're stupid. They're greedy. Some of them are even a little bit evil. All of them torment their fans, confronting them with the same question, over and over, year after year: Have you considered rooting for somebody else?"
According to Tannenbaum, the Phillies are lucky to not rank even worse on the list.
"A recent run of excellence disqualifies the Phillies from being higher on this list, but still: They were the first of two American teams to lose more than 10,000 games, and their all-time record is so far below .500, they could go 162-0 for six straight seasons and still not be shooting par," he writes. "In 130 years, they've won only two World Series—same as the Toronto Blue Jays, who started in 1977 and play in [expletive] Canada."
Ranking first on the list is not just one team, but a whole city's worth; every Cleveland franchise ranked the worst in pro sports. It's hard to argue, but we won't rub it in with the details.
