I know you aren't coming to an entertainment blog to read about sports. And I'm not one to write about sports, so you shouldn't have to worry about that.

But I do write about hopes and dreams, and all that warm fuzzy soft stuff, from time to time. And I think the air surrounding Philadelphia sports teams is a sound example of that, and with the Phillies being ROCKED (they went down to the ROCKIES, get it?) in round 1 of the playoffs this past weekend, I have to write about it.

When I was in elementary school, I wanted nothing more than to be a professional baseball player. What boy doesn't? I bet even Marilyn Manson chewed on that thought for a while. As for me though, I wanted to be the next John Kruk. I thought he was the man. But as I progressed through t-ball, I learned that I'd either have to get good, or find a new dream to follow. When pitches started whizzing by my face instead of having the convenience of hitting off a black rubber tee, I realized I was terrified of baseball. I quit by the 4th grade.

I moved on to basketball. Dribbled around for a few years, thinking I could be the next Mugsy Bogues if I worked hard enough. And I did work hard, but a little nerdy white kid in middle school who hasn't even hit 5 feet in height yet doesn't stand a whole lot of chance in a game dominated by power and speed. I quit this too after a few years.

Other dreams have come and gone too. I thought I'd get an awesome job right out of college, writing about music for a magazine. Oh, naive me. Then I thought I'd move to a whole other state for romance, but that didn't work out as intended either. But hey, I'm not moping. Things still worked out pretty nicely. My point is this. We latch onto dreams, and hope for things that are totally unreasonable. That's what makes us human. And believing in a Philly sports team to win us a national championship... well, let's just say that's like believing little ol' me can slam dunk over a 6'7 power forward.

But when the opportunity swings around, like with the Phillies recently, we forget about the way things usually go and think that MAYBE, just maybe, THIS is the time. Well it wasn't. And lots of us engaged in some loud shouting and cursing over the weekend because of that. We all KNEW in our heart of hearts they weren't gonna make an appearance in The Series. Am I right? But we've seen too many sports movies about underdogs going all the way. Angels In The Outfield. Major League. Mighty Ducks. Little Giants. We all want our little teams to win.

Life is a pitcher, and it throws us curve balls. It'd be nice if we could just hit off a tee and slam it into our stands and run around the bases while our team mates and parents all cheer us on. But it's not that simple. We got 100 mph pitches zinging past us, at us, and out of control. We don't know where the pitch is going. And we don't know if we can knock it out of the stands or whiff it, unless we actually swing at it. Our sports teams might have missed more than their fair share of pitches, but dude, at least they're still swinging. Forgive, forget, see ya next season. Maybe next season will be the one? Maybe the next dream will be the one...