Mike Celizic

With the Philadelphia Phillies in a flat-footed tie with the Los Angeles Dodgers going into the season’s final six games, there’s no guarantee that they’ll make the postseason for the first time in 13 years. But just being in position to win the NL wild card is way more than anyone — including the team’s general manager — could have expected just a couple of months ago.

The Detroit Tigers are the underdog story of the year and have been since April. But with Detroit safely in the playoffs, we ought to take a moment to appreciate what Philadelphia has done and what it still might do.

If the Phillies were to make the playoffs, it would be as unlikely a capstone to a great baseball season as you could ask for. This is a team that was 38-47 — nine games below .500 — on July 7. After staggering through the month, their general manager, Pat Gillick, had so little faith in their immediate future that he tore the team apart, practically giving All-Star right fielder Bobby Abreu to the New York Yankees while sending five other players packing.

At the time, Gillick said it had to be done because the team wasn’t going anywhere this year and probably not next year, either. After several years of the club failing to deliver on high preseason expectations, Gillick was entering rebuilding mode.

It was hardly anything to surprise Philly’s callused sports fans. They’re rightly described as the toughest on their own teams of any in America. But, while it’s fun to keep bringing up the old episode in which Eagles fans booed Santa Claus, it’s only fair to admit that they’ve had plenty of reason to rip the home teams.

It’s been decades since any Philly team won a title. The Phillies, still known four decades after the fact for 1964, when they pulled off a choking act that would impress even Colin Montgomerie, won their first and only World Series in 1980. They returned to the Fall Classic in 1983, losing to the Baltimore Orioles and in 1993, when reliever Mitch Williams imploded in his closer's role in the eventual defeat to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Because of the year-round disappointment inherent in being a Philly fan, the question there isn’t, “What have you done for us lately?” but, “What have you done for us ever?”

Gillick seemed to validate that question at the trade deadline, showing his high opinion of the team’s chances by ridding the lineup of six players, including Abreu and starting pitcher Cory Lidle, both of whom went to the Yankees.

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Gillick didn’t really need to bother to tell the fans the team wasn’t going to win this year. His actions spoke more loudly than if he had taken out full-page ads in the local papers reading, “We Quit.”

His actions were greeted by some as making sense. After all, the Phillies had been trying to buy a contender and it wasn’t working.

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