My Championship

Words fail me.

The curse is broken (beating the next leading curse by 14 seasons).

I can't describe what this means for Philadelphia. I was just at City Hall, on South Broad Street, at the Ben Franklin Parkway, where group hugs are starting at 3 and growing into the thousands, if not tens of thousands. In a city ravaged by crime, hit with working-class job losses and budgetary nightmares, in a city which, after 100 consecutive losing major sports seasons, has come to expect losses, in the City of Brotherly Love in which racial and socioeconomic tensions threaten to tear neighborhoods apart, in a city held together by threads, from Eagles fandom to inspired mayors, in a city that went from being the nation's political capitol to the world's industrial capitol, to a drifting former flagship from a different time looking for its place in the fabric of urban America, in a city both simultaneously great and teetering on the brink, in this city are the World Series Champions, the best, the winners, the conquerers in a sport that has the distinction of being our national pastime.

Tonight I have a hundred thousand brothers, a hundred thousand sisters, with open arms all over the city. Tonight will see hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians connecting to others in their neighborhoods, hugging strangers, and celebrating that which we have in common instead of fearing our differences. Tonight we all have unconditional acceptance and open invitations. Tonight has the power to bestow renewed feelings of camraderie, a renewed sense of civic pride, and renewed brotherly love.

And tomorrow we'll wake up in a better Philadelphia, one which had the experience of coming together for a common cause, however manufactured by man; cheering on our representatives, the Philadelphia Phillies; and celebrating together, as World Champions.