The Philadelphia Phillies wished the Philadelphia Eagles luck ahead of their massive Super Bowl LIX matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs where history was on the line.
It turns out luck wasn’t needed.
The Eagles bludgeoned the Chiefs, doing something that not many people expected on their way to winning the franchise’s second-ever Super Bowl.
Longtime Philadelphia sports fans know the run that is taking place for perhaps the two most beloved professional sports teams in the city is not normal.
The Philadelphia 76ers won the NBA Finals in 1983, just three years after the Phillies won their first World Series in 1980, which was five years after the Philadelphia Flyers won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975.
That was the heyday for sports in this city, and based on how the teams were constructed, it looked like it would continue for a long time.
However, it turned out that wasn’t the case.
Philadelphia suffered a long-standing drought when it came to their professional sports teams, something that was snapped by the Phillies in 2008 when that beloved crop of players finally broke through and brought home a championship.
Before that happened, though, the perception surrounding this city was that it was full of teams who couldn’t get over the final hurdle.
After the 76ers won in 1983, Philadelphia experienced losses in seven World Series, Super Bowls, NBA and Stanley Cup Finals combined. Nine more losses came in the conference championship rounds of the postseason, adding even more insult to injury.
That was the dark age until the Phillies hoisted the trophy in 2008.
Since that point, it’s been the Eagles who have been the winners in this city, winning their first Super Bowl in 2017 and now getting their second this past Sunday.
And if Philadelphia is going to ever return to the heyday that was experienced from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, then the Phillies have to follow what the Eagles have done since 2017 to put their own stamp on things in this city.
It should be remembered the Eagles went through struggles before getting to this current point.
They moved on from their legendary head coach Andy Reid at the end of the 2012 campaign after missing the playoffs for the second consecutive season. Things had gotten stale, and at a certain point, a change needed to be made.
There was one blip in 2013 with a Wild Card appearance, but they lost immediately.
It took a revamping of the organization, from ownership down, to get this team to where they are today as one of the best in all of the National Football League.
That’s not too unsimilar from the Phillies’ story.
When the beloved core from the 2008 championship team started aging out, Philadelphia didn’t make the playoffs from 2012-21, a decade until the city saw October baseball when the 2022 team went on their magical run to the World Series.
Similarly to the Eagles, it took a revamping of their own organization to get to that point.
Owner John Middleton opened up his checkbook, making this franchise a destination for some of the top stars in the game, none more important than when they landed Bryce Harper in March of 2019.
And when they hired Dave Dombrowski to become the president of baseball operations in 2020, that gave the Phillies a future Hall of Fame executive running the show just like the Eagles have with Howie Roseman.
Everything is in place for the Phillies to take the next step.
They have the face of their franchise and stars around him to compete at the highest level.
It took the Eagles losing the Super Bowl in 2023 and going through a tough season last year before they were finally able to reach the mountain top with this current group.
The Phillies lost the World Series in 2022 and have gone through their own tough stretches in the playoffs with frustrating eliminations the past two postseasons.
Now, as they enter the 2025 campaign, it’s their turn to bring a parade to Broad Street.
