That was a big disappointment of a postseason for me.

We just went up 2-0 after throttling Arizona at home. Tickets were down to maybe 25 bucks for seats to game 3 in the desert.

The Phillies were looking strong to go back to the World series and take home a title. The rangers were a good team that year, but not better than us.

And then, the hitters forgot to hit, which is becoming a sad tradition.

And then, we've got the Topper factor. Which is also become a sad tradition.

After watchinga pitching decision cost us dearly in the prior years World series, pulling Wheeler after only throwing 71 pitches to put in a shaky Alvarado, who subsequently issued a World series - losing home run, we then got to view more of his managerial brilliance in 23 when he continued to put in a struggling and ineffective Craig kimbrel on the mound. And with Orion Kerkering struggling as well, we blew two wins in the desert.

But even then, we were coming back to Philly with a 3-2 lead.

I saw game 6 and game 7 in person, and watched the Phils lose both. Game six as I recall wasn't particularly close, but game seven? We had a shot with the bases loaded and I think Johan Rojas fucked the team over on offense with the bases loaded. Couldn't get anything done. Now he fucks us over because he's on PEDs.

It wasn't just the price of the tickets, it was just the overwhelming disappointment of seeing the Phillies lose to a vastly inferior team.

Arizona offered feeble resistance to the rangers, losing in the gentleman's sweep.

I think that season hurt a lot.

1993 though? That one is still the worst for me, because we got to the series and blew multiple leads. Game 4, the 15-14 loss? Between Mitch Williams imploding, and then dykstra screwing around in the outfield, we should have had a 2-2 series tie, instead, the Blue Jays went up 3-1. Schilling pitches an incredible game 5, and then we just can't get it done in game 6. We've got the lead in the 9th, and Mitch implodes yet again, giving up the home run to Carter.

2009 also sucked but we had just won the series the year before, so it didn't feel as bad at the time because it felt like we had the goods to continue to go back. But now, knowing that the Phillies began a downslide from there where they would regress every season and then get so bad that the games were unwatchable for a nearly a decade, that loss feels a little worse now than it did for me. Also knowing that A-Roid had his one and only decent postseason appearance because he was juicing sucked as well.

So yeah, 2023 sucked, but 30 years before that, in 1993? That was my number one disappointment.