Phillies. Yikes.

I realize it's tough to stay hot for 162 games of a season in the MLB, but getting swept back-to-back at home? Ouch, that's painful.

The Phillies have had some tough breaks lately with Lidge and Ibanez getting hurt, and Howard getting sick (although he still managed to hit a clutch 3-run home run on Saturday after being in the hospital the night before), but how bad can a team look on it's own home turf? This has gone beyond a slump. This has gone to yikes.

Philadelphia & Pittsburgh: A Tale of Two Cities

Interesting times in the cross state battle between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh these days.

To wit:

-The Phillies won the World Series in 2008, while the Pirates floundered as the third worst team in the National League.
-The Steelers won the Super Bowl in February, and the Eagles made it to the NFC Championship game.
-The Penguins are in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, continuing a run that they started by beating the Flyers in the first round of the playoffs.
-The Sixers lost in the first round of the playoffs, while Pittsburgh still has no NBA basketball team.
-In the 2009 NCCA Tournament, Villanova University (of Philadelphia) ousted the University of Pittsburgh in the Elite Eight.

And there may be more interesting results from the sports world in the past year or so that I'm not aware of, but as you can see it's been quite a roller coaster ride in the sports world for these two metropoli.

Basically, if Pittsburgh could field a Major League baseball team (wink wink) and a professional basketball team, these two cities would be completely dominating the world of sports right now. Interesting times indeed...