Phils fail to show talent that made them '08 champs

NEW YORK -- One by one the Phillies players made the walk from their clubhouse, most practically expressionless, a few wearing a look of utter shock, to a group of team buses in a tiny corner of Yankee Stadium as a light rain fell and their season came crashing down on their heads.

Around them was chaos. Several minutes before Joe Blanton made his way to the bus, Bud Selig crossed his path. Around the same time actor Jon Hamm from Mad Men made the same walk toward his limo near the buses, while other Phillies players stumbled by, barely looking at Hamm, or even barely looking up. Somewhere close by was a crazily dressed Bill Murray sporting some sort of weird striped sweatpants.

Not even Murray could lighten their mood.

The madness didn't change the blank stares and they didn't change the outcome. The Phillies had just lost the World Series -- pretty badly, fairly ugly -- and all the actors and commissioners and beautiful people weren't going to ease the hurt.

Philadelphia: In like Clubber Lang, out like Jessica Lange.

The Phillies were so horrible in Game 6 they made Hideki Matsui look like Babe Ruth.

Babe Matsui.

What began as a terrific World Series ended with a whimper and a slaughter. The Yankees clobbered the Phillies in the head with their big bag of money and the suddenly the happy-to-be-here Phillies fell to the ground like Curly from The Three Stooges.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think the Phillies, yes, the Phillies, were intimidated by the magnanimity of the Game 6 elimination moment.

Jayson Werth and skipper Charlie Manuel are on the wrong side of the results they enjoyed a year ago. (Getty Images)

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel almost said this exact thing (though in a Charlie Manuel way). "I think what happened in the series, I think that we went through the playoffs, we played real good, and all of a sudden when we got to the series ... I give credit to some of the Yankees' pitching," he said, "but it seemed like our offense, when we had to really get down and get the big hits or we had to do things to kind of take them out of the game, it seemed like we couldn't do it. We kind of sputtered a little bit."

Put that through the Charlie-o-meter universal translator and you get this: The Yankees did things right when they needed to; the Phillies disintegrated when they could least afford it.

This won't be a popular thing for Phillies fans to hear but it's reality. For all of the well earned good will the Phillies generated last season and this one, much of it was drained by what was a highly disappointing finish to a team they could've beaten.

Make all the excuses you want for the Phillies -- they were bettered by a superior team. They played just fine, but no one's beating a ballclub with a $1 billion payroll. Cue the violins, cry me a river.

Game 1 was the only contest where we seemed to witness the true Phillies. Mostly, after that, it was a disaster for them. Manuel had an awful World Series, leaving in Pedro Martinez too long in one game then, unbelievably, he had Martinez pitch a second time to Babe Matsui in Game 6 which ended disastrously for Philadelphia.

The Phillies' problems didn't stop with Manuel. Ryan Howard hit a home run in Game 6 but he also set a new World Series strikeout record with 13, breaking a nearly 30-year-old mark set by Kansas City's Willie Wilson in 1980. That's not the kind of company Howard wants to keep.

Then there was Cole Hamels who instead of talking about fighting back, publicly longed for the season to end, like he was at a day camp for sixth graders tired of a lumpy bunk bed and overcooked hot dogs and missed his mommy.

Where did the real Phillies go in Game 6 and who replaced them with the Washington Senators?

My criticisms of Philadelphia aren't made easily. No one had a bigger man crush on the Phillies than I did. They represent everything that's right about baseball and have a cast of likeable players. Except in this World Series, unlike last year against the Tampa Bay Rays, they played a real opponent, not a flimsy stage prop, and the result was ugly.

Maybe these frustrations are a result of wanting to see some team, any team, give the Goldman Sankees a seven-game run for their salaried cap money only to watch them fail badly.

The Game 6 performance was very un-Phillies-like. Leading up to this critical moment, no team in baseball displayed more stubborn nastiness than Philadelphia, which makes how easily they were concussed by the Yankees all the more mysterious.

Before this series, I wsn't one of the people who believed the Phillies needed to beat the Yankees not only to justify this season but justify their win last year against the Tampa Bay Rays. I thought the notion that Philadelphia needed to beat baseball royalty to validate their own greatness was silly.

Yet I never expected such a meek showing against the Yankees at a critical time.

A handful of Phillies players watched the Yankees celebrate their 620th World Series championship from the Philadelphia dugout. The celebration must've seemed intimately familiar since it's what the Phillies did just one season ago.

When they were practically unbeatable.

When they had more guts than any other team.

Those were the days when the walk to the buses didn't seem so long.