Warm feelings about the Phillies on opening day

For too many years, the Phillies arrived at opening day with little more than a snowball's chance of winning anything. It's not so bad that this opening day dawns with a chance of snowballs.

Maybe it's fitting that this, the most eagerly anticipated season in the history of Philadelphia sports, begins in October weather. Maybe it's a good omen for a team that has weathered some strange climatic events: monsoons and snow delays in Denver, a World Series game played in rain and delayed by snow over three days in 2008.

These Phillies take it all in stride, which is important as the 2011 season opens under dark clouds both literal and figurative. The weather is expected to improve before Chase Utley's knee or Brad Lidge's shoulder.

Over the next six months, Philadelphia will be Baseball Central. The Phillies will get you through every small-talk situation in your life. You will spend more time with Wheels and Sarge, with L.A. and Franzke, than with most of your close friends and family. On 81 afternoons and evenings, Citizens Bank Park will be the coolest place in the city to be.

All of that is promised us, thanks to Phillies management and, frankly, ourselves. The fans fill the coffers and the Phillies spend the money on players worth watching. It is a beautiful relationship.

What is not promised, and can never be promised, is a championship. The trick is to enjoy the rainbow, even if there is no pot of gold at the end. That said, there is every reason to expect this team to be playing in October for the fifth year in a row.

The reasons are obvious. Roy Halladay will start the opener, followed in turn by Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels, and Joe Blanton. When the mere existence of your starting rotation earns the cover of Sports Illustrated, you know you've got a good thing going.

But it is amazing how quickly everyone seems to forget that the Phillies already had a very good thing going. Before Doc, before Oswalt, even before Lee's first tour of duty, this was a championship baseball team. Fascination with the new is natural, but don't overlook the mainstays who turned this into an elite franchise.

Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins should be flattered, in a way, that they've come to be taken for granted. They are the only two Phillies to win most valuable player awards since Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt was in his prime. Along with Utley, they have provided the foundation for this entire sublime era.

On opening day 2007, the Phillies rotation was Brett Myers, Hamels, Adam Eaton, and Jamie Moyer, with Freddy Garcia and Jon Lieber competing for the fifth spot. By the end of the season, Garcia was gone, Myers was the closer, and midseason pickup Kyle Lohse was in the rotation.

Howard, Rollins, and Utley led the team to a division title.

In 2008, the rotation that came north from Clearwater: Myers, Hamels, Moyer, Eaton, Kyle Kendrick. Joe Blanton was added during the season.

Howard, Rollins, and Utley led the team to another division title. The Phillies went on to win the World Series.

The 2009 opening day rotation: Hamels, Myers, Moyer, Blanton, and J.A. Happ. It is easy to forget that Chan Ho Park, Antonio Bastardo, and Rodrigo Lopez started a total of 17 games that year. Pedro Martinez and Lee joined the team, and the Phillies went back to the World Series.

The additions of Halladay, Oswalt, and Lee in the last 15 months give the Phillies a potentially historic rotation. And the rotation by itself would make the Phillies the class of the National League going into the season.

It is the lineup, ironically enough, that has fans worried this year. The unexpected absence of Utley from the No. 3 spot in the lineup compounds concerns about replacing Jayson Werth in the five hole. And yes, those two players were very important to the Phillies' success over the last few years.

But there's a reason the Phillies have been fine when Utley has been injured over the last few years. It's the same reason Werth emerged as such a productive hitter over the same time frame.

The reason is that a lineup with Howard in the cleanup spot and with Rollins getting on base in front of him is a potent lineup. It will be a better lineup when Utley returns, of course, but watch Ben Francisco and Raul Ibanez produce out of the spot behind Howard. The big man's impact on the game, on every game, is strangely underrated.

The Howard-anchored lineup is what turned the Phillies into a winning team, and that's what drew Halladay, Oswalt, and Lee here in the first place.

They're all here now. Finally, so is the season. The rain will be followed by the rainbow and then, just maybe, the pot of gold at the end.