Jimmy Rollins spent 15 years captaining the infield in Philadelphia, which, in that city, might as well be a lifetime. From making the All-Star Game as a rookie to winning the National League MVP in 2007, winning it all with the Phils in ‘08, and still being there as the empire started to decline, J-Roll saw firsthand what it’s like to be a superstar athlete in America’s most deranged sports town.
That experience is now informing his on-air analysis as a member of the TBS studio crew. While TBS (and Max) have the American League games during this postseason, a man who wore the Phillies’ cap for as long as Rollins did simply cannot turn his attention away from his old stomping grounds. After attending the phenomenal Phillies-Mets Game 2 at Citizens Bank Park on Sunday, Rollins flew to Atlanta (home of the TBS studio) and got on the horn with GQ. He gave his thoughts on why the postseason is so different from the regular season, why Yankee Stadium doesn’t have the juice it once did and why, even though he became synonymous with Phillies red, his favorite color is blue.
GQ: Mets-Phillies has to be on the top of the list when talking to you. I don’t think that people outside of these two cities understand how passionate and how intense this is. I wouldn’t say it’s life or death, but it’s pretty close.
Jimmy Rollins: Right? Obviously so much has been made with the Boston-Yankees rivalry. Rightfully so. They’ve had their fair share of run-ins in the playoffs, and the history goes way back to Babe Ruth. The Mets are a newer team in the sense that—Yankees, Boston, Phillies, we’ve been around for a long time. The Mets came around a lot later, and both teams went through their share of struggles, then both teams won a World Series in the ‘80s—the Mets in ‘86, the Phillies in 1980. After that it was a race to the bottom. The first time in a long time that both teams were together [at the top of the standings] was during my era. We were chomping at the bit, both two young teams, and we finally broke through.
It’s just a natural rivalry. New York is New York, and Philadelphia is stuck in between New York and DC. So, who are we? Our favorite character is Rocky Balboa, who’s a fictional character. You know what I’m saying? We have to have something to hold on to. The rivalry really got heated up, I want to say, during that first run where they beat the Braves [In 2006, the Mets won the National League East, snapping the Braves’ streak of winning their division 14 straight times], then we ran off five straight division titles. I mean, five straight division titles, but the Mets were right there. You could say they choked, but they had to play bad and we had to play good. It happened in ‘07, really kind of like the same thing in ‘08. The Mets are out ahead of us, we chase ’em back down. We go on to win the World Series. I know that really stung because not only did they get ran down, they didn’t even make the playoffs. The expectations of being a good New York team? It’s all or nothing.
Right.
Although we only got that one championship, we were still dominating the division, and both of our runs pretty much ended at the same time. The Mets kind of fell off, the Phillies fell off, and it was the Braves and Washington again. Then the Mets had a big year in ‘15, went to the World Series, and then they fell off while the Phillies were rebuilding. And here we are once again. They’re the talk of the East again, and the Mets—who always should be a contender, but never were, are finally a contender at the same time.
All that combined, plus it being the first meeting in the playoffs, it makes for a great story. All those years, all those rivalries, the fights between teams and the back-and-forth trash talk, we really don’t like each other! You’re New York and we’re Philadelphia. We don’t like you because you wear orange and blue. You don’t like us because we wear red and white pinstripes. To realize this is the first time they’ve ever played in the playoffs—that’s crazy. This is the first time that you can really put down bragging rights.
