The pain and sorrow of being a Phillies fan

Watching the rich get rich and the poor get poorer in MLB is sad. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, baseball's best team and one of the AL teams that laid the smack down on the Phillies a month ago, just acquired Mark Teixiera from the Braves for Casey Kotchman and a bag of baseballs. I can't imagine they would give up Kotchman, their everyday first baseman, unless they intended to sign Tex to a long-term deal after this season. While I am happy to have him out of the NL East, due to his propensity to hit HRs off of the Phillies pitching, it is yet another reminder that the Phillies lag behind the elite teams in baseball, both in terms of the caliber of players and the savvy of the front office/recruiting department. This doesn't make any sense to me for two reasons. One, in terms of population density and opportunity for a fan base, Philadelphia is the 4th largest media market in the country, behind New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. This would include Southern New Jersey and most of Delaware as well as the 4 counties of Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, and Bucks County around the city itself. What do NY, CHI, and LA have in common? THEY ALL HAVE 2 BASEBALL TEAMS IN THEIR CITIES!!!! This means that Philly is the largest media market by far in the country with only one team. The potential for elite marketing, merchandising, and advertising revenue is enormous, if the team hired the right people to do it. The second reason this bothers me is because of the particulars of the Philadelphia sports scene in general. We all know the city hasn't had a top-4 sport championship since 1983, and people are desperate for a winner. While the Eagles have been the clear-cut city favorite for the past decade, there is nothing to say that the Phillies can't supplant the birds as the top professional team in Philadelphia. Just look at this year - the fans have shown up in droves, games are selling out, people are excited to watch them. And underneath it all Philly is a great baseball city with a proud tradition that goes back well over a century. So I guess what I'm saying is that the Phillies have a tremendous opportunity to become an elite franchise, financially and professionally. Now is the time for them to strike. The Eagles are still good, but entering a time where their stars are aging and declining in skill. The Sixers are going to get a lot better fast with Elton Brand leading their club. The Flyers had a huge turnaround and will be poised to compete for the cup. Yet there are several issues that could and probably will prevent this from becoming a reality. I'm not one of these people that irrationally accuse ownership of being cheap. They locked up Pat Burrell in the past, J-Roll, Utley, have tried to lock up Howard, and brought in good complementary pieces, especially to the bullpen. Their real problems stem from the mismanagement of the club 5-10 years ago under Ed Wade, when he stupidly traded away good players and got nothing in return (Rolen,Polanco, Schilling). Couple that with poor drafting and a tepid commitment to developing players in the farm league and you get what we have today: an above-average team with 5 great players, competent role players, and not enough prospects in the pipeline to either make a blockbuster trade or call up immediately to help win a championship. The point is, in order for this team to compete with the big boys, given the state of their farm system, the only solution is to go out and bring in elite free agents like a CC Sabathia or Rich Harden next season. I question whether the Phillies will make this type of commitment to winning, however, even though, ironically, by spending that insane amount of money, it could come back to them in droves from having an elite ball club in Philly.