Philadelphia sports

I won’t say that the city of Philadelphia is having the roughest stretch of any American sports city—as long as Cleveland and Kansas City exist, that’s a tough honor to claim. But Philadelphia fans can, at the very least, credibly claim to be the most victimized by high expectations of late. This was a city that was supposed to compete for a World Series and Super Bowl in 2012, and expected to have good teams across the board. Instead, their teams tanked. It’s in that context that TheSportsNotebook is going to start its MLB coverage—we’re going to take a look at the Phillies chances for 2013 in light of what this city’s fans have endured.