The following acknowledgment in no way reflects the opinion of the majority of the Cuse Country staff (who insist on the self-torture of Met fanhood year after year), but I would like to officially congratulate the Philadelphia Phillies on their rousing championship last night. I was a generally disinterested party in the proceedings, but I’m happy for a city that I spent four years in and around during college, and that hosts the Eagles, my 2nd favorite NFL team thanks to Donovan. Philly deserved something after those 25 long, hard years in the wilderness. And although the Rays were my favorite team on earth for a solid week and half while they were beating the Red Sox, I have to admit there was something un-right about the prospect of a Tampa Bay championship.

The Phillies and Rays also gave us the most entertaining World Series in years, and probably the most entertaining 4-1 Series imaginable, so I thank them for that as well. That 50 hour game five will go down in history, and Chase Utley’s throw home last night was instant Pantheon material.  Jeter-esque, if you will (and I will). So congrats Philly fans. I’m sure you’re going to be completely unbearable now.

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In SU news — this is a Syracuse blog after all — I was scanning back in time through some Post-Standard articles I had missed in the past couple weeks, and I found more fear mongering from Mike Waters about how tough the Big East is going to be this season. Even though I’m now determined to fight off this propagandizing, I’m reporting his tidbits anyway…for um, informational purposes only:

There are some astounding facts to explain why the Big East is being trumpeted as not only the best conference today, but perhaps, of all-time.

The Big East has 13 of its top 18 scorers back from last season. Ten of the top 11 rebounders from a year ago are also back. Every single one of the top nine assists leaders have returned as well as each of the top seven shot-blockers.

The 2007 Player of the Year, Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody, never even considered leaving. Hasheem Thabeet, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, is back. So are the co-Rookies of the Year in Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn and Pittsburgh’s DeJuan Blair.

OK, fine. That’s interesting stuff. Whatever. Two of those scorers, two of the rebounders, and one of the assist men from those lists are coming back to SU’s roster.  That gives us a disproportionate share of the returning talent given that it’s a 16 team league. And that’s not even counting the 17ppg Devo was sporting before he went down, which would have put him in the top ten in scoring as well. Read it and weep, other teams. Read it and weep.