Hope no longer springs eternal for Phillies fans

THIS YEAR, they are resigned to their fate.

For more than a decade, Phillies fans embraced Opening Day with happier mindsets than they had yesterday.

It ranged from vaguely interested, in the days of Scott Rolen, Pat Burrell and Jimmy Rollins; to mildly hopeful, both with the Jim Thome/Kevin Millwood editions and the Cole Hamels/Chase Utley/Ryan Howard editions; and moved up to downright entitled when they added Roy Halladay, Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth, Carlos Ruiz and Cliff Lee - Lee, twice.

Yesterday?

"Well, at least the weather's nice," said Bill Dietrich, 59, from Ventnor, N.J., as he squinted into the bright sun. Dietrich wore a T-shirt to an event that often requires long johns. "Been coming to these for 40 years. Hardly ever get a day nice as this."

The most devoted Philadelphia sports fans might recognize that name. The speaker was Bill Dietrich III, but he is the grandson of a batting-practice pitcher who impressed Connie Mack enough to be signed by the Athletics. In 1937, Dietrich played for the White Sox and no-hit the St. Louis Browns.

"That year, he was the best pitcher on a last-place team," his grandson said with a chuckle.

"We got one of those going here today!" joked his buddy, John Richardson, a 56-year-old construction worker from Hammonton, N.J.

Richardson said that before Hamels gave up four home runs in five innings. As they smoked cigars in the parking lot, they at least had Hamels.

"Hey," said Rich Richmond, the third amigo, "you never know."

Richmond is from Linwood, N.J. He's 58.

Oh, he knew.

Everybody knows.

As recently as last season, the Phillies could sell a chance at respectability. They had Hamels and Lee. Howard was reloaded. There was stud closer Jonathan Papelbon. Rollins and Utley were healthy.

They finished in last place.

They traded Rollins. Howard was awful. Utley was invisible in the second half. Hamels and Papelbon are begging to be traded. So was Lee until he got hurt again; now, he might never throw another pitch.

It was 65 degrees in April, and the boys from New Jersey were laughing.

It was gallows humor.

"We're all in our 50s, and we were here before they were good, and we were here when they got good, and we're here now," Richardson said. "But look at the other teams.

"I believe in Chip Kelly, what he's doing with the Eagles. I believe in the Sixers. Now, it wasn't all his doing, and he had some bad luck, but I just don't know about Ruben Amaro Jr."

It is a popular diversion to excoriate the Phillies' general manager for saddling the team with crippling contracts to aging players, but these men know that, at the time, the deals were neither unpopular nor unwarranted.

"It's just turned into a horrible situation," Richardson said.

Richardson wore an authentic Phillies jersey and sported a gold earring in the shape of a hammer, an homage to his profession. These are men who work for a living; men who appreciate players who earn their dollars . . . and miss players who earned every cent.

"They let Jayson Werth go [in 2011]. They traded Victorino [in 2012]. Those are core guys, to me," Richardson grumbled. "And now they've gotten rid of Jimmy. Chase is gonna go. Hamels is gonna go."

The exodus has given Angel Wible an identity crisis.

"I used to know all the players. I used to know all the songs that would play when they came out to hit, everything," she said. "Now, I don't even know who's on the team."

Wible, 26, is the precise demographic of Phillies fan who was spoiled by years of success. She and her brother, Jim, 31, drove down yesterday from Northeast Philly, where they went crazy with the rest of the nuts at Frankford and Cottman the night the Phillies beat the Rays in Game 5 of the 2008 World Series.

"It was like a riot that night," said Jim, wistfully, his red T-shirt sleeves rolled up.

He had been coming for years.

Her first game at Citizens Bank Park?

It is where she celebrated her 18th birthday, a late-August game in 2007 against the first-place Mets. Angel supplied divine intervention.

In the 10th inning, Werth scored the tying run and Utley drove in the winner off Billy Wagner.

"I loved Jayson Werth," she said, patting her chest.

Little wonder.

Her first game was a monumental win. The Phillies eventually supplanted the Mets atop the NL East and fulfilled Rollins' audacious prophecy.

After the 2006 season, Rollins called the Phillies the The Team to Beat.

After the 2006 season, the Phillies were just that . . . for 5 straight years.

From 2008 until 2012, Opening Day in South Philadelphia was the starting line of a 6-month race of relevance, where pleasantly familiar players did wonderfully familiar things.

The last couple of Opening Days?

Well, considering the ambiguity of the rest of the division, (were Atlanta and Washington for real?) a bit of mild hopefulness wasn't unwarranted.

Yesterday . . .

"I heard they were 500-to-1 to win the World Series," Dietrich said. "Five. Hundred. To One."

By comparison, Morgan Hoffman is 250-to-1 to win the Masters. He's ranked 101st in the world. Morgan Freeman has a better chance of winning the Masters.

Anyway, the day was lovely, even if the future is bleak.

"I've just been getting sad, thinking about them," Wible said. "Like everyone's going."

She put down her Bud Light Lime, leaned against the tailgate of her brother's red pickup and sighed.

"You know," she said, "it's kind of like they're already gone."

On Twitter: @inkstainedretch