Last time a National League team repeated as World Series champions, this new television show called Saturday Night Live was in its second season (first with the new guy, Bill Murray, replacing Chevy Chase).
We spent the year draping everything in red, white and blue (it was the nation's bicentennial).
And the movie Rocky was boffo at the box office (just happened to be set in ... Philadelphia).
Yes, last time an NL team repeated as World Series champs ...
"1976, right?" Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins said in the raucous Phillies clubhouse Monday night. "The Big Red Machine."
Has it really been 33 years?
"Hopefully, they'll be calling us the Little Red Machine."
Great line, but ain't nothing little about a Phillies club setting its sights on Los Angeles as the 2009 postseason J-Rolls on.
Not only did the Phillies lead the NL in homers for a second consecutive season with a franchise record 224, they also were the only team in the NL with 200 or more homers and 100 or more stolen bases.
The biggest difference between this year and last as they meet their NL Championship Series nemesis, the Dodgers, in a second consecutive autumn is that this time, it is Los Angeles that has home-field advantage.
But Philadelphia's 48-33 road record this season tied with the other Los Angeles club, the Angels, for the best in the majors in 2009.
"It's going to be kind of the same," Phillies slugger Ryan Howard, who smashed 45 home runs and whose 141 RBI tied Milwaukee's Prince Fielder for the major league lead. "I think those guys definitely didn't forget about last year. We're definitely going to have to be on our 'A' game to beat those guys."
Most of the same cast of characters return. There is J-Roll and Rafael Furcal, leadoff men extraordinaire. Big boppers Howard and Manny Ramirez. Shane Victorino, Chase Utley, Jayson Werth, Pedro Feliz and Carlos Ruiz in the Phillies lineup. Andre Ethier, Russell Martin, James Loney, Matt Kemp and Casey Blake in the Dodgers lineup. Starters Cole Hamels and Chad Billingsley. Closers Brad Lidge and Jonathan Broxton.
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Enough familiarity to breed contempt.
Enough familiarity to breed a healthy dose of respect.
"It's going to take everything we've got to beat them," Phillies closer Brad Lidge said. "They're a tremendous team. We've got to get to them early."
The most impressive thing in the Phillies' four-game triumph over a very good Colorado club was that, while so many defending champions seem to lose their edge the next year, these Phillies displayed every bit the fire they exhibited last year.
You saw that in Game 3, when they fought through 20-some-degree temperatures to take it to the Rockies in Denver.
You saw it in Game 4, when, after the Rockies dramatically scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth to seize a 4-2 lead, the Phillies stared hard right back. Even after pinch-hitter Greg Dobbs fanned to start the ninth, the Phillies popped for three runs of their own to win the game and cancel everybody's plans for Game 5.
"You would not have seen what happened tonight take place after the first out of the ninth inning if they didn't have that edge to them," said an impressed Colorado manager Jim Tracy, sitting quietly in his office an hour or so after the crushing loss
When it was finished, even Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel stood back for a moment to admire it.
"Some of the best baseball that I've been around in quite awhile," he said.
To the Phillies, it was that assassin's demeanor that they retain to this day -- mixed with good, old-fashioned boyish hardball love.
"Those last two games were so fun to be a part of," Howard said as if he wished it would never end. "Just the way the games were going back and forth."
"I don't ever think we're down and out," Werth said of the Game 4 ninth inning that will stand the test of time in Philadelphia lore. "We might be down, but we're not out. We came into the dugout in the ninth inning and the mood was calm and collected. Everybody was very calm. We knew we had a job to do."
And now, they do again.
The difference being, the Phillies no longer are underdogs. As Rollins acknowledged amid the champagne, now it's they who wear the champion's crown. It is they who take everybody's best shot.
These next 10 days or so will determine whether the Phillies take a deeper step into history -- the Little Red Machine? -- or whether it is time for the talented and maturing Dodgers to ascend.
"We're not afraid of them," Rollins said. "We're not afraid of anybody. We're looking forward to that challenge. It's going to be another one of those epic series, I guarantee you."
