10 Reasons Philadelphia Phillies Must Go All-in in 2013

Candidly, it is tough to conceive of a metaphor more expletive-d out than the poker-based conceit of going all-in.

Ever since Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 World Series of Poker, and Texas Hold’em became a game that everyone and his wife thought they could play, “I’m all in!” has become something of an all-purpose American tag line.

Now everyone says it. Church bake sale? “We’re all in—our brownies are going to be the best we have ever made!” Johnny is failing in his seventh-grade math class? The teacher says he has not committed himself to the material and needs to go “all-in.”

The real trouble with all this, of course, is that these ham-handed allusions to the concept of going all-in, of really gambling everything in front of you with no guarantee that it will work out, cheapen the significant gravitas of the expression.

Of all the teams in Major League Baseball looking at 2013, the Philadelphia Phillies are definitely the team that has no choice but to go “all-in.” 

And that is not hyperbole or exaggeration.

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