The Phillies are in San Francisco as this article posts, and as you may have heard the Giants are the defending world champions.

Little did anyone know at the time, but it was the Giants’ first of their two World Series runs of the last four seasons that started the Phillies’ downward spiral to relative irrelevance.

Cody Ross hitting two home runs off Roy Halladay, and all that followed, was the canary in the coal mine.

While it is easy to envy and dislike the Giants, you would be hard-pressed to call the Giants a rival of the Phillies. The teams play in different divisions three time zones apart.

Of course, that is true for the Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers, too. But the Phillies and Dodgers have been rivals for a long time.

And in a week where Roy Halladay was placed on the disabled list, a week where Phillies fans are once again coming to grips with the likelihood that this recent golden era of Phillies baseball is over, it serves to revisit some happier memories.

Begin Slideshow