UB40's cover of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love." That was all that was keeping Tag Team from having the number one song in the country on July 30th, 1993, when their smash hit "Whoomp! There It Is" peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts, where it would stay for an astounding six weeks, shut out by both UB40 and Mariah Carey's "Dreamlover." However, the Macho Row-era Phillies did not hold the song's tragic failure on the pop charts against it, as it eventually beca me the team's theme in the midst of their 1993 pennant run--reaching a near-McFadeen and Whitehead peak when the Tag Team actually performed the song in between innings at one of the games--with special Phillies-oriented lyrics, of course. (The Tag Team were erroneously referred to by announcers as '95 South, of the 100% different, completley unrelated "Whoot! There It Is" fame)
The Phillies were arguably not the first sports team to use the song (The Braves, Bulls and Saints all used it around that time), and they wouldn't be the last--Tag Team re-recorded the song in a version for the Houston Rockets when they won the 1994 NBA championship, and Red Wings chanted along to it after Steve Yzerman scored the goal that beat the St. Louis Blues in the '96 NHL playoffs. For its pedigree, "Whoomp" was even included in the inaugural edition of Jock Jams, in an all-star lineup including classic '90s crowd-chargers like 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready for This," K7's "Come Baby Come" and Naughty By Nature's "Hip Hop Hooray".
For the decade-plus after they lost to the Blue Jays in the Series, neither the Phillies nor Tag Team did anything of particular relevance. And while the Phils certainly beat Steve Roll'n and DC the Brain Supreme in their return to the limelight, I do find it something of a shame that we never properly elected a theme song to last year's championship run. I bet it wouldn't have taken too much to get Lil' Wayne to CBP to do a version of "Got Money" with lyrics about Jamie Moyer and Pedro Feliz.
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