Phillies vs. Brewers, NLDS Game 2

Phillies vs. Brew­ers, NLDS Game 2, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by Black­mail Is My Life.

Last night’s per­for­mance was amaz­ing. It looked like it would be a dis­as­ter for Brett Myers in the first after he walked in a run, but he ral­lied and car­ried the rest of the team with him.

Helen and I had tick­ets in the 400s, but we played it like we did through­out the ’07 sea­son, snag­ging the spot right behind home plate on the main con­course and just camp­ing out there. It’s the best place to watch a game oth­er than our cus­tom­ary seats in Sec. 143 in left.

From the start, the feel­ing in the park was amaz­ing. Nei­ther Helen nor I had ever been to a play­off game and it was every­thing we could’ve expect­ed and more. More 46,000 fans pay­ing rapt atten­tion to every pitch, every hit, every call results in an intense atmos­phere. It cer­tain­ly helped.

After Myers fought off pitch after pitch from Brew­ers ace CC Sabathia, every­one knew some­thing bit was com­ing, that the Phils were going to catch an unlike­ly break from the guy who should be a seri­ous Cy Young con­tender. They did.

When Shane Vic­tori­no hit his first career grand slam I thought the sta­di­um might fall apart. Emo­tion­al bed­lam broke loose. Every­one was high-fiv­ing, hug­ging, jump­ing up and down while hug­ging — you get the pic­ture. It was like get­ting mar­ried and get­ting a new job and find­ing out your wife is preg­nant and win­ning the lot­tery on the same day. For a team that’s strug­gled his­tor­i­cal­ly, moments like these are not soon forgotten.

Things got a bit tense after the Phillies left the bases loaded not once but twice, fail­ing to tack on those ever impor­tant insur­ance runs, but with the excep­tion of a Jim­my Rollins mis­cue and a shaky Ryan Mad­son, every­thing was going our way.

After watch­ing Brad Lidge throw an ago­niz­ing 35 pitch­es to save Game 1 yes­ter­day, I could only hope that see­ing some action would calm him down. It did, and he went lights out to seal the win.

Now it’s time to go to Mil­wau­kee to close this thing out. You know what I’ll be doing Sat­ur­day night.