It Was a Great Ride, Phillies

When my friend Mark called and asked me if I was inter­est­ed in attend­ing Game 6 last night, I could­n’t say no. I’d nev­er attend­ed a game in which the Phillies could be elim­i­nat­ed and it seemed like the most excit­ing expe­ri­ence I could ever has as a base­ball fan, short of Game 7 of the World Series.

It lived up to billing, even though the Phillies came up short in a heart­break­ing one-run loss. There were ample oppor­tu­ni­ties to put the Giants away, but our home­town nine failed to cap­i­tal­ize. The Giants won with time­ly hit­ting and a bend-but-don’t-break bullpen. The Phillies could do noth­ing to over­come what Giants fans like to refer to as “tor­ture.”

I’m left with a hol­low feel­ing. Sure, we Phillies fans have been for­tu­nate these past three years. Going to the NLCS is no mean feat and we’ve done it three con­sec­u­tive years, win­ning twice. But this was OUR year. The front office made the moves to put us over the top and we fell short. In the end, the Phillies beat them­selves and that’s an awful way to lose.

Next year will be dif­fer­ent. Jayson Werth will be in a Red Sox or Angels or, heck, Giants uni­form and a lot of the play­ers who were role play­ers in our last two pen­nant runs will be gone. Call me sen­ti­men­tal, but it’ll be odd see­ing some of these guys return with dif­fer­ent teams. I know it’s the busi­ness of base­ball, but I feel like we end up fac­ing more of our lov­able castoffs every year. It’s a bit­ter­sweet feel­ing cheer­ing for a play­er who meant so much to us Phillies fans when he’s wear­ing anoth­er uniform.

I don’t think all hope is lost for the 2011 sea­son, but I think it will be even more dif­fi­cult to accom­plish what we once again. Every­one will be old­er. Dominic Brown still needs pol­ish. The bench will need to be retooled. The bullpen will turnover a bit. Some of the coach­es will be gone, too. And the Braves, Giants, Padres and Reds will be doing the same thing.

That’s base­ball.

Do I look for­ward to anoth­er sea­son with the Roys and Cole atop our rota­tion? Absolute­ly. I think the Phillies are still the best team in the NL East. But being the best does­n’t always mat­ter. The best team does­n’t always win. Who knows what 2011 will hold.

Now I’ll take time to reflect on some of the great mem­o­ries we made in the 2010 sea­son and be grate­ful the Phillies turned it around to be the best team in base­ball for the reg­u­lar sea­son. We’ll wor­ry about next sea­son when we get there. See you in April, guys. I’ll be in left field, cheer­ing you on.