Tag Archives: baseball

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.

Phillies Win NLDS Game 2

I’ve reached a new zen state when it comes to Phillies games, even play­off ones, it seems. Once upon a time last night’s game would’ve been a fright­ful affair, the enjoy­ment sucked out by the anx­i­ety of anoth­er poten­tial Game 2 loss. My fam­i­ly has attend­ed a bunch of Games 2, so we know the feel­ing of a series slip­ping through our fin­gers, only to watch the Phils dom­i­nate as the away team. It’s their thing, it seems.

I real­ly thought the wheels had come off when they turned to J.C. Romero after 5 ago­niz­ing innings from the usu­al­ly reli­able Roy Oswalt. They had, but not for the Phillies. Watch­ing the Reds’ com­e­dy of errors was the stuff base­ball night­mares are made of. As they unrav­eled last night I could­n’t help but think how much bet­ter they’ll be next year once they get some expe­ri­ence and maybe a top of the rota­tion starter, but that’s for anoth­er time. The Phillies took advan­tage of every mis­cue and hit bats­men to win 7–4.

The ball­park was typ­i­cal­ly nuts. We sat in Sec­tion 307. The sta­di­um shook when Utley plat­ed two runs to make it a game. When Chooch and Ben Fran­cis­co were hit by a pitch­es, the crowd’s anger bub­bled over and CBP became that hos­tile envi­ron­ment teams must hate so much. We even cheered when Jay Bruce caught a fly ball. It was deli­cious­ly vicious, but play­ful at the same time, a far cry from the tense atmos­phere of last year where the entire sta­di­um fell silent when Brad Lidge entered the game.

The Phillies extin­guished any hope the Reds had of win­ning the series last night. We fans know that expe­ri­ence, plus a retooled rota­tion and a revived bullpen made last night’s win a done deal once the Phils took the lead. We weren’t wrong.

It’s Time for Playoff Baseball

First, I want to say con­grat­u­la­tions to our Philadel­phia Phillies for once again defy­ing the odds and fin­ish­ing with the best record in base­ball for the first time in club his­to­ry. It’s no mean feat in any sea­son, let alone one in which the team was sim­ply rav­aged by injuries to key play­ers all year long.

Now our eyes shift to the Phillies next goal, their third World Series appear­ance in as many years. Can they do it again? I’m hop­ing “Doc­to­ber” is every­thing we’ve dreamed and more.

Helen, Char­lie and I are head­ed to the park Fri­day after work for Game 2 of the NLDS. It’ll be Roy Oswalt ver­sus Bron­son Arroyo of the Cincin­nati Reds. I like our chances against the MLB’s old­est squad and I’d frankly be sur­prised if this series went five games. Let’s hope I’m right.

Where Did the Summer Go?

Can’t believe I’ll be going to my final reg­u­lar sea­son game at the ball­park Fri­day night. Feels like it was­n’t that long ago that I was sit­ting with my fam­i­ly in Nation­als Park, watch­ing Roy Hal­la­day make his Phillies’ debut. I love the MLB post­sea­son, but it’s come to mean an end to so many fun things, like going to the ball­park or to the beach or just hav­ing a pic­nic in the park.

This sum­mer was busy and fun. Char­lie turned one and we threw a won­der­ful par­ty in Fair­mount Park. He’s grown so much since then. He’s got­ten his first teeth. He runs like crazy. He’s even start­ed say­ing words and imi­tat­ing Helen and me. It’s been a joy to play with him as he makes the leap from infant to toddler.

Sure, the heat was at times oppres­sive. I’m clear­ly block­ing that from mem­o­ry, thanks to a few weeks of cool Sep­tem­ber air and refresh­ing breezes. Our vaca­tion was per­fect and we’ve had love­ly weath­er and good excus­es to get out­side late­ly. It’s going to be sad to put Char­lie’s brand new bike away for the season.