I have always been a Philadelphia sports fan, having grown up with a large family of Eagles and Phillies season-ticket holders and obsessive fans: aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins. Although the voice of Harry Kalas is comforting and familiar--I immediately think of hot summer nights in the Jersey Shore, falling asleep to the Phillies--there was a long period there where I fell out of interest with baseball. The Eagles were the dominant team in the earlier part of the decade and I just didn't have the energy to dedicate to such a long season. Boyfriend has always been a fan, watching at least 80% of the season every year. I remember in college making fun of him as he griped about the team after one loss or another: "What are you getting so upset over? They still have, like, 300 games to play." "162," he would say, "And every game counts."
When Boyfriend and I moved in together a few years ago, I started to realize just what he meant. Even though we were in DC, he had an mlb.com package to watch the games on his computer. And we watched what felt like every. single. game. In all honesty, it was probably about 130-some games. We watched them at home. We watched them at the bar. We watched them every night on vacation, on my birthday, on his birthday, at the stadium. And once I started watching them every night with him from April through September (and, eventually, October), I started to feel a connection to the team. Chase Utley, obviously, first (those eyes!), but then I knew every player, their strengths, their weaknesses, their quirks. I imagined what they were like in the dug-out and what they would be like to have a beer with. "I bet Joe Blanton listens to Limp Biskit," I'd say. "Brett Myers too. Or Three Doors Down." I even assigned them Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles identities:
Victorino= Michaelangelo
Utley= Leonardo
Burrell=Rafael
Ruiz= Donatello
Moyer= Master Splinter
We would go to almost every game they played against the Nationals here in DC. We even went to Mets games to boo them. Last year at the end of the season, a bunch of us went to the Phillies/Nats game at RFK, in that last stretch where we could make the playoffs if we kept winning and the Mets kept losing. We pulled out that game in the very end--the last in DC for the season--and jumped around in the parking lot, on the phone with someone's mom in New York who was watching the Mets game for us (a real sacrifice for a Yankees fan), letting us know that they were indeed blowing it and we were one step closer to the playoffs, somewhere we hadn't been since I was 9 years old.
When the Mets eventually did blow it and we made the playoffs last year, Boyfriend's father called him, saying he and his brothers were crying watching. I didn't quite understand the intense emotion of a sports team at the time. But I had never felt the thrill of victory, having been born after the last Phillies championship in 1980 and the last Philadelphia championship in 1983. I suppose once you felt that, it's that more frustrating when you can't recreate it for 25 years. We eventually blew it too, getting swept by the Rockies in the NLDS. It felt inevitable that we would fail. You felt it in the team--blank, nervous stares, timid bats, passionless running. It's a feeling I never wanted to have again. Neither did the team.
When we got to October this year, I was optimistic, but cautious. We had a really good team. And what has always impressed me about the Phillies is the emphasis on team. We have 2 MVPs in as many years--Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard--and other superstars like Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, and Brad Lidge. But every single player on that team that got out on the field made a contribution. Even when Howard wasn't hitting homers or Utley made some fielding errors, other players would step up to make big plays. Victorino had some key hits, Joe Blanton hit a home-run, Jamie Moyer was solid, Ruiz was just phenomenal. Even Pedro Feliz and Pat Burrell--who both did little all WS--had the two clutch hits in Game 5. Everyone came out and did all that I ask of professional athletes: do your job.
It was the perfect storm of players with talent, with confidence, with ambition, but with humility and a hard work ethic. And I'm happy that it was that team that won Philadelphia its first professional sports championship in 25 years.
My friend said to me yesterday that when that last strike was thrown and the 215 erupted after the biggest case of sports blue balls in history, he felt himself change forever. It's like an enormous weight being lifted, being replaced with the airy feeling of happiness, of being able to cry with joy at the end of the season because it's over and your team is the last one standing. And really, although we have little to do with the 25 guys on the roster who we see on tv, but have never met (although I did sit behind the dug-out once at RFK), we feel like what happens to them happens to us. We have watched them nearly every day for 6 months. We have spent our money on tickets, on food at the game, on merchandise, on mlb packages, on train tickets, on gas. We have laughed at them when they were funny, yelled at them when they played poorly, cried with them when unfortunate events happened in their personal lives. So ever year for 25 years when they lose, we lose. They are defeated, so we are defeated, left to seeth in envy at the Boston fans or the New York fans. And it eats at you.
But when they win, we win. And we have finally won.
Thank you Charlie. Thank you Jimmy, Jayson, Chase, Ryan, Pat, Shane, Pedro, and Carlos. Thank you Cole, Brett, Jamie, Joe, JC, Chad, J.A., Scott, Clay, Ryan, and Brad. Thank you Gregg, Geoff, Eric, Chris, So, and Matt.
Pat, please don't leave us.
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