Listen to this thing forty times like I plan on doing

Phils win NL East

It's the Brewers

I was kind of ambivalent about today's games. I couldn't see much advantage between facing the Brewers or the Dodgers, so I figured I'd just let it happen and worry about it later. I also - as much as this may surprise you - decided not to gloat and act like a jerk if the Mets got eliminated, which they did. I certainly know all about crushing disappointment, so I know how the Mets fans must feel. A Mets fan friend of Andrew's was gracious enough to text him with congratulations yesterday, so they can't be totally horrible. I didn't root for or against them today.

Except Endy Chavez. I rooted for him to make an out in that final inning, because he is pure evil and I don't like him. And then he grounded out, which was really great.

Anyway, that's enough "blogging" for one day. Look for my Phillies/Brewers preview soon, just as soon as I learn some of the Milwaukee players' names.

LET'S GO EAGLES!!!

And now it's time to play "Guess the lineup of today's meaningless game!"

Here's my guess. Come back later and see how I did!

1. Golson (CF)
2. Taguchi (LF)
3. Bruntlett (SS)
4. Dobbs (3B)
5. Stairs (1B)
6. Iguchi (2B)
7. Cervenak (RF)
8. Marson (C) (major league debut)
9. Kendrick (P) (with Happ, Eaton, and Walrond as the relievers - and if the four of them can't get through nine innings, then, well, that's just pathetic)

I'll either leave the game on while I vacuum the house and clean the bathroom, or I'll just bag it and go to ShopRite.

My eight favorite games I've ever watched (off the top of my head)

Four of them I was at, the other four I just saw on TV. There may be more - maybe I'll think of them later. Today's game made it onto the list, which is why I bring it up.

8. 6/8/99: A basically meaningless game in the middle of a losing season, but we scored 9 runs in the 7th against the (eventual champion) Yankees, and that was pretty fun. I was there!

7. 9/17/89: Check out my description of this game in the "Phillies Games" link to your right. Basically, John Kruk hit a walkoff grand slam, and I was there! In retrospect, and at the risk of hyperbole, I think this is the game that made me a fan.

6. 9/23/05: I've written about this one a few times. The Phils, in the heat of the wild card race, rally back to beat the Reds on the road with a titanic home run from David Bell. I watched this in my apartment with Andrew and Anna and after that home run we tore the place apart.

5. 4/27/03: Kevin Millwood's no-hitter, and I was there! I hadn't seen a crowd this excited since '93, so it was a nice sneak preview of the kind of big crowds they'd get a few years later.

4. 9/27/08: Another fine outing from the incredible Jamie Moyer, Jayson Werth makes up for his crappy fielding with a home run, a super ultra clutch hit from Pedro Feliz, Brad Lidge nearly kills me, literally kills me, and the final double play, probably the best double play ever. More on this in a moment.

3. 9/28/93: The greatest team of all time clinches the NL East in Pittsburgh. The ending of this game - John Kruk flipping a grounder to Donn Pall - is burned right into my memory, where it will remain for all eternity. I still find myself saying "GRAND SLAM MARIANO DUNCAN!" in Harry's voice for no reason.

2. 9/30/07: Just about any of the Phils' wins from September 2007 could make this list - off the top of my head, I'm reminded of Greg Dobbs' pinch grand slam in New York, Rod Barajas (!) with a pinch RBI in the 14th inning in St. Louis, the Phils beating John Smoltz on 9/27, or the win over the Braves the day before that (I was at that one) - but why not just give it to this game, an absolute classic, a game for which I'd waited a long, long time. Jamie Moyer (apparently the guy you call on when you need a clinching win and you need it now) had a great game, Jimmy "MVP" Rollins hit a triple, Ryan had a home run, and I pounded two beers after the game because I felt like some kind of weight had been lifted. They did it, do you hear? They did it.

1. 10/13/93: I remember it was cold, bitterly cold. I remember two guys - shirtless, I think - holding signs and parading around the upper outside concourse, wearing Beavis and Butthead masks (which totally dates this anecdote). I remember Mickey Morandini had a spectacular leaping catch. I remember the entire crowd sarcastically doing the Atlanta tomahawk chop when Maddux was taken out of the game (I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself, because I know I've written about that before, but man, that was so cool - I wonder if anything that ever happens to me ever again will be quite that cool). I remember Mitch Williams' final inning: he struck out Damon Berryhill, Mark Lemke flew out to center, and then he struck out Bill Pecota (you know, I always thought it was Terry Pendleton, not Berryhill, but I just looked it up and I was wrong!). I remember Mitch hurling himself off the mound, and the celebration, and Danny Jackson doing his "pump you up" thing (at the time we didn't really make the steroids connection, but in retrospect we probably should have).

And I was there.

I bring this all up now because today's game was one of those games - but it was different from the others, too, and specifically it was different from last year's. Everyone seemed to think that, today - the fans, the announcers, the players themselves. It was a great game, and making the postseason is incredibly difficult in baseball, so it's definitely a great achivement. But the celebration was a bit more subdued this time. The players aren't just happy to be there this time, and I'm glad to hear that.

This thing isn't over!

And I wrote this list with the full intention of it being a fluid one. I've allowed for things to be moved around. New games can make the list.

I think they will.

We'll find out starting next week.

Let's go Phils!!!

Magic number = 1

And the temptation, of course, is to get ahead of yourself, and start thinking things like, okay, we'll win today, so tomorrow's game is meaningless and we can rest, and it looks like we'll face the Brewers in the NLDS, and I wonder what times the games start?

But I'm starting to think that Jimmy's comment the other day - "We never make it easy, that's not the Philly way" - might be the most brilliant thing a Philly athlete has ever said. It's like he broke some kind of fourth wall, transcended athlete cliches, and just said the thing that we're all thinking, i.e., that it can't possibly be true, can it? Can we actually be in control? By god, can they actually clinch the division - today? With one win? Just like that?

Actually, yes, it turns out. Just like that.

But once again, this is Philly. So although I still believe and I'm totally behind them, I remain a skeptic as always, and won't really believe it until I see them wearing those weird champagne goggles.

[Side note - the game is at 3:55 today, but the Mets play at 1:10, and if they lose then the Phils just win the division anyway and their game becomes irrelevant. So - what if that happens? Do they spray each other with champagne before they take the field? What's the protocol there? So many questions.]

What a totally weird, frustrating, and incredibly cool season. Let's do it!

Final weekend

All right all right all right. [waves hands around] It's fine. It's all forgotten. We're okay.

One game up, magic number is 3, three games left.

I'm off to the game in a few minutes.

Jimmy's right: they don't make it easy. And they probably never will.

Now, perhaps more than ever: Let's go Phils!

Postscript

I refuse - at least right now - to be happy that the Mets lost. It's useful, yes, but I don't want to be satisfied with the wretched way the Phils have played the past two nights.

It's called "tough love".

I need to go think about something else now.

Sick to my stomach

But on the other hand, I did get all my laundry done tonight.

Uncharacteristic gloating

Chalk me up as that rare 21st century American sports fan who isn't enamored with fantasy football.

Oh, I have a team, all right. But I let the autodraft choose my players, I've made exactly zero moves, and I don't check any of the scores until well after all the games are done.

And I'm 3-0 this season. Oh yeah, and I won my league last year.

And right now there's some guy out there who spends like 20 hours a week making moves and checking scores on his cell phone, and he's 1-2 and it drives him nuts.

I think that's just swell.

Oh yeah, and the Phillies! Give 'em hell, boys.

Off to SFO

Just checking in for one last GO PHILS! and to wish a great weekend to all my fellow Phils fans everywhere. This is good stuff, my friends! Take care of them for me.

Also, if you're going to be in Los Angeles, CA on October 4, then go see Cascade Array at the Knitting Factory. I'm going to keep reminding you until you do it.

LET'S GO PHILS!!!

(and Eagles!)

Phils 6, Braves 1, and an open letter to the Phillies

Thank you for making September really cool, instead of stupid like I thought it was going to be as recently as a week ago.

(That's just some of my trademark hyperbole - I mean, I'm sure I would have found something cool to do either way.)

Anyway - I'll be away for a few days at a wedding in San Francisco. Let's go Phillies (now and forever), Nationals (tomorrow only), Braves (not tomorrow, and not Monday, but definitely Friday through Sunday), Cubs (on Monday, and I suppose it wouldn't hurt for them to bury the Brewers some more tomorrow), and Reds (against the Brewers this weekend)... you know what, it's too confusing trying to figure out who to root for and when, so let me just say GO PHILLIES, and we'll worry about where we are when I get home.

Phils 8, Braves 7: Classic!

Back in 2005, during a crucial September game in the heat of the wild card race, David Bell - in almost literally the only good thing he ever did as a Phillie, with the possible exception of his cycle the year before - hit a go-ahead home run in Cincinnati, a moment so thrilling and unexpected and fantastic that I tipped over an armchair and threw pillows across the room. Tonight, after Ryan Howard's home run, Andrew (who was in the apartment with me that night three years ago, and just as a side note I'll mention that I watched tonight's game alone, and I always feel self-conscious about cheering when I'm alone, so I didn't go as ballistic over Ryan's homer as I was kind of feeling inside, which I guess is fine, and I don't even know why I'm mentioning it) called to say that it reminded him distinctly of Bell's homer, and he's right.

Except this time, it put us into first place.

Well, it put us into first place after an excrutiating, protracted sequence in which Brad Lidge came this close to losing the game like six times. I couldn't handle it. If the rest of the pennant race is like that inning, something in my brain will probably burst.

Still, this is some fun stuff. This is why you suffer through games in cold rainy Aprils; this is why you slog through games in July against the Pirates; this is why you put up with Boston vermin hijacking your stadium and making your life miserable. Because eventually it will be September, the most wonderful time of the year.

Speaking of which, here's a moral dilemma: MLB released the postseason schedule today. Is it wrong and stupid of me to start worrying about the conflicts that I have with the NL dates? Probably. I'll worry about that if and when it becomes relevant.

9/14: Tied for WC lead; 1 GB in NL East

Every year, it seems, some NL team gets hot in September and screws over the Phillies. 2003: The Marlins get hot, sweep the Phils to ruin their season, pass them for the wild card, and win the WS. 2005: The Astros get hot, beat the Phils a bunch of times in September, win the wild card, and get to the World Series. 2006: The Dodgers win their last seven games and pass the Phils (who have a mediocre final week) for the wild card. 2007: The Phils get hot, win the NL East, but run into the even hotter Rockies.

Could this... could we... oh I can barely even type it!

Is it finally our time?

Could we be that team in 2008?

You gotta believe...

I ain't heard no fat lady!

September 13: My first ever multi-sport doubleheader!

Phase I: I went to the Phils/Brewers game which was cool. Hitting has picked up, Cole wasn't quite himself but still sufficiently strikeout-y, bullpen looked pretty great. Pat Burrell looked horrendous, which made me sad. I love the guy and I've always defended him, but that was some painful stuff. Still, the Phils locked this one down, and then the Mets blew yet another win for Santana and lost about 10 seconds later. What a moment. Brought back memories of... well, no, you know what? No more memories and no more living in the past. This is 2008, my friends.

Phase II: I crossed the street and saw the (gold medal winning!) US Women's Team beat Ireland 2-0. It was the first time I've ever been in the Linc and the first pro soccer game I've ever seen in person. My assessments: well, one, even though I'd never been in the Linc before, I've seen it on TV and there's Eagles stuff everywhere, so it was hauntingly familiar. Not much to look at out on the concourses, but that's fine. I'm there for the game. Two, soccer: I was totally into it! Which is good sign, given that a few months ago I gave a faceless website $100 for a Philly 2010 season ticket deposit. The game has a great rhythm and I was kind of mesmerized at times. And you know what else? I didn't need to stand and sing for 90 minutes to be into the game. I just wanted to watch it. Of course, in fairness, this was a friendly between a team that wasn't really trying that hard and a team that was obviously inferior, plus the crowd seemed to be 85% soccer-playing girls under 12, so maybe it wasn't a representative crowd. Maybe when the New Atoms play DC United, it'll be more intense, and I'll be on my feet chanting something off-color and pouring a beer on someone's head. I'm not ruling it out. Long story short, I'm pretty amped about 2010. (By the way, I'll need people to go to games with it, so if you want to take my other ticket, contact me ASAP. Spots are going fast!)

September 14: I missed today's game. I was out buying pants. That may sound absurd to you, given that we're deep in a pennant race, but I really needed new pants. I'm very comfortable with my decision.

I was pleased to see when I got home that Blanton went 7 innings and Pat had two hits. The final game against The Brew starts in an hour and a half. All is right with the world. Now, before the series started people were saying that 3 out of 4 would be fine... and if we lose tonight, yeah, it's not the end of the world. But with a win, we can be tied for the wild card lead, and only 1 behind the Mets. In short, I WANT THIS GAME. I've wanted few games as much as I want this one. With pants successfully purchased, I can watch every pitch with confidence. Brett Myers, over to you...

Fightins 6, Crew 3, and I wrote a book

The reason I haven't been around all summer is because I wanted to finally, finally finish the novel I've been working on for... I don't want to say. A really long time. My entire adult life? No, not really, but it's up there. But anyway, I'm done now. I did it. On to phase 2: finding someone to pay me for the privilege of reading it. It feels weird to be at this point, and at the same time anticlimactic and, like, whatever. A long time coming, let's just say that.

By the way, if you're a longtime reader with a startlingly long memory, you will recall my entry from December 20, 2006 in which I claimed to have finished my novel. Yeah, it's true. That happened. But that was the first draft. This is the final draft. Much has happened to me, and the world, and the Phillies in between. Trust me, the book's much better now. And shorter. My god, it's so much shorter and better now.

My fond hope is to do something else with my free time now. Enough of that novel, time to embark on one of the other novel ideas I have! It never ends. Nor would I want it to.

Also, in celebration of this occasion, I now have a Facebook page! What does that have to do with anything? I don't know. I just felt compelled to make one. So go hunt that down, if you feel the need.

Meanwhile, I've neglected this site. I admit that. So much has happened, much more than I can recount in this space, so I won't bother trying. But I feel like I should say something, here in the waning days of this baffling, frustrating, monstrously weird season. I've been thinking a lot about the dynamics of sports fandom - what it means, how fans should act, how players should respond. It's old news now (such is the danger of only updating your blog once a month) but surely you remember when Jimmy Rollins - the MVP, the hero of 2007, lifelong Phillie - called us (me!) "frontrunners" a few weeks back, his reasoning being that we cheer when the team's good and boo when they're bad. Stop booing us, Jimmy pleaded, and give us your support through thick and thin, because it helps us play better.

Enough's been written about this already so I won't harp on it. I'll just mention that the team is due to shatter attendance records this year, and they've had many, many sellouts, despite the fact that they can't hit this year and have underachieved in ghastly ways. Philly LOVES this team these days, even though they're just as annoying as they've ever been.

And of course, I stand by the old argument that while I agree it would be nice if nobody booed anybody, that isn't going to happen, and fans have every right to do it if they feel like it, and players just need to either (a) ignore it, (b) laugh it off, or (c) calm down.

But today ESPN had this piece about Cubs fans and how they're eternally faithful despite the team's notorious ineptitude and heartbreaking-ness. Now, like all sensible people I loathe the Cubs and their lunatic drama queen scumbag followers, and I hope they go another 100 years without a World Series, because that would be hilarious. But being the big softy I am, I can't help but be just the slightest bit touched by their unwavering loyalty. I was at Wednesday's wretched loss to the Marlins, and it just pissed me off and I decided that the Phils were terrible and the season was over and I hated them. But then I started reading about these crazy Cubs fans and I was like, "Yeah, you know what, you never give up on your team, dude. That's what Astros fans did in that World Series. That's what Marlins fans do all the time. Screw that. Go Phils!"

So I wondered: should we be more like that? Should we applaud every player, even if they hack wildly at the first pitch with two outs like a moron? By god, should I have spent 2005 cheering for Endy Chavez, instead of squealing with hatred every time he entered a game? Should we be more loving and warm and fuzzy? Are we, in short, just a bunch of assholes?

Wait a minute. Where am I even going with this? (Why do I start writing things without knowing how it's going to end? God help me, I don't know.) Of course we shouldn't be like that. That isn't the Philly way! Nobody waxes poetic about Phillies fans. Jimmy Fallon doesn't make crappy movies about being a Phillies fan (thankfully). ESPN hasn't asked to do a melodramatic profile of me. We suffer alone, with nobody else in the country on our side, and yeah, it's made us kind of surly. Hell no, I wasn't going to just clap and say, "Yeah, Rod Barajas, hitting into a double play was the worst possible thing you could have done there, but you know what? Great effort! In fact, now that I think about it... I love you, Rod Barajas." No, no, no. See, what Jimmy Rollins doesn't understand (and I can't see why, he's been here long enough) is that we love our teams, our Phillies, love them just as much as any Cubs fan or Red Sox fan or A's or Yankees or Royals fan does... we just have a different way of showing it. If we were "frontrunners", you weird little man, we wouldn't show up to games at all. But we do, and we're gonna boo your underachieving ass. We booed Adam Eaton not because we're rooting for him to fail, we do it because he's wearing the uniform of our favorite team and he's pitching like a dumbass. We are SO DISAPPOINTED, so mind-numbingly crushed, by the team's incessant failure, and this is how we've chosen to show it, from generation to generation, and we're not going to stop. Don't like the booing? Then win us a World Series. Chop chop!

So screw Billy Corgan and screw the Cubs. This is Philly, people. We can't hit, our rotation is all messed up, we're 3 games behind the Mets and 3 behind the Brewers, and we've only got 15 games left. Buckle up!