They Got in the Way: Phillies

No one can make you watch the MLB Postseason.   But it becomes even harder if you’re a loser.

On Call to the Pen, we’ll be running the reflections of fans from each eliminated team, and how consumed they are by rage, frustration, guilt, and/or hellfire, just to release a pressure valve before we all sit down and watch somebody else’s heroes take home the trophy. 

Check out Robbie Clark’s breakdown of the Yankees’ exit before Justin Klugh of That Balls Outta Here chokes back the tears for his precious Phillies.

I got to watch view of Game Five on the back of a reclined Delta Airbus economy seat.  For seven innings, I soundlessly watched the Phillies fell short; sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot, and once–by about three feet.

The crushing official defeat I witnessed at some half-ass bar in LAX.  And I wondered, would this have been better or worse had I just remained in the dark for the length of the plane ride, then instantaneously received the end result later?  At least then I wouldn’t have toyed with the theory that we’d flown through some sort of rip in time and now existed in a parallel universe, where the Cardinals were able to score a run on Roy Halladay.

I always use the 2010 Giants as an example of “anything can happen,” but when you were the “anything” that the Giants were “happening” to, its much easier to believe that “anything can happen, as long as that thing is the worst thing imaginable.”

That delightful spirit haunted me as we entered the playoffs; as if, we’d already won our World Series… what right do we have to win it again, narratively?  Aren’t we the villains now?  People know who we are and speak gleefully of our demise.  We’re not the team for whom FOX and TBS need to research and pick a player to highlight in their montages–they just cue up the Ryan Howard reel and call it a day.

Our post-2008 stories lack a certain romanticism that is needed to make a World Series win feel like it was destined to happen.  The conglomerate of aces was our ticket in, but we needed that finger-pointing and quirk-having that seems to push teams over the edge.  At least in movies.

Which brings about the notion of “complacency.”   Charlie Manuel mentioned it last year, as if it was a bacterium that crawled up through one of the clubhouse shower drains.  And whether they try it or not, I do feel like, even on a subconscious level, the true desire to win the fuck out of things may grow duller.

The Phillies have nothing to prove to anyone.  Winning the World Series once takes a shitload of talent, organization, precision, and luck.  Winning it several times in a single era is an anomaly.

If it were up to me, the Phillies would win everyday.  Even the days they aren’t scheduled to play.  And each time the victory would be more spectacular and unlikely than the one that had preceded it.  And I’m not saying the Phillies don’t want that, though the small media firestorm over Shane Victorino’s comments after Game Five seemed to bring this very issue to light.

I’m sure the Phillies want to win, and I’m sure if they did, it would feel like they were supposed to.  But they’re not the 25-year-old hopefuls, hurling their bodies into harm’s way and punching the christ out of the ball that they used to be, and combined with the fact that post season baseball is pretty normal in Philadelphia after five years, I could understand difficulty in summoning endless enthusiasm year after year.

I don’t doubt anyone’s sincere dedication.  I just think a team like the Cardinals, clinching on the final day of the season on the most exciting night of baseball in decades, probably had greater momentum because they were never supposed to be there.  The Phillies were nonchalantly clobbering the Braves when the Cards snuck in.  Fun–but not mythic.

Anyways.  Carpenter beat Halladay, the defense beat the offense, and the Cardinals beat the Phillies.  That shit happened.  We’ll come back next year with a slightly different team and try it again, just as hard.

But probably the best thing about this wound is how it bleeds into next season, as we get to see how long into the year Ryan Howard’s ruptured Achilles will neutralize him.

Gonna be a fun winter.