The Fall Classic in the City of Brotherly Love

By Dan Herd
Sun contributor
PHILADELPHIA—The section of tables was “reserved,” but that didn’t stop Phil from asking the waitress if we could sit there. It was the only open area in the bar, and probably the only open tables within 30 blocks. We took our seats, ordered another round, and Phil said “Hey, maybe tonight, then”. … On this late October night, those same understated words were on the lips of an entire American city.

The Philadelphia Phillies, bearers of a tortured history and reluctant players of second fiddle to nearby New York, on and off the field, throughout the 20th century, were on the verge of wrapping up their first World Series championship since 1980 (after a difficult loss in 1993), and only their second in the club’s 125-year history. For over two decades, this city has had only one winner, Sylvester Stallone’s fictional character, the boxer Rocky Balboa.
Photo by Kyle Gradinger

The championship to end the spell wouldn’t come easily, though. Game five against the Tampa Bay Rays had been delayed by two days on account of rain on the east coast, even though the game was already in the sixth inning—making it, first pitch to last pitch, the longest game in World Series history, even before the Phillies and Rays re-took the field. One didn’t need to be a diehard baseball fan to realize the oddity of pinch hitters stepping into the batter’s box, and relief pitchers already warming in the bullpen, before the first pitch was thrown.

We were staged for these final innings in a downtown Irish pub, across the street from Love Park and two blocks from City Hall. The drama heightened, pitch-by-pitch, inning-by-inning, but when Phillies’ closer Brad Lidge recorded the strikeout that ended the game, attention turned to jubilation. Within minutes, the bar crowd emptied into the streets to meet a lava flow of people, all moving toward Broad Street. The emotions in the air were intense. Having lived in Philly for two years now I’ve only begun to develop a budding connection to the local sports teams, but this level of excitement is far removed from the celebrations of northern Michigan, where I grew up. The size of the crowd streaming from lighted doors and jumping across pedestrian-blocked streets was stupefying—as if the Cherry Festival had all been condensed into 30 seconds. Torrents of people down every street, flowing in one direction.

It’s important to note about Phillies fans, while vehemently supportive of their team, they are quick to judge. Whether calling for manager Charlie Manuel to be fired or complaining about front office choices, the working-class, cheesesteak-gobbling fans are opinionated and easily disgruntled. So when, over a matter of weeks, the ball club went from besting the hated Mets for a berth in the playoffs (they won three more games out of 162 than New York) to winning the World Series, many locals swapped their critiques for high fives. The current team on the field—baby-faced slugger Ryan Howard, Hollywood handsome Chase Utley, gritty shortstop Jimmy Rollins, ageless hometown boy Jamie Moyer, long-haired ace Cole Hamels—were now good enough for this roughneck crowd.

The City of Brotherly Love suddenly bloomed red with Phillies paraphernalia after the team vanquished the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series. On the elevator, on the hot dog vendor, at the tables of street-corner merchants, the hats and t-shirts popped up like tulips in March. Bright red sweatshirts inappropriately adorned businessmen, and those big red hats with the white P covered many store clerks’ heads. It was, as we said, pheverish.

Yet not until the two-day rain delay did I begin to understand the significance of what was happening. Philly is not a new city and the Phillies are not a young team. With over a century of baseball behind it, the team is rooted and integrated in the community in a way that the infantile Tampa Bay Rays, their World Series opponent, are not. My friend Phil summarized several days after the victory, “Philadelphia sports teams always seem to embody the persona of the city: scrappers.

Underachieving in some ways, surprising everyone in others. Gutting it out, but never exhibiting all the qualities of a winner.” The level of expectation surrounding the baseball team had been decreasing for years, but with one amazing autumn, the jokes and complaints were pushed aside by a deep sense of ownership and pride. The perception of Philly as a losing town with losing teams was washed down with a pint of Yuengling, that good Pennsylvania beer.
It hit me then that Philadelphia identifies with its sports teams much in the same way that I identify with the pine and oak forests of northern Michigan, as I am a native of Frankfort. This city has seen plenty of hard times since it short-lived days as the capital of a young nation. Trade Ben Franklin, and constitutional conventions, for urban decay. Philadelphia is another Flint. Michael Moore could just as easily have picked, instead of Roger Smith and GM, the people and companies around Philly, whose population has decreased over the past 40 years. He could have filmed the pox marks in sectors of the city where unemployment passes 50 percent and where “abandominiums” outnumber row houses. We all remember the rabbits on their way to the dinner plate in “Roger and Me.” They could have been wearing Phillies caps.

And yet, when Brad Lidge slipped his wicked slider past the Rays’ Eric Hinske’s bat for the final out, and was tackled from behind by jubilant first baseman Ryan Howard, suddenly all was OK in the City of Brotherly Love. A sea of red emptied from the bars and flowed toward downtown.

“People pass down teams to their children like family heirlooms,” explained Philly Phil. “The people who witnessed this Phillies’ win are the children of those who witnessed it in 1980, and the grandchildren of the great teams of the ‘60s.”