City of Pain

It did. It really did. WORLD CHAMPIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, NORTH AMERICA, THE WORLD, AND THE UNIVERSE. Words cannot describe what just happened. Years of misery and pain, have turned the city of pain, into a city of joy. People around these parts are going to feel this for a VERY long time. Centuries. I’m going to buy so much Phillies World Champions merchandise that I alone may save the entire US economy and bring it out of the recession.  Hats, T-Shirts, grill covers, toothbrushes, scarves, double dongs, oven mitts….you name it. I will own everything. I will go home and re-watched my DVR’d game every day for the next year. Any time the Flyers lose, the Eagles choke away games in the last two minutes, and the Sixers falter, I’m going to smile and watch the 9th inning again. Over and over and over again. I want to hear the roar of the crowd, feel the goosebumps on my arms, and a wet, salty tear run down my face. I will never forget this for as long as I live. I’ve already instructed my parents to have the 9th inning on replay at my funeral in case I go before them.  

Remember this night Philadlephia. Get your asses down to the parade. Show the rest of this country what a city does to support their team. Stop being scared at games. Start believing again. In closing, always remember this:

“With (pitcher Johan Santana), now, I have no doubt that we’re going to win in our division,” Beltran said. “So this year, to Jimmy Rollins, we are the team to beat.”

Nice prediction Beltran you faggot. Fuck the Mets! WORLD CHAMPION PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES.

now i don’t mean to disparage john oates. far from it. he’s one half of a legendary philly band that wrote a song that inspired the son of sam killer and a lot of babies named sara. but he makes a perfect analogy for last night’s debacle: we needed hall, we got oates.

before the game even started, there was a crazy energy in the stands. towels waving. people screaming. thousands of crazies outside milling out the tents and trying to get into mcfaddens. it was awesome. and even oates’ performance, in which he asked the crowd to assist was pretty awesome.

but as the game progressed and the weather got shittier and shittier, you could begin to see the connection. the fans came in needing hall, but the weather, fox and major league baseball gave us fucking oates. they knew damn well that this game wasn’t going to finish (witness bud saying that “we thought we had another half hour.” that gets you to 10:30 dickweed. these games have been going past midnight, so this was obviously a poorly calaculated gambit. i fully understand the logic of not cancelling a game at 8:30 when it’s barely raining: the fans would have freaked the fuck out. there would have been such fucking bedlem that you would have thought obama had lost the election. and fox would have been forced to run four straight episodes of hole in the wall, so you know it was completely unacceptable to them.

but why the hell would the teams agree to this? this was a complete farce. as soon as jimmy lost the ball in the fourth, or when cole starts bouncing changeups, or when everyone needs to towel off their lumber mid-atbat, something is wrong. unfortunately, these pigfuckers thought they should take the chance, so here we are. the game has now been moved to wednesday…maybe. but it’s certainly better than trying to play tonight and seeing this shit again:

after all this though, the truth of it is (to paraphase Rich Hoffman), the Phillies didn’t get fucked, but the fans sure did. we’ve got three extra outs, a better bullpen, and last outs if it goes to extras. and you better believe that the bank will be rocking wednesday with 45,000 angry philadelphians (sidenote: i’ve never heard the linc louder than i did after the trent cole phantom personal foul call. not the lito int against dallas. not the to chants. nothing. we are an angry, angry bunch and it shows.)

we win this game tomorrow night. i even believe we win this game in the bottom of the sixth and then hold on for the best nine outs of our lives. i’ll be there screaming for all of us.

BELIEVE

You don’t want to offend the baseball gods by predicting an early victory, especially when you are a Philadelphia Sports fan; HOWEVER, tonight is a night made for breaking the rules and doing something just a little different. Like winning a world championship.

I was just sitting in my car at lunch and they replayed Harry’s call of Howard’s first home run last night on the radio. The sound that the crowd made when they first heard the crack of his bat against the ball was LOUD. It was one of those Philadelphia playoff roars that you have only heard maybe once in your life. And it scares me to think what that stadium is going to sound like tonight. What does exhaling 25 years worth of complete despair sound like? No one knows, but I think we’re about to find out.

It’s great to think that Harry Kalas is going to get another shot to call a World Series winner. It’s great to think Charlie Manuel gets his redemption on everyone who wanted Jim Leyland to manage this team. It’s great to think that you have a team that is 23-6 in their last 29 and needs to lose three straight games to blow this thing. It’s great to think that Cole Hamels officially puts himself as a top three pitcher in baseball with a win tonight, and a potential 5th playoff win which would break a single season playoff record for any player in the history of the game. I could go on.

I don’t know how much I want to write about tonight. That can come in the days ahead. This is unchartered territory for us. We have our best pitcher in front of a frenzied crowd, and against a team that is one more foot stomp to the head away from a hate crime death. Until then, there is only one thing left to do.

BELIEVE

Let’s just quietly try to forget the Phils game last night and focus on more positive things around here….like Flyers hockey! Hey maybe they can win a game one of these days. I mean Jesus Christ.  Yes, it’s still early, but half of all the experts on ESPN, CNNSI, Hockey News, you name it, have the Flyers at least reaching the conference finals. This makes their 0-3-3 start especially frightening. Do they even play defense anymore? There are guys on the team who I’ve never heard of before in my life. Arguably in the hardest division in hockey, the Flyers are already 10 points behind the first place Rangers, and have the worst record in the NHL. Great.

Doesn’t get any easier tonight with a trip to New Jersey against the 5-1 Devils.  The last time the Flyers won there, I think Gerald Ford was president. They own us. If the Flyers don’t start getting some wins, changes will come and they will come fast.

I’m not sure what’s more appalling, the fact that the Phils were 0 for 275 with runners in scoring position last night, or the fact that Rays fans use cowbells to create artificial noise. Two points here….the Phillies should have won that game by double digits and Rays fans are generally very ugly and obviously lazy. And here I thought the Thundersticks were gay, but cowbells take the cake. I mean seriously, please stop with those things. Cowbells are for rodeos, not World Series games.

The Phils bullpen is what will ultimately win this series for them. I don’t know where or when Ryan Madson turned into Mariano Rivera, but the guy is pitching on another planet. His level of poonhounding must have skyrocketed in tha bars and clubs too. He deserves it. Lidge, who usually pitches better the second consecutive day, looked solid last night. The Rays haven’t seen a closer quite like him this season.

Even though they’re all big, tonight’s a very interesting game. You’ve got two righties going which probably benefits both teams. You’ve got a Tampa team that has lost two straight game 1s now, and almost certainly feels the pressure of not getting swept at home. The Phillies are not the Red Sox. You’ve got a Phillies team that has to be chomping at the bit to get back out there and hit with men on base tonight. The shit that happened last night is not going to be repeated.  You’ve got Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins who looked awful last night…..jesus, where do we even start with these two. No, I’m not going to bash them uncontrollably, but I sure as fuck will say that both of their approaches at the plate last night were absolutely disgraceful and undisciplined. While I commend Rollins and his approach to making the pitcher throw some pitches, he is watching meat missiles get thrown right down the middle of the plate that he could be launching into the Southern Hemisphere. Jimmy, I know you don’t draw as many walks as you should, but buddy, let’s swing at strikes. Work the count to get the pitches that you want to drive. If you swing at another strike that’s eye level I’m going to cut you. Bad.   And Howard…..I’m still going to give you a free pass after tonight. You are an MVP, play like it. Stop shaking your head after every pitch you dumb piece of shit.

Are they really afraid of Shields? Really? Please. Win tonight, and take it back to the northeast.