I guess I'm back into the Phillies? I don't know. I'm honestly so tired these days that I can't even tell what true enjoyment looks like or if maybe any happiness I feel at a group of men in tight pants hitting a ball with a stick but doing it really well at an important time is just a fucking delusion or what. No one on this team is beating their wives bloody as far as I know, and if my grandparent dies of COVID at this point then J.T. Realmuto and Alex Bohm will be the least of my worries, and, like, playoff baseball is really fucking exciting too, and the Philadelphia Phillies are hitting a lot of baseballs out of the stadium and their starting pitches are making sure that the other team doesn't hit too many baseballs out of the stadium at all, so tally ho, I say. Go Phillies.
I was at a wedding the other night during Game 5 (from somewhere deep within the recesses of my baseball-addled brain arises a staticky memory of an atrocious WIP radio ad that used to run during Phillies games: "Where were you when the Phillies won?" "I think I was at a wedding... it... it was our wedding..."). I got back from the bar with a fresh club soda and realized that the table I was sitting at was completely empty and so I was forced to face my very worst sober fear and approach the dance floor and I kinda awkwardly hovered around the edges and this was right around the time Bryce Harper stole home plate.
"Stole home plate?" I asked, mystified that this dude was out there living his best life on the baseball diamond, still, all these years later. I vocalized it in this way: "Bryce Harper makes baseball fun." A statement made in truth but in a way that you didn't realize was the truth until it was said out loud, on the very back corner of a dance floor in a Philadelphian suburban country club. It's true. There is no one playing baseball right now who has a flair for fun like Harper does. This is good for the city that he so expertly panders to, but it's also good for me too, I realize. I like fun. I like a good myth—that's the fun.
The story, in other words. More important than the score, honestly, in my opinion, though a score in the Phillies' favor certain helps. But it has to be a story that interests me. I say that because I am remembering arguments I've had in the past about the Olympics, and how much I "hated the story" in that context. I guess this is different. The Olympics are cloyingly packaged like the lamest feel-good humanities stories you can fucking imagine, basically all of them boiling down to "this man/woman/team has OVERCOME THE ODDS to be here." That's not what I'm talking about with the Phillies.
The story, in other words. More important than the score, honestly, in my opinion, though a score in the Phillies' favor certain helps. But it has to be a story that interests me. I say that because I am remembering arguments I've had in the past about the Olympics, and how much I "hated the story" in that context. I guess this is different. The Olympics are cloyingly packaged like the lamest feel-good humanities stories you can fucking imagine, basically all of them boiling down to "this man/woman/team has OVERCOME THE ODDS to be here." That's not what I'm talking about with the Phillies.
Because they are a good team. And their owners have spent a lot of money to make this team good. I'm not gonna sit here and say that the Phillies "overcame the odds" to be one win away from the World Series. They were just there last year. But I'm spending a fair share of my time holed up in the kitchen after bedtime listening to the Phillies on the radio. I wouldn't be doing that if I wasn't interested in the story.
Some stories that have interested me in the past couple weeks, since I've hopped on the proverbial bandwagon and reinvested myself emotionally in this team and this sport:
Some stories that have interested me in the past couple weeks, since I've hopped on the proverbial bandwagon and reinvested myself emotionally in this team and this sport:
— Every heroic act of might by shortstop Trea Turner comes attached with the anecdote that he had a really terrible first half of the season, but somehow managed to turn it around when it mattered. He's batting over .400 with three home runs this post-season. But the lore I've been sold was that, in early August, at the nadir of his season statistically speaking, the fans in Philadelphia decided to go against their partially-earned reputation and give him a standing ovation. I find that interesting, both because the power of positive thinking and "good vibes" is a real thing and this might have proved it, and because, well, this same thing happens in the new Pixar movie Elemental, which was released in theaters exactly seven weeks prior to the Turner standing-o. I have to imagine that the Venn Diagram of people invested in the Phillies' 2023 season and people who have seen Elemental at least twelve times is extremely tight. It might even consist of just me. But what I'm saying is that Wade Ripple is a Phillies fan (which would make sense, since snowballs are made of water).
— Speaking of "the power of the positivity of fans," there's been a lot of hubbub made over the fact that opposing teams describe the atmosphere at Citizens Bank Park as "four hours of hell" when they have to visit during the playoffs. They sure do seem loud. It's been exactly fourteen years and two days since I've attended a playoff game at the Bank, so I can't say personally, but this is what they tell me. The Inquirer brought a decibel meter to the stadium during a recent game, and noted how loud it got. I don't know, I feel like maybe it's not how loud, but how sustained that loudness is, no?
In any case, it's rowdy, and that's a good thing, because it creates home field advantage. And our friend-of-a-friend of the blog, Mike Sielski, recently had a really cool article about what that actually means, the fact that the home team has an advantage. Worth a read, but basically, they tested the theory by telling a classroom full of people to think really negative thoughts about a professor, and had the professor try to move someone's arms (they couldn't), then told a different class to think really positive thoughts about the professor, who was then able to move that same person's arms. The power of positive thinking, and the harm of negative thinking, weaponized. If 45,000 people are simultaneously thinking really hard that the Diamondbacks' Corbin Carroll looks like the sweaty little gremlin boy whom you'd find trying to secretly jerk off in the back of sophomore year computer class, and those thoughts are all directed toward Carroll in person while he's up to bat, the chances of Carroll striking out go up significantly.
— Nothing like a good revenge story. After the Phillies lost Game 2 of the NLDS by a matter of inches, one baseball beat reporter indicated that a Braves player, Orlando Arcia, was overheard in the locker room mocking Bryce Harper by yelling "Atta boy, Harper!" over and over. Hilariously, in Game 3, Harper responded by knocking two home runs and pointedly staring down Arcia each time as he slowly trotted past second base. This is probably what I meant when I said that Bryce makes baseball fun—not the tough-guy semantics (like, who even knows if Arcia actually said that), but the myth-building. A stupid little quote turns into Phillies legend because Harper not only obliterates the baseball off of Atlanta Braves pitching, but that he turns it into a show by "getting revenge" and making it known with the long stare. Pretty hilarious stuff, both on the scoreboard and in the ensuing implosion of Braves media as they try to scapegoat the poor dude who reported the quote in the first place.
— I also read somewhere—and I don't know where, so I don't have the exact quote on hand—where a Phillies player—maybe bullpen pitcher Jeff Hoffman, I forget—said something like "our big money dudes are just regular dudes." Which I thought was interesting. He's talking about Harper, and I guess Castellanos, Schwarber, Trea Turner, maybe Wheeler? He's implying that there are other clubhouses where the highest paid players act at a remove from the rest of the baseball hoi polloi. That's me reading between the lines. Not only do I appreciate the fact that "our guys" aren't like that (i.e. that Bryce Harper definitely does his fair share of pandering to the Philadelphia fans, but incredibly puts his money where his mouth is behind closed doors too), but I appreciate the fact that someone out and out said it. That money affects things. Or could, at least.
— Speaking of Castellanos, I went deep down the rabbit hole on a meme that I always see pop up whenever the dude does something significant on the field. The thing even has its own Wikipedia page! That's how you know it's legit. Basically, some TV announcer was caught being a racist piece of shit, and tried to apologize on air that same night, but right in the middle of his apology, Nick Castellanos hit a home run, and the announcer, perhaps unable to control his color commentator instincts, interrupted his own apology with "A drive into deep left field by Castellanos." Pretty weird stuff. But that Ringer article I linked to from 2021 doesn't even touch on the weird form that it takes on Reddit these days. It feels like the thing has morphed from a Castellanos home run interrupting a half-baked apology to a Castellanos home run interrupting an announcement of global tragedy? Like, when he hits a home run (five in a three-game stretch), I see something like "I have a feeling that Israel is going to escalate the war today, now that Castellanos has hit his second home run," and I can't tell if this is just a butchering of the meme or an evolution of it or a post-ironic deconstruction of it or what. As always, my conclusion ends up being: I need to get off the internet.
In any case, it's rowdy, and that's a good thing, because it creates home field advantage. And our friend-of-a-friend of the blog, Mike Sielski, recently had a really cool article about what that actually means, the fact that the home team has an advantage. Worth a read, but basically, they tested the theory by telling a classroom full of people to think really negative thoughts about a professor, and had the professor try to move someone's arms (they couldn't), then told a different class to think really positive thoughts about the professor, who was then able to move that same person's arms. The power of positive thinking, and the harm of negative thinking, weaponized. If 45,000 people are simultaneously thinking really hard that the Diamondbacks' Corbin Carroll looks like the sweaty little gremlin boy whom you'd find trying to secretly jerk off in the back of sophomore year computer class, and those thoughts are all directed toward Carroll in person while he's up to bat, the chances of Carroll striking out go up significantly.
— Nothing like a good revenge story. After the Phillies lost Game 2 of the NLDS by a matter of inches, one baseball beat reporter indicated that a Braves player, Orlando Arcia, was overheard in the locker room mocking Bryce Harper by yelling "Atta boy, Harper!" over and over. Hilariously, in Game 3, Harper responded by knocking two home runs and pointedly staring down Arcia each time as he slowly trotted past second base. This is probably what I meant when I said that Bryce makes baseball fun—not the tough-guy semantics (like, who even knows if Arcia actually said that), but the myth-building. A stupid little quote turns into Phillies legend because Harper not only obliterates the baseball off of Atlanta Braves pitching, but that he turns it into a show by "getting revenge" and making it known with the long stare. Pretty hilarious stuff, both on the scoreboard and in the ensuing implosion of Braves media as they try to scapegoat the poor dude who reported the quote in the first place.
— I also read somewhere—and I don't know where, so I don't have the exact quote on hand—where a Phillies player—maybe bullpen pitcher Jeff Hoffman, I forget—said something like "our big money dudes are just regular dudes." Which I thought was interesting. He's talking about Harper, and I guess Castellanos, Schwarber, Trea Turner, maybe Wheeler? He's implying that there are other clubhouses where the highest paid players act at a remove from the rest of the baseball hoi polloi. That's me reading between the lines. Not only do I appreciate the fact that "our guys" aren't like that (i.e. that Bryce Harper definitely does his fair share of pandering to the Philadelphia fans, but incredibly puts his money where his mouth is behind closed doors too), but I appreciate the fact that someone out and out said it. That money affects things. Or could, at least.
— Speaking of Castellanos, I went deep down the rabbit hole on a meme that I always see pop up whenever the dude does something significant on the field. The thing even has its own Wikipedia page! That's how you know it's legit. Basically, some TV announcer was caught being a racist piece of shit, and tried to apologize on air that same night, but right in the middle of his apology, Nick Castellanos hit a home run, and the announcer, perhaps unable to control his color commentator instincts, interrupted his own apology with "A drive into deep left field by Castellanos." Pretty weird stuff. But that Ringer article I linked to from 2021 doesn't even touch on the weird form that it takes on Reddit these days. It feels like the thing has morphed from a Castellanos home run interrupting a half-baked apology to a Castellanos home run interrupting an announcement of global tragedy? Like, when he hits a home run (five in a three-game stretch), I see something like "I have a feeling that Israel is going to escalate the war today, now that Castellanos has hit his second home run," and I can't tell if this is just a butchering of the meme or an evolution of it or a post-ironic deconstruction of it or what. As always, my conclusion ends up being: I need to get off the internet.
— This is a sort of follow-up to a blog post I wrote all the way back in 2010 (time flies when your baseball team is shitty for over a decade), but our boys Scott and Larry are still in the radio booth, and they are still the best team to ever do it (I'll ask again: Harry who?). Tom McCarthy does innings fourth through six during the playoffs (since the TV broadcast is bungled by whatever bozos TBS decides to stick in the booth), and his stock has risen considerably in the past few years. Wheels is long-retired, thank god. And now there is someone new to me, Kevin Stocker, who during the 2023 season filled in for LA on the road, but now during the playoffs acts as a third man to LA and to Franzke/McCarthy. In a very short time, I've grown to appreciate what Stocker is doing over the air. He sort of has a nerdy quality to him like Wheels had, but that nerdiness comes with a healthy dose of humility. Stocker was a Phillies player from '93-'97, but he doesn't talk about it much over the air. And he was a shortstop, and I'm impressed with the amount of focus he gives to LA. Stocker faced a lot of pitching in his career, naturally, but he never pretends to know what pitching entails, and he is really humble and curious when he asks Larry questions about the trade. I don't know, I think it's cool. It's a neat little spin on the typical former-baseball-player blowhards you get in these situations (fucking kill me if Mike Schmidt ever visits the radio booth). I was asked if I'm syncing the radio broadcasts up to TV, and my response has been that I don't need to. I like listening to the radio. Feels good to just hang out with these guys for a few hours.
— Most of the games are going on after the kids' bedtimes, so it's not like they are too invested in the 2023 Phillies, beyond the weekly Phillies dress-down days at their respective schools (which in turn remind me of the story that literally everyone has found fucking horrifying besides the social workers in my life, when I received a child abuse report on Super Bowl Sunday the year the Eagles won the whole goddamn thing, that a ten-year-old Philly kid tried to wear a Patriots jersey to school and got punched in the face by his mother... I've learned that it's only funny if you understand how minuscule the likelihood of such a story being true actually is, and are keyed in enough to treat this thing like what it actually is—a fictional and extremely Philadelphia myth... anyways, where was I?).
— Right, right, my kids. So I very delicately tried to explain to them why the city has a very small but still non-zero chance at hosting a parade sometime in the next couple weeks, and asked them (Willow and Martha) whether they'd want to go, if Philly was lucky enough to provide such an opportunity (while stressing over and over that it probably wouldn't happen because that kind of shit has only happened twice in my 34-year-long lifetime and they are young and still getting accustomed to the idea of life as a Philadelphia sports fan being a largely miserable one). Willow said no because she hates loud noises, and asked "are there going to be any guns?" She was referring to the Colonial reenactors at the Rockledge Fourth of July parade, but she inadvertently made a pretty good observation about how people in the suburbs are fucking pussies and if you want to get shot, you have a better chance of it in shit hole towns like Rockledge than in Center City Philadelphia during a championship parade, or even at like K&A, honestly. The only fucking losers who will have guns are the police officers who will be collecting obscene overtime rates for basically doing nothing (better that than scamming the city as part of an elaborate fake-injury scheme, again, I suppose).
— Speaking of the Northeast, part of the lore of the Phillies via my hometown friend group has traditionally been going to the local watering hole to watch the game with the boys, and for Game 2 of the NLCS, we ended back at the erstwhile McNally's. It's still called the Fox Chase Tavern, but it's under new owners since the last time Kev and I were there for a couple drinks two summers ago. I thought about writing a "review" on PoYB of the bar, but didn't want to overdo it; there would be no way to top the opener of "Iggy was dead to begin with," and all the nostalgia pieces that would no doubt be baked into such a piece were pretty much already covered in my interview with Dave. It was strange, being yet again at the bar of my youth. All my pals who were there have moved far away from this neighborhood (except Jim, and yes, the irony was noted of the only two people in drunken-walking distance from McNally's still as being the only two people who are no longer drunkenly walking anywhere... or maybe it's not irony, maybe the psychic pull toward sobriety gets stronger the closer you live to McNally's... I'm getting off-track again, sorry). In any case, it was nice having everyone back at the graveyard to watch the Phillies take on their opponent, just like old times.
My apologies, by the way, if this blog posts guarantees that the Phillies blow it in Games 6 and 7 (the former starting exactly one hour after this is published). Jinxes are real, and maybe Puke on Your Birthday is this team's Steve Bartman.
Whatever the case may be—stunning losses on the back of the black-winged Craig Kimbrel, an ill-fated return to the World Series against once-again-cheating opponents, or even an ultra-rare early-November parade down Broad Street—I'm finding satisfaction in listening to the games and rooting for the hometown team once again, and being invested in their story. Rather: their story, and my story, and the ways they intertwine.
— Most of the games are going on after the kids' bedtimes, so it's not like they are too invested in the 2023 Phillies, beyond the weekly Phillies dress-down days at their respective schools (which in turn remind me of the story that literally everyone has found fucking horrifying besides the social workers in my life, when I received a child abuse report on Super Bowl Sunday the year the Eagles won the whole goddamn thing, that a ten-year-old Philly kid tried to wear a Patriots jersey to school and got punched in the face by his mother... I've learned that it's only funny if you understand how minuscule the likelihood of such a story being true actually is, and are keyed in enough to treat this thing like what it actually is—a fictional and extremely Philadelphia myth... anyways, where was I?).
— Right, right, my kids. So I very delicately tried to explain to them why the city has a very small but still non-zero chance at hosting a parade sometime in the next couple weeks, and asked them (Willow and Martha) whether they'd want to go, if Philly was lucky enough to provide such an opportunity (while stressing over and over that it probably wouldn't happen because that kind of shit has only happened twice in my 34-year-long lifetime and they are young and still getting accustomed to the idea of life as a Philadelphia sports fan being a largely miserable one). Willow said no because she hates loud noises, and asked "are there going to be any guns?" She was referring to the Colonial reenactors at the Rockledge Fourth of July parade, but she inadvertently made a pretty good observation about how people in the suburbs are fucking pussies and if you want to get shot, you have a better chance of it in shit hole towns like Rockledge than in Center City Philadelphia during a championship parade, or even at like K&A, honestly. The only fucking losers who will have guns are the police officers who will be collecting obscene overtime rates for basically doing nothing (better that than scamming the city as part of an elaborate fake-injury scheme, again, I suppose).
— Speaking of the Northeast, part of the lore of the Phillies via my hometown friend group has traditionally been going to the local watering hole to watch the game with the boys, and for Game 2 of the NLCS, we ended back at the erstwhile McNally's. It's still called the Fox Chase Tavern, but it's under new owners since the last time Kev and I were there for a couple drinks two summers ago. I thought about writing a "review" on PoYB of the bar, but didn't want to overdo it; there would be no way to top the opener of "Iggy was dead to begin with," and all the nostalgia pieces that would no doubt be baked into such a piece were pretty much already covered in my interview with Dave. It was strange, being yet again at the bar of my youth. All my pals who were there have moved far away from this neighborhood (except Jim, and yes, the irony was noted of the only two people in drunken-walking distance from McNally's still as being the only two people who are no longer drunkenly walking anywhere... or maybe it's not irony, maybe the psychic pull toward sobriety gets stronger the closer you live to McNally's... I'm getting off-track again, sorry). In any case, it was nice having everyone back at the graveyard to watch the Phillies take on their opponent, just like old times.
My apologies, by the way, if this blog posts guarantees that the Phillies blow it in Games 6 and 7 (the former starting exactly one hour after this is published). Jinxes are real, and maybe Puke on Your Birthday is this team's Steve Bartman.
Whatever the case may be—stunning losses on the back of the black-winged Craig Kimbrel, an ill-fated return to the World Series against once-again-cheating opponents, or even an ultra-rare early-November parade down Broad Street—I'm finding satisfaction in listening to the games and rooting for the hometown team once again, and being invested in their story. Rather: their story, and my story, and the ways they intertwine.
3 comments:
“The graveyard.” Hmm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFVvuq67ST0
My promise to the city of Philadelphia is that I will never blog about the Phillies again.
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