In October 1980, a young pitcher from suburban Philadelphia by the name of Jamie Moyer was among the million or so people on hand to watch a victory parade in honor of the Philadelphia Phillies, who had just won their first World Championship in the nearly century-old history of a Major League baseball franchise inurred to winning and accustomed to disappointing its long-suffering fans year after year after year.
On the last day of September 2007, that now 44-year-old pitcher, an old man by baseball standards, reached deep into his bag of tricks and set up the Phillies -- who earlier in the season had lost a Major League record-setting 10,000th game -- to keep playing into October for the National League crown and perhaps another World Series appearance.
By the end of an afternoon and season of schizophrenic excitement, Most Valuable Player shoo-in Jimmy Rollins had turned Moyers' mandate into a 6-1 victory over the Washington Nationals with a brilliant day at the plate and on the basepaths before an ecstatic, rally towel waving SRO-only crowd at Citizens Banks Park in South Philadelphia, a mere city block from where the 1980 victory parade began.
A one-game playoff today with the New York Mets was avoided when the collapsing Mets, who had led the NL East for over four months until they were overtaken by the streaking Phillies, choked yet again in an 8-1 loss to the Florida Marlins at Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens, to finish the 162-game season one very thin dime of a game behind the Phils.
On Wednesday, the Phillies will play the winner of the San Diego Padres-Colorado Rockies wild-card game today.
More here on the Phillies win and here on the Mets collapse.
Photograph by Tom Mihalek/The Associated Press
5 comments:
that young man sure got his business done.
did i just hear manager charlie end his champagne-doused locker room interview on tv by saying 'fuck it?' must be a pal of bono's.
A Moyer-related point: Back in the early ‘90s when he was pitching for the (I think) Expos, I saw Moyer take a no-hitter into the 9th against the Phillies.
He got a standing ovation from the Philly fans after the Phils finally got a hit.
Very nice --
Who thought that the Phils would be playing like the Eagles, and the Eagles like the Phils, at this point in time ???
Congrats to all of Philadelphian lineage, swatters, pitchers, bloggers and all.....
Spirits willing...my BoSox will be happy to see you come in second in a couple of weeks.
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