Thoughts from NLDS Game 5, Steve Brown

Anyone can be a football fan.   17 games.   That’s the same as a season of “I Love Lucy”. I love football, sure, but let's face it, not a major investment of your imagination    

But to be a fan of baseball, you’ll live and die 162 times a year, and if you are a Phillies fan, it took every single one of them to find out if you’d see them again before spring.    This year, you suffered through 52 games waiting for your best hitter’s thumb to heal while an interim manager patched together a lineup with scotch tape and post-it notes and played wheel of fortune to select which pitcher to send out in the ninth inning to pretend to be a closer.  Your team is going to the World Series and they STILL don’t have a closer.  

It was three weeks ago that I couldn’t go to the last home game in Philly and couldn’t GIVE away my tickets on Facebook: no takers. 

The sudden shockwave of affection for this team is like finding an unknown relative, whose story is your story, but whose details you now are hungry to know.   

In that spirit of discovery, I relate these little moments, from last night's game that you might have missed:

The BooBoo

Alec Bohm was hit in the elbow by a 95 mph Yu Darvish fastball.   Out of the dugout hopped macho-man veteran slugger, Kyle Shwarber, who gave Bohm's booboo a "kiss it to make it all better" kiss. A sweetheart at the core.

The BEDLAM

When Harper hit that HOME RUN that Phillies radio announcer par-excellence Scott Franzke anointed in the moment as "BEDLAM AT THE BANK" & salvaged a game where even the ELEMENTS conspired against the good guys, and Seranthony Domingez couldn't grip the ball and wild pitched in the go-ahead run for San Diego, everyone wondered... Why did San Diego's manager have Rober Suarez face Harper, instead of Josh Hader, one of the premier closers in baseball? Answer: According to the San Diego Union Tribune Suarez who served up Harper's "Bedlam at the Bank" 99 mph outside fastball (an IMPOSSIBLE pitch for a Lefty to connect with, let alone hit as a home run the other way (as Harper definitely did, unless the earth is indeed flat)... Suarez had not given up a Home Run to a lefty ALL YEAR. Harper himself didn't know what he had just done. He froze and later said "I just did that" a statement and baffled question to a teammate.

The Babies

Zach Eflin, is one of the aforementioned rig-a-ma-jigged starting pitchers pressed into service as a (pretty good) closer. He wandered back onto the field after everyone was gone, no doubt soaked to the bone in champagne.   Not for the atmosphere but to meet up with his wife, Lauren.   She had posted a funny photo of Zack vacuuming with a plea to end the Spring Training lockout.   This time they were on the field to announce they are expecting identical twins (!), sonogram in hand, smiles for many reasons including the two that matter the most.   

(credit to Melissa for finding the sonogram moment)

The Love

I heard someone say that “these guys really love each other”.   Not in a “now that we are winners” moment either. In a tough spot.   There was a moment that told me that is true. 

The ACTUAL pitcher the Phils signed as a closer,  David Robertson was called on to close the game.   Even the weather itself conspired against the Righteous (the Phillies!).   It caused 3 wild pitches for the go-ahead run in the eighth.   Then Harper had his "BEDLAM AT THE BANK" smash.  a razor thin one lead needed to be guarded. On came Robertson and walked two after recording the first out.  Fear!  When Ranger Suarez finally induced two outs on two pitches, the final out was popped out and according to The Athletic, hung in the air for five seconds.   Castellanos squeezed the out, “Bedlam and the Bank” rang out with certainty.  But Castellanos held onto the ball and quietly gave it to Bryce Harper, telling him, “this is for you, this is your time!”   Love.  Family, friends, and neighbors.   That’s why a baseball fan suffers through.    

Love.