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Around SBN: An Explanation For Some Of The Perplexing HOF Snubs

WE WIN!!!

by dajafi on Sep 30, 2007 4:54 PM EDT in News

What a day. What a team.

They were stouter than I was, that's for damn sure. I gave up probably twelve different times this year. They never did.

They overcame a terrible start, a barrage of injuries, pitching meltdowns by the dozen and some of the most harrowing, horrifying losses I can remember. They did it with the most potent offense they've ever mustered, led by a leadoff man whose power and speed would have made his hero, Rickey Henderson, proud--even if Rickey's currently changing into street clothes in a funereal Shea Stadium clubhouse. Backing him up was a second baseman who might be the most complete hitter in the game, a slugger from Central Casting who homered in five of the team's last six games, a centerfielder who hit .310 and proved he was more than a bloody face, and a left fielder who went from Public Enemy No. 1 to second-half savior.

And they owe a lot of this to the inarticulate but indomitable manager who never stopped believing in them.

What comes next? Who knows. To say "who cares" would be an overstatement--I want some damn rings--but this is just joy. Thanks for being a part of it with us, and stay tuned for the uncharted territory of the playoffs!

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Re: WE WIN!!!

Coming tomorrow - The Good Phight Playoff Coverage (TM). Whodathunkit???

by David S. Cohen on Sep 30, 2007 4:58 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

We just aren't ready for this!!! All hands on deck!

by WholeCamels on Sep 30, 2007 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

Wow. I'm speechless. Now it's time to take a big dump on the ghost of Joe Carter.

by Alex Falzone on Sep 30, 2007 5:03 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

It's such a different feeling from 1993, the first and only previous playoff appearance of my conscious life. That year was such a joy from beginning to end, such that the clinching game was a foregone conclusion. We were spoiled. This is a flawed team, but also better in so many ways. The happiness now is so concentrated and unlikely, I can't quite believe it. It doesn't feel right. This team was finished so many times. Every single win was profit from July on, I feel like I hit the lottery.

by WholeCamels on Sep 30, 2007 4:59 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

You got it. I am sitting here just dumbstruck by all this.

These guys have mental toughness beyond anything I've seen from a Philly team.

by dajafi on Sep 30, 2007 5:03 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

That last half inning when Myers walked out you knew he was invincible. The Nats could have sent up Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Hank Aaron and they couldn't have hit him. The will of the whole team, the whole season was in him.

Bleeding Green Nation Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Sep 30, 2007 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

You know, I think it's something related to toughness but slightly different - reports make it sound like they were pretty loose this morning before the game, just telling each other to go have fun. I'm not sure if that's an ability to deliberately block things out, or just an attitude you play the game with all along, or what, but I know that if I showed up to play today after yesterday's display, I would have been tenser than a snare drum. I dunno, maybe I would have gotten up at 3AM to start studying film of Jason Bergmann or something. But the Phils seem to have been pretty cool about things.

It's something about that pro athlete attitude that I have, of course, never experienced, but that the great ones all seem to have - they just go up there expecting to succeed no matter how poorly they've done in the past. I guess that's a kind of focus, and a variety of toughness.

by The Navigator on Sep 30, 2007 5:26 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I should add - there's a different quality that it takes to stay focused and determined over the long term, for all six months through a season with as many ups and downs as this one - and I think dajafi correctly pegs that quality as mental toughness.

by The Navigator on Sep 30, 2007 5:33 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

You hit it right on the head. It still feels strange and then every few minutes the reality hits you.

by PhoenixPhilly on Sep 30, 2007 5:21 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I gave up after the 8 run collapse to ATL. Thanks Phils for proving me wrong!

Bleeding Green Nation Philadelphia Eagles Blog

by JasonB on Sep 30, 2007 5:02 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

"They're dancing around the field now, but we'll see what happens when the time comes." - St. Paul LoDuca (Thursday, August 30, 2007)

by WholeCamels on Sep 30, 2007 5:13 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

the manner in which we won this division, and who we stole it from, makes it sweeter than anything that could possibly happen in the playoffs.

by gr on Sep 30, 2007 5:18 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I think I know how you feel, but I suspect that if we win a playoff round or two the memory of the regular season will recede somewhat. I'd feel differently if we had some kind of fierce rivalry/mutual hatred for the Mets, but they weren't cartoonishly evil. Hell, the Nats plunked more of our guys in the last two days than the Mets did in the whole set of series sweeps we had, IIRC. Carlos Ruiz in particular is going to be looking out for National blood next season.

Anyway, playoffs is playoffs. Like they say, no one remembers how the 2000 Yankees or 2006 Cards or 2005 White Sox got to the playoffs (which is to say, they backed in), just that they got there.

Having said that, if we don't go anywhere in the playoffs, we will still have very sweet memories of this September to fall back on.

by The Navigator on Sep 30, 2007 5:31 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

And the Rockies hold on to win! No Peavy in Game One!

by Seth @ The Good Phight on Sep 30, 2007 6:08 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I don't hate the Mets. I had a phone call after the game with my uncle, who does, and said, "It's like watching a bus full of people you hate go over the cliff."

Then I got a call from a very good friend (Alex, also known to The Nav) who's a huge Mets fan, congratulating me and blaming himself for the Mets collapse: he started law school last month and just hasn't had the time to devote. I told him they really should have picked him up, this once.

So I don't have the spite factor; if we'd beaten the Braves, or the Eagles taking out Dallas, that would be me.

It's just freakin' sweet, sweet beyond anything I can remember in thirty years of irrational sports fandom.

by dajafi on Sep 30, 2007 6:11 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I moved to the hellmouth (north Jersey) last year and spent the last six months dealing with snarky crap from Mets fans - "Team to beat," etc. so I'm not feeling as charitable as you, dajafi. I have some good friends who are gracious Mets fans so I don't go out of my way to gloat to and mock people I know personally and care about, but the fanbase as a whole can EABFD is how I feel.

by WholeCamels on Sep 30, 2007 6:38 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I was at the game. Hands down the best professional sporting event I've ever attended. Hands down.

Cheering -- incredible cheering -- from an hour before the game til an hour after.

My lord, when the Marlins went up 1-0, there was pandemonium. When 7-0 came around, you could not hear the PA announcer say "And now, here are your starting lineups."

It was that way the whole game. Not a down second. The best part for me personally was the second before Jimmy hit his 20th triple, I'd told the friends I was with that he was 1 triple shy of the 20-20-20-20 club, which had only 3 members (at that time). The next swing, he launches a line drive down the right field line and everyone knew he'd get 3. Truly an MVP performance.

Myers coming out was a foregone conclusion -- everyone was standing for every pitch, I think after his 1st pitch the letter "F" came up in RF at the Mets/Marlins game, and was immediately followed by a strike -- I'm pretty sure some people went insane with elation. Pande-freakin-monium. Then when the game ended, and the fireworks. Just incredible. Just phreaking incredible.

by Alon on Sep 30, 2007 6:21 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

great stuff!

by FuquaManuel on Sep 30, 2007 6:28 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I think it is silly to take joy in another team losing. We get on them for enjoying our misery.

I was so sick of hearing all this Mets have no honor or will to win. that, had the tables been turned and we lost and they won, I wanted them to win it all. Yeah, I know that would piss people off, but it just makes the "journalists" find a new approach on how to twist their words to make sense.

Back on topic...

GO PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by jonk on Sep 30, 2007 9:06 PM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I hope this Mets loss, and the Phils' win, gets brought up constantly for the next ten years whenever some media doofus starts blathering about playoff experience and how it's so crucial to have veterans who have been there and know what it takes and blah blah blah. Sure, we had Moyer and Gordon on the mound for the first six today, but Cole Hamels put us in first place in game 160, and Myers, Romero, Howard, Rollins, and Utley kept us there in #162 - not a playoff game among them, unless there's something about J.C. Romero I haven't realized. Meanwhile, John Smoltz threw away a ball in a game the Braves needed to stay alive, and today the team of Glavine, Wagner, Martinez, Beltran, and Alou completed a stunning collapse.

by The Navigator on Sep 30, 2007 11:40 PM EDT up reply actions

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JC actually has quite a bit of postseason exp, but it is a point well taken:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/gl.cgi?n1=romerj.01&post=1&t=p

And who would have thought, after all those years of torment by the Braves, that one of their HOF starters would literally throw a game away to us this week and their other would get pounded to open up the division lead for us today?

Sooooo sweet, go Phils!!

by das411 on Oct 1, 2007 12:44 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

I get your point and somewhat agree... but I also think Moyer brought something to the table in that game by virtue of his experience. Obviously it isn't determinative--as Glavine's start showed--but I was struck just now by reading that Moyer didn't even know the score of the Mets game until Manuel took him out. That's willpower and focus.

(Of course, Dobbs said the same thing, and he'd never sniffed the playoffs before. And maybe they're all just BS'ing us.)

by dajafi on Oct 1, 2007 11:04 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

If I remember the article correctly, so did Nunez.

by David S. Cohen on Oct 1, 2007 11:30 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

Well said, my friend.

Jamie

by JFLNYC on Oct 1, 2007 12:04 AM EDT reply actions

Re: WE WIN!!!

Congrats guys, you deserve it. I rooted for the Phils yesterday -- how could I not? I grew up in the Philly area and all of my friends are Phils fans. I hope you do win the series. Hopefully one day my O's can do it, too....

by exitfare on Oct 1, 2007 2:46 PM EDT reply actions

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