Opening Day Baseball

There are zillions of articles (like my precise, math way of expressing that?) on the Phillies opening day win, so I’m going to try to approach it from an non-sportswriter perspective.

I went to the game with my older daughter, a fan with an ‘f’ in the true sense of the word. This is good for me in a way, because I’ve seen a lot of baseball in my life and have gotten philosophical about it in the annoying way older baseball fans do after seeing thousands of wins and losses (yes, thousands- I estimate that I’ve attended around 1000 ballgames- 20 or so a year for 50 years- and have watched many more on TV). She lives and dies with every pitch.

It was snowing when I woke up and was still drizzling when we got to the ballpark, in spite of a promise via text message from the Phillies that the rain would have stopped by 11:45. We then had a choice- watch the misty festivities and get wet, or shop. We opted for shopping in the heated store. The temperature in the park was curiously inconsistent. In the seats, it was chilly but not unbearable, but in the concourse it was frigid because it was much windier, so the only time I got cold was when I went to get food.

It was crowded at the park, but not not overwhelming. I’ve been to enough sold out games there that I’m pretty used to it and so are the vendors. I never stood on line for more than a couple of minutes. Our three favorite vendors were still working our section, Marcus, who looks like a schlubby, bespectacled version of the Yankees’ Mark Teixeira, the “PISTACHIOS!” girl with the neon-dyed hair and extreme Philadelphia accent, and the program guy, who’s outside the park when we arrive and then ubiquitous inside, selling every non-food item he can carry. My two favorite beer stand ladies were there too, but in a nod to the temperature I limited myself to one from a closer, but still familiar man.

Like many Phillies fans, I’ve approach this season with a mix of anticipation of success and dread of what could go wrong. The spring injuries have not helped alleviate the dread part of the equation, but I could not put my finger on what was bothering me. Once the game was halfway through, it hit me.

For the first 6 innings, the Phillies played in a fashion that could best be described as lifeless. They did all the baseball stuff one normally does when playing, but without any noticeable spirit or verve (which do you mean Frank? Spirit or verve? Make up your mind). I suddenly recognized what they were experiencing- the crushing weight of expectations. Baseball is a game best played with joy. If you are not loving every minute of it, if you’re grinding your way through, you are not at your best. And that was the first 6 innings of Phillies. They looked grim. Baseball is not grim and cannot be played well by grim people.

By the way, I’m only talking about the players other than Roy Halladay, whose focus is keen enough that I don’t think the mood surrounding him really matters.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Phillies started with two hits. This caused much excitement in the stands and much woe with my game companion, because we were getting food at the time and had as a result missed all of the positive action there had been up to that point. We got back to our seats just in time to see two runs score, first on a long fly ball and the second on a groundout. This was not very exciting, but it was productive and exactly the kinds of runs that the Phillies struggled to score last year. A hopeful sign perhaps?

We got to the bottom of the ninth still behind 4-2, with the Phillies having gathered a paltry 4 hits over the first 8 innings.  About a third of the crowd had left. The weather had not improved and it had even drizzled a bit more, enough to get you damp though not enough to get you wet. Everyone left in the park was hanging on every pitch. I mentioned to my daughter that the Astros closer was not exactly an elite pitcher, but one who had done a good job the previous years in spite of no more than passable skills.

The first two batters hit singles. The pitcher seemed to be struggling both to throw the ball exactly where he wanted and to avoid contact. There were several foul balls but no swings and misses that I can recall. The next batter, fan favorite Raul Ibanez (he became Rauuuuuul two seasons ago after hitting a game-winning home run in the bottom of the 9th in a game I attended. They now play the “Ah-ooooooo” part of Warren Zevon’s classic “Werewolves of London” when he comes to the plate and the crowd howls along), hit a popup, invoking the enigmatic infield fly rule that only umpires seem to actually know.

This looked distressingly familiar, and it wasn’t improved by a mystifying play where Jimmy Rollins stole 3rd base and Ryan Howard, the runner on first dd not advance. Since we needed two runs, not one, this seemed pointless, but the next batter, Ben Francisco, known mostly as Jason Werth’s temporary replacement until top prospect Domonic Brown is ready, hit a single to score Rollins and send Howard to second.

This brought up another fan favorite, Carlos Ruiz, known as Chooch. It’s clear to me that fans simply like yelling things with OOOOO sounds. It used to be an occasional thing, dating back to Boog Powell, the former Oriole great and it was fun to say, “THey’re not booing, they’re saying Boog.” It’s kind of routine (pronounced ROOOOOOtine) now, thanks mostly to Broooooce Springsteen I think, but people still love Chooch. He sent a screaming line drive down the third base line, out of our line of sight. It landed foul, to everyone’s disappointment. He then hit a single to load the bases.

This brought up Wilson Valdez, who has done an admirable job filling in for injured players, but who last year was the player most likely to hit onto a double play in all of baseball. That was the big fear in all 30,000 of our minds, but he allayed our fears by hitting a game-tying line drive single that had every stranger within 10 feet of each other throwing semi-futile high-fives at each other.

We were all screaming at the top of our lungs at this point. My daughter had her arms outstretched, pleading to the heavens for one more hit. The Phillies now had more hits in the ninth inning than they had in the prior 8. Up came John Mayberry Jr. and I was in a quandary. What do I yell for him? John? Mayberry? John Junior? Then it struck me- JOOOOOOONIOR! And he obliged me and all the rest of us with a game-winning line drive single to center. More high ones and twos and palms and fists raised and celebration. And then just a bit of gloating over those fools who left early missed it, and then off to the parking lot we happily went.