The top three moments of the decade in Philadelphia sports are now here. While the rest of the list has been full of incredible events, these last three basically defined Philadelphia sports from 2000-2009. This moment is honestly the most improbable out of any on the list, and some may have argued for it to be Number 2.
Moment #3: The Phillies complete their comeback by winning the National League East: September 30, 2007
On September 12, the Phillies lost to the Colorado Rockies, 12-0, putting them seven games behind the National League East leading New York Mets with just 17 games to play in the regular season. With a three game series against the Mets starting on September 14, the 2007 season looked like it would go down the same path that almost all of the Phillies' seasons had gone down during the decade. Aside from the 2000 season, the Phillies had always been close to making the playoffs, but fell just short.
In 2007, something else happened. Behind the strength of Jimmy Rollins, who came out and said that the Phillies were the team to beat in the National League East in 2007, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, the Phils began to climb out of the hole they were in. They beat the Rockies on September 13, then swept the Mets, putting them just three and a half games back. For the next two weeks, the Mets were able to keep the Phillies two and a half to a game and a half back, and going into the last week of the season, it still looked like the Mets were going to be able to win the division. Then, the Mets forgot how to win, while the Phillies couldn't lose. New York dropped five straight games, and the Phillies took three of their next four games to actually take a one game lead. The Mets were able to tie the division again with a win and a loss by the Phillies on Saturday, September 29, setting up the 162nd game of the season as the most important. If one team lost, all it would take for the other team to win the division would be one more win.
The Mets game against the Florida Marlins actually started a half an hour earlier than the Phillies game against the Washington Nationals, and I remember watching Tom Glavine get out on the mound for the Mets and get absolutely shelled. The Marlins sent 12 batters to the plate in the first inning, and after Glavine hit Florida pitcher Dontrelle Willis with a pitch with the bases loaded, he left the game. Florida scored seven times in that first inning, and with each run the Marlins scored, Citizens Bank Park grew louder and louder. The fans could see the scoreboard and knew that the Mets were done. Jamie Moyer started for the Phillies in their most important game of the decade up to that point.
The ageless Moyer did exactly what he had to do that day, pitching 5 and a third innings of five hit, one run baseball. He struck out six before giving way to the bullpen. Meanwhile, the offense wasn't going to wait around on this day. They started scoring runs early. Jimmy Rollins started out the game with a single, then stole second and third base before scoring on a Chase Utley sacrifice fly. Ryan Howard scored two runs on a bases loaded single in the third inning, and that would be all the Phillies would need. They would score three more runs in the later innings, but Moyer and the bullpen did their job. The Mets game against the Marlins came to a close with the Marlins winning 8-1, and with the Phillies leading 6-1 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning, everyone watching the game, whether they were at the stadium or watching at home, could feel what was about to happen.
Brett Myers, who started the season as the Opening Day pitcher before being moved to the bullpen, came out to close the game. He struck out Dmitri Young, then got Austin Kearns to fly out to Michael Bourn in left, putting the Phillies one out away from a division title. Wily Mo Pena stepped to the plate, and the crowd at Citizens Bank Park somehow got even louder. Myers quickly fired two strikes before Pena took a ball. Then, with over 44,000 people standing and cheering, Myers threw a curveball past Pena for strike three. The Philadelphia Phillies, who were seven games out of first place with just two and a half weeks of baseball left to play, had come all the way back and won the National League East for the first time since the 1993 season. Myers threw his glove into the air, and the team stormed onto the field around him. After years of coming up just short, this time, the Phillies really were the team to beat.
Looking back on that run in 2007, it's amazing to see how much of the 2008 season really started then. The Phils showed heart that I had never seen out of a Phillies team, and even though they were swept out of the playoffs by the Colorado Rockies, they had gotten that taste of the playoffs that would carry over into the next season. Jimmy Rollins ended up winning the MVP in 2007, largely on the strength of those last two and a half weeks of the season. While he had a career year in 2007, if the Phillies hadn't made good on his "team to beat" statement, I doubt he would have been named MVP.
You really can't appreciate how improbable the comeback the Phillies made was until you put it into comparison. Only two other teams in baseball history had ever made up a seven game deficit in the last month of the season, and no team had failed to make the playoffs after having a seven game lead that late into the season...until the 2007 Mets came along. The Phillies hadn't made the playoffs in 14 years, while the Mets finished a game away from the World Series in 2006. The Phillies allowed 821 runs, and had a team ERA of 4.76. No one thought that this team had enough pitching to carry them to the playoffs, and yet they made it. Hardly anyone thought that Charlie Manuel was smart enough to manage a Burger King, let alone a major league baseball team, but he did everything right down the stretch. The Phillies had possession of first place for just two days during the entire season, but one of them was on the day when it mattered the most. In the end, while people may argue that the Mets were the better team in 2007, the Phillies stood alone on top of the division.
The end of the 2007 season officially brought baseball back to the forefront in Philadelphia. For most of the decade, the Phillies had been an afterthought, a team that was always nice to drop a couple of bucks on tickets to go see, but no one ever thought that they could win anything. Afterall, this was a team that had won a single World Series in over 100 years, so it wasn't like people were expecting much. This season changed all of that, and by the end of the 2008 season, Philadelphia was a baseball town. That's what this moment means to the city and the fans of Philadelphia.
Here is Wily Mo Pena's at bat to end the game. I've hardly ever heard a crowd get as loud as they did when Brett Myers struck him out.
The final two moments are coming up. Moment Number 2 brings the Eagles front and center again, and proves that even after three years of failure, a fourth try at success can be very, very sweet.
No comments:
Post a Comment