I’ve Been Waiting Here For So Long….And All This Time Has Passed Me By
The year was 1993. The radio show itself was building in popularity, but unfortunately its host was unwell. By the time the middle of the year came upon me, I was in the hospital with liver and blood problems. Amidst my turmoil, my illness, the darkness, and even my spiritual moment of clarity, there were the Phillies. This team awakened the 8 year old in me. All of the sudden I was watching every game, every pitch, every article, every win, and every loss. The ’93 Phillies came out of the gate in April with a 17-5 start. Amazing. The Phillies never looked back. They distracted a city, and a young DJ from doing live and prerecorded radio shows. My cohorts at the radio station, Joe, Bobber, Hitman, Mollica, Kevin, and numerous others seemed to know something the public didn’t. The Phillies were going to the World Series. I remember staying up night after night watching extra inning games and even at one point, staying up till 2, 3, or 4am to watch some of those games. Whether I was at a shore house in Brigantine, a go go bar in Pine Hill, or in the confines of bed, I watched those Phillies. The Dude, Krukster, Dutch, Inky, Eisenreich, and so many other colorful characters. Life was so easy then. Well, kinda. I was still going to college full time, 2 radio shows, working at WMMR, my regular job at the bakery, and I had a girlfriend. By the time September rolled around, everything went southward. My car was a piece of shit, my girlfriend went off to school, my illness kept me out of WMMR due to doctor ordered rest, I had to take a semester off of school, the radio station was changing dramatically, and the gagliarchives were more prerecorded than live. But….there was the Phillies. I witnessed them win the division against Pittsburgh while in Williamstown, NJ. (ahhh Williamstown) I had felt at that point, nothing mattered. Just the Phillies. When the Phillies faced the Braves, I felt that they had a shot. I mean, on paper, the Braves were perfect. The Phillies? Flawed. Very flawed. But…a 4-3 Phillies win in game one made me believe. Well…at least until the next game. The Phillies were bitchslapped 14-5. Then of course was game 3, where the Phils' were hammered again, 9-4. At this point, I was ready to give up. But 10/10/93 was a game I wouldn’t forget. John Smoltz was pitching for the Braves, and Danny Jackson was pitching for the Phils'. Only Danny wasn’t ripping his shirt off. The Tomahawks took an early 1-0 lead on a Mark Lemke double, but the Phillies went on top in the fourth inning with two unearned runs. Atlanta had baserunners throughout the rest of the game, but could not get a clutch hit as the Phillies hung on to win 2-1. Phillies closer Mitch Williams allowed the first two runners to reach in the ninth, but a double play helped him get out of it and earn the save. The series was even at 2-2. On Monday October 11th, 1993, I was a nervous wreck. To add insult to injury, my brakes were starting to go on my Plymouth (U.S.S. Reliant). So on top of that stress, I had to watch this team that not only evened the series, but decided to prolong the torture and go extra innings in game 5. Are you kidding me? I should have just had an iv of Mylanta put directly into my veins. Curt Schilling was a gem. He had 9 strikeouts, and had a 3 zip lead moving into the 9th and he started getting a bit shaky. Wild Thing came in to relieve him but alas, Francisco Cabrera tied the game on an RBI single. The Braves had so many chances to win the game, but Mitch did it. In the tenth, Lenny “Nails” Dude” Dykstra hit a solo home run off of Mark Wohlers, and Larry Andersen retired Atlanta finishing the game. We beat those smug bitches in Atlanta. God that felt good. The series would return to Philadelphia. The Braves were shaking scared. They decided to go with their ace in Greg Maddux. Then the unthinkable happened. Mickey Morandini hit a bullet and it popped Maddux right in the leg. HAHAHAHAHA. (all is fair in love and sports)He was never right after that. Darren Daulton hit a two-run double in the third and Dave Hollins connected for a two-run homer in the fifth, putting Philadelphia on top 4-1. Morandini's two-run triple in the sixth finally chased Maddux. Atlanta shortstop Jeff Blauser had an ugly home run to make it 6-3, but Wild Thing finished the Braves with a perfect ninth. My brakes grinded as I pulled up at my parent’s house, but boy did I ever celebrate. It was something I witnessed. My Phillies were going to the World Series. Later that night, I painted the Phillies logo on the back of my K car, with Tug’s famous quote, “Ya Gotta Believe!” And I did. I watched the Phillies climb into the front seat of the World Series against Toronto. In game 1, the Fightins' had 4-3 lead, but would lose 8-5. Ok, ok. We’ve lost game one before. They bounced back to take game two 6-4. But the next game would be a harsh reality. The Phillies would get crushed at home 10-3. Danny Jackson sure wasn’t ripping his shirt after that. Not to mention, I could hear my brakes in my car ripping into my drums. The next game was a wild one. I had mustered up a concept of just driving using my emergency brake to go out to see ball games. (I know, whadya expect, I was 21.) I decided to drive to the now burned down gogo bar called The Mad Hatter in Pine Hill, NJ with Reggie, my first program assistant, to see game 4. I think it was the only time in my whole life, that I was paying attention to the Phillies over scantly dressed women shaking their tits in front of me. First it was 3-0 Blue Jays, then 4-3 Phillies. Then 6-3 Phillies. Then 7-6 Blue Jays. Then by the end of the 4th inning, the Phillies tied it at 7-7. This is when the game got crazy. The Phillies would score 5 runs in the bottom of the 5th and take a 12-7 lead. But it wasn’t over. After 4 beers and every girl hanging on Reggie while blocking the television intermittently, the Phillies lost 15-14. That game was the crusher. Schilling would be a gem for game 5, and silence the Jays with a 2-0 win. The series would be coming back to Philadelphia. The Phillies would have Terry Mulholland on the mound. He had been solid all year, but we really needed him now. In the seventh inning, Philadelphia fought back down 5-1, with five runs to take a 6-5 lead. Lenny Dykstra hit a three-run home run, Dave Hollins had an RBI single and Pete Incaviglia hit a sacrifice fly. The inning brought an end to Stewart's night, leaving the game with six innings pitched and four runs given up. As my brakes seized in my Reliant, so did the Phillies. Joe Carter would hit a home run for the Blue Jays giving them the 6-5 win, and ultimately, the 4-2 series win. I watched the home run whilst sitting in the kitchen of the Mount Laurel restaurant La Grotta Azzura. My brother and I both put our heads down. He threw a pan across the kitchen, and unexpected tears rolled down my face. I called my mom, who was clearly distraught. My father was silent. My car fell apart, leading to my next vehicle, 1987 Dodge Charger. By the time the 1994 season started, the Phillies were a mere shell of the season before. They changed their uniforms for home games which pissed off their fans, and they just stopped hitting. John Kruk got ‘ball’ cancer and the Phillies never recovered from a 54-61 start and then baseball went on strike. At least the Phillies were still technically the defending National League champions. The Phillies in 1995 had a promising start, but fell apart midway through the season. The seasons pretty much sucked until the end of the 90’s. By the dawn of the current decade, the Phillies started showing a little promise. Lieberthal was a good young catcher, Bobby Abreu was a power hitter, and the Phillies drafted a promising Scott Rolen for 3rd base. This meant nothing. Curt Schilling would later leave to head to a World Series contender, and Larry Bowa would take over as head coach. The Phils would have a great season in 2001, that resulted in a second place finish, then 80-81 in 2002, 86-76 in 2003 and 2004, and then 2005 and 2006 they would finish in 2nd AGAIN, including 1 to 2 games out of the wild card in those years finishing with respective winning records 88-74 and 85-77. You have to be hard as nails to be a Philadelphia fan. Especially for the Phillies.
Muck The Fetts Part IV
I made a vow to myself not to get too excited about the Phillies this year. Jimmy Rollins started spewing out in the winter that the Phillies would be the team to beat. DUDE. SHUT UP. Bold statement to make, but that’s Jimmy. I love him to death, but dude, please don’t start shit with the Mets from now. It’s not even preseason yet. The Phillies began the 2007 season with a 5-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves after 10 innings. After the first fifteen games, the Phillies limped to a 4-11 record, but then found a five game winning streak to put them back into contention in the National League East. Meanwhile, I found myself punching my monitor night after night. First the Eagles let me down, now you too? Are you kidding?? But things started looking up. After 40 games, the Phillies finally reached the .500 mark at, 20-20. Ok, nothing special, but at LEAST we are .500. Then all the sports dopes around the country were gloating on the fact that we lost our 10,000th game to the Cardinals. Whoopdie fucking doo. Is that all you have? You want to rip us for that? Are you kidding? BY THE WAY YOU DOPES, THE PHILLIES HAVE BEEN AROUND SINCE 1883! Our worst seasons were the first quarter of the century. Granted. They only went to the World Series in 1915, 1950, 1980, 1983, and 1993. And yes we only won one of them, but come on. Find something new to rip on us about. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay has had a colossally horrendous start as a newer expansion team in the major leagues. Christ, even a train stops, ya know? So all the New York dopey fans talked their trash all year. Friends, co-workers, sports writers, all of 'em. Just kept riding our team's awful past. Laughing at us, making us the butt of their jokes, while most of the Philly fanbase kept quiet. I read the message boards every night on the Phillies site, and then started reading the website for the ‘other New York team that’s not the Yankees.’ I started to noticed a little over confidence from their fans. But what I started to notice was, the Mutts were really not as good as the media was making them out to be. Heading into the All-Star break, the Phillies split their win/loss record at 44-44. Then more great news. Loser, lowlife and thief Freddy Garcia went down, as did John Lieber. They found a bright spot in young pitcher Kyle Kendrick, who rose from the Phillies' AA team in Reading, Pennsylvania and started to show some promise. Not to mention, a few Phillies were named to the 2007 All Star Game in San Francisco, CA. Chase Utley was the starting second baseman for the National League and center fielder Aaron Rowand was named as a backup (his first All Star appearance). Starting pitcher Cole Hamels also appeared in his first All Star Game.
There were so many highlights. You may remember that many times in previous blogs and radio programs that I was either way up on them, or way down on them. But as I said in March, and many times on the radio show, I felt something was a bit special with this line up. By the time I was en route to Montreal, the Phillies were seven games behind the New York Mets in the National League East, and it appeared as if all hope was lost. But the greatest thing humanly possible happened to just reconfirm to me that there is a God. 'The other New York team that’s not the Yankees' were amidst one of the greatest sports collapses in history. I just didn’t realize it at the time. When you are a fan of Philadelphia, you are used to things NEVER going your way. It’s not something made up, it’s known nationally, even internationally! When people want to insult our baseball team, they always grasp at the 10,000 losses, or the 1993 World Series, or the J.D. Drew and Scott Rolen debacle, blah, blah, blah, etc. You get the idea. But what was most referred to in reference to insulting Phillies fans was the epic collapse of the 1964 Phillies. Better known as the "Phold of 1964." My father used to go quiet when it was brought up. You could see a wave of nausea sweep over him on the topic. I obviously was not alive for this, but it still hurts knowing the details. The 1964 Phillies, who had risen in the standings each of the previous two years, traded to get Jim Bunning from the Detroit Tigers to give them the edge in their pitching staff and he was worth his weight in gold by winning 19 games. But with just over a week to go in the season, the Phillies, with Bunning, Johnny Callison, and a rookie third baseman named Dick Allen, led the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis by 6 1/2 games with 12 to go. Chico Ruiz stole home. They lost 10 in a row and got swept in a three-game series by the Cardinals who finished one game ahead of the Phillies. It was awful. It killed the city that had no championships to begin with since their inception in 1883. Ugh. How awful. But justice would be served. After my infamous trip to Montreal, the scum bag, whiney, low life Mets went 4-11 over the next fifteen games while the Phillies had the run of a lifetime going 12-3. The Phillies defeated the Mets in eight consecutive awesome games and ultimately overtook the Mets by one game on September 28. The Phillies fell back into a first-place tie the following day(because of a guy with the name Chico...ahhhhhh!) with a Mets win and a Phillies loss, with only one game remaining in the regular season to decide the champion of the National League East. Jodi had called me a month before to tell me that she had tickets for the last out of the year. A month before I figured, well, by then, it won’t mean anything but at least we can say thanks for a thrilling season. Who would have known that the last game of the season would be the most important game in 14 years? As we arrived at the game that Sunday, I was in a fog. (I am always in a fog after the show on Saturday night). But this is what it would all come down to. The Mets thumped the Marlins the day before and the Phillies were beat by the Nationals the day before. I was pretty much expecting the Phillies to lose this game because it’s like…part of the script, ya know? Our seats were excellent, and we were so close to the field that I would have scared Ryan Howard if he batted righty instead of left. We were in the VIP section which made it even better. We stopped to get food while the beginning of the Mets game had started against Florida. Glavine was to be the starting pitcher. We ordered some food, I grabbed some beers for us and I started drinking heavily and quickly. I wanted it to be quick and painless in case the Phillies lost. But as we watched the Mets/Marlins game, the Marlins were pounding them. 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 5-0, 6-0, 7-0. It was only the first inning. People inside the restaurant were going nuts. We all felt it. My hairs started to stand up. Was I going to witness history?!? Wait, the Phillies haven’t even played yet. Once we got to our seats, the Phillies park staff started handing out collage pictures of Jimmy Rollins, the same man that said in the winter that we would be the team to beat. It was chilling. The dinosaur on the mound, Jamie Moyer, would pitch a boring gem in shutting down the Nationals 6-1. But more people were going nuts at how bad the Mets were losing as the innings grew on the scoreboard.




I waited my whole life for this.




My eyes started welling. The last pitches were thrown, and the electricity in the stadium was on maximum. It was the greatest thing I ever witnessed in my life at a game. Next to beating the New York Giants in 2002 in 10 degree weather after being down 2 touchdowns. I would never forget this. I cried as the last strike was called. I admit it. That was it. It was over. 14 years of frustration were gone. Most of the ghosts were forgiven. But the 1964 ghost was finally put to rest and exorcised. The Mets would lose their final game of the season while we won. That’s right, we won. We did it. You lose. What touched me was knowing that 44 year old Jamie Moyer, who in 1980 skipped a day of high school to attend that year's Phillies championship parade down Broad Street just happened to be the guy on the mound in the most important game of the year. It was a celebration. It was a party. Nothing could hurt me that day. Would you believe I didn’t even care that the Eagles lost to the dirtball, 2000 postseason cheating ‘listening to opposing teams play calls on scanners’ Giants? Justice was served. The beauty of it all is that, yeah, we got swept by a red hot Rockies team that ultimately was cooled down in the World Series by the 'Sox, yeah we probably won’t sign Aaron Rowand to a new contract, and yeah we probably won’t get Schilling or Lowell. But I will tell you this. We beat out the Mets. All that shit talking and harassing banter we experienced for all the years leading up to it finally put the icing on the cake. Their collapse was worse than ours was in ’64. They were in first place all year. And we did it. We took it from you with a shaky pitching staff going down the stretch. I don’t know what was funnier, how they talked shit all the way through the season in the media, radio, message boards, or that their marketing department thought it would be great to use the slogan “Your Season Has Come” to their fans. You are damn right it came. The Mets collapse would be greater than 1964. There you go New York, your memorable season has come. In 2050, after the Phillies have won their (ugh) 3rd World Series title to the Sacramento Angels, people will always refer to the colossal collapse of the 2007 Mets. Driving home from the game that night I listened to the NY station WFAN. It was the best radio I have ever heard in my life and I'm a DJ. To hear these fans calling and saying that the Phillies didn’t deserve to win it just made me smile even more. How does it feel bitch? You like it? WELCOME TO OUR WORLD. Tom Glavine wasn’t even somber about it. He was like, ‘yeah, whatever’. So what did Lodoosha have to say about this? Nothing. Except, “I don’t want to talk about it, WHAT DID I SAY? I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.” What was funnier was how mad the radio hosts were when a Yankees fan called in to gloat. So awesome. I found new respect for the Yankees. That’s right Mets fans. Eat shit. So what we were swept by the Rockies? YOU HAD THE WORST COLLAPSE EVER IN BASEBALL. Thank you god, I loved it. I wanted to taste their tears I loved it so much. I think us getting swept was actually good because it made Mets fans even more upset. God that was awesome. Maybe this will teach them to be a little more humble and quiet. Probably not. If you think I am being harsh, go read the Mets message boards, or go read their beat writers. I will say I only felt bad for some of their realistic fans that weren’t arrogant like 90% of their fanbase. I actually had respect for the ones that called WFAN and said, “hey, the Phillies deserved it.” There is nothing in the world like seeing a New York fan sad. Nothing. People say I am cruel. I respond with, 25 years. Sometimes I even respond with, Sixers 1983, Phillies 1980, Flyers 1975, Eagles 1960 (there wasn’t a Super Bowl then you dopes). So for me to see it happen to a NY fan? It’s almost as good as winning one. I mean that. Justice was served. God the taste was so sweet. Fuck The Mets.
Here's some great reading material. Please enjoy. I did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/sports/baseball/01mets.html
http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spjim1001,0,3834541.column
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2007/10/01/2007-10-01_mets_fans_driven_to_tears_as_oncemighty_.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dII71bNceg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKMm6i-6-Ws