The Phillies Discover Their Fandom

These People Are Loud

This week, for the first time in 11 years, Philadelphia hosted playoff baseball and utterly crushed it. After two games of relentless offense, stunning fan volume and perfect weather, Atlanta was dispatched and the men in red moved on.

The wins were remarkable in many respects. Nearly every offensive player had a starring moment. The relievers, long the telltale sign that the Phillies organization wasn't ready for prime time, manned up -- even the ones that had failed before and recently. Phillies manager Rob Thomsen continues to have every decision, even the ones that seem a little questionable when he does them, work out. It's all been an amazing couple of weeks for a team that looked like they'd only make it to the playoffs if the Brewers stunk worse, and would get dispatched with prejudice

If you're an Atlanta fan (they exist?), I have no idea what to tell you. Your young stud players, some of them the envy of all MLB, just didn't show up. You have to love them anyway, even while the rest of the civilized world wonders how, in 2022, you still perform racist pantomimes as a rally event. Seriously. You also just got cheered and booed out of the playoffs while your star outfielder failed to cover an inside the park home run, because running is hard, I guess.

The joy of playoff baseball is that if you get in, anything can happen and usually does... which is why the NLCS will be the 5th seed (San Diego) against the 6th (Philly). Two or three of those games will be in Philadelphia, the only place in the world where baseball is seemingly life and death to a fan base that, up to two and a half weeks ago, had ample evidence that these guys were choke artists. 

Life. Amazing thing, isn't it?