The Phillies are the most fun team in sports, and if they played anywhere other than Philadelphia, it would be universally agreed upon.
The Phillies beat the Marlins 7-1 last night, and moved to the NLDS in the process. More importantly, Philadelphia fans are back to giving opponents four hours of hell. The Phillies played a Wild Card game last night. It was the most important thing happening in the city. You couldn’t generate that much excitement if you brought a truck full of free Nike elite socks to a public middle school in 2012.
The stadium was characteristically loud throughout the game, but there was a special moment at Citizen’s Bank Park last night. When Bryson Stott hit a grand slam to make the game 7-0, the stadium erupted. It was a great moment. To be honest I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten the Moneyball treatment yet. In that moment, all of Philadelphia knew we were moving on. We also saw the return of the inexplicable swagger that carried us through last October.
The Phillies are now moving on to face a much bigger test, the Atlanta Braves. It’s the same thing we saw last year. The Phillies make the playoffs in the last week of the season only to take down a juggernaut Braves team. It’s the reason Atlanta fans are so afraid of the Phillies. They can’t explain why they lost, so it doesn’t really matter how many games they won this season. If they drop one of the first two games in Atlanta, they’re going to be shaking in their boots by the time they get up to Philly.
As a lifelong Phillies fan, I know I have some pretty heavy bias when I say that Philadelphia has the best baseball fans in the world. That being said, it’s pretty clear that no one else in the league is coming close to matching our energy. The cheapest way a Philadelphia fan can see a game in this series is to fly down to Atlanta and buy a ticket for an away game. If that doesn’t prove the difference between Philly and everywhere else, I don’t know what does.
Until Saturday, here is a video of the Phillies getting drunk that I will be watching on repeat.
