PHILADELPHIA — Dave Shaw did not know anything about baseball when he arrived 10 years ago in Philadelphia for the final stop in a cross-country vacation. A friend had an extra ticket to a Phillies-Pirates game in June 2012, so Shaw took a cab to South Philly before flying home to England.
“I was a typical Brit,” Shaw said. “ ‘Oh, it’s just rounders, right? There’s nothing to it.’ But I figured I would go along and check it out.”
He was stunned by the size of the ballpark, the smells that wafted from the concessions, and how you could freely walk around the stadium, unlike the soccer matches back home where you’re usually confined to your seating area. And then he found his way to his seats in right field.
“We took our seats and I had no idea what was going on,” Shaw said. “I had someone explain it to me.”
He was quickly given the basics before being told to keep an eye on Chase Utley, whose jersey every fan seemed to be wearing that night. It was Utley’s first game of the season after spending three months on the injured list. Shaw was told that Utley was a legend as he stepped to the plate in the bottom of the first. And then the Brit found out why when Utley hit a home run just a few sections from where Shaw was sitting.
“The place went crazy and I was like ‘Whoa. This is amazing.’ I never had that experience before,” Shaw said. “The Phils lost the game, but that moment, that bit of magic, it was like, ‘Yeah. I’m in. This is my team.’ ”
And now Major League Baseball is hoping Utley can convert more Brits the way he turned the 35-year-old Shaw into a diehard fan. The Phillies icon moved earlier this month to England with his family to work as MLB’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. MLB will lean on Utley to spread the gospel of baseball to British fans before it returns next year for a regular-season series between the Cardinals and Cubs.
Now, 10 years after not knowing the difference between baseball and rounders, Shaw can make a case for being the United Kingdom’s biggest Phillies fanatic.
He regularly stays up past 3 a.m. to watch the Phillies, whose home games begin at 12:05 a.m. in England. Shaw returns to South Philly every summer to catch his team, runs a popular Phillies Twitter account, ran a half marathon in May wearing a full pinstripe uniform, and is already checking flights in case there’s a Red October. He’s a diehard Phillies fan in Southampton, England, and it all started with Utley.
‘A weird addiction’
Shaw, just like fans in Philly, finds himself starving for baseball by the time winter finally yields to spring. So he stays up every night in the beginning of the season, even if that means practically being on his way to work when the Phils close out a dramatic extra-innings win in May at Dodger Stadium.
But as the season rolls on, Shaw begins to pick and choose what games he’ll stay up for.
“You can’t do it all because it kills you, especially when you get older,” Shaw said. “But now as the Phils are getting hot and August and September are rolling in, it gets to that point where I can’t miss games. It’s like a weird addiction. During the week, it’s like, ‘I’m not going to watch this one. I’m going to go to bed, wake up, avoid spoilers, and watch the condensed highlights.’ Then as it gets to 11 o’clock, I go, ‘Maybe I can watch an inning or so.’ It’s a dangerous cycle.”
The late-night wins are invigorating, enough to power Shaw through the workday on little sleep. But staying up until 4 a.m. to watch a blown save?
“I’m very avoidable the next day,” Shaw said. “Just don’t come near me. The worst thing for us if I haven’t seen the game and I’m watching the condensed highlights in the morning and we’ve blown it, I have to carry that all day. You guys can sleep on that, wake up the next morning, and refresh. When we lost to the Mets after being six runs up? I woke up to that. That took me a day and a half to get over. I wanted the world to swallow me up.”
Shaw returned to South Philly the day after his first game to tour the ballpark and was in the seats again that night to watch another game. Utley hooked him. He bought an MLB video game when he returned to England as a way to learn the rules. There are followings in the U.K. of nearly every team, but Shaw believes he found the right squad.
“I cannot imagine if I followed another team or had gone to watch another team,” Shaw said. “I don’t think there’s a fan base like Philly. Everyone gives us a bad rep, but I don’t think people truly get Phils fans and the passion we have for this city and for all the teams.
“It’s unique and I love it and it reminds me of where I’m originally from in the U.K., which is up north in the country not far from Newcastle, which is a very similar city to Philly. They’re working class but they’re proud people and proud of their city. Just like Philly, sports is the heart of the city and people live and breathe with the sports. That appealed to me straight away the first game I was there.”
He flew to Philadelphia this June and was at the ballpark for Bryson Stott’s walk-off homer against the Angels. It was his first time back in South Philly since 2019 as the pandemic kept him away for two seasons. Like a true fan, he’s already dreaming about his return.
“I always book off work in October just in case we get there and I need to get back out there,” Shaw said. “I’m eyeing up those flights. It’s getting serious now. This year just feels legit. I’ve seen one winning season and a few September heartbreaks. I just want to see it. I’ve heard all the stories about the postseasons and the rally towels and how it gives you goose bumps. I’ve watched the videos and just want to experience it so badly.”
Just one beer
Baseball lags behind the NBA and NFL in popularity across the pond, but Shaw has seen tangible growth in recent years as pubs will regularly show MLB games and gloves and bats are found on store shelves. The Phillies even drafted a player this summer who played for the Great Britain national team.
Shaw was in London for both sold-out games in 2019 between the Red Sox and Yankees as nearly 60,000 fans packed London Stadium. That was massive, Shaw said, but the pandemic stunted the game’s growth in the U.K. by canceling the London Series for three straight years.
MLB announced it will return three times in the next four seasons starting with next June’s event. And Utley will do his best to drum up interest. There were rumblings before the pandemic about the Phillies playing the Mets in London so it would not be a surprise to see the two teams meet in England during one of the next few seasons. For Shaw, that would be a dream.
“With Chase coming over, I think the chances improve,” Shaw said. “The Phillies and Mets makes sense. Come on. The Mets are bound to come over as they’d bring a lot from the stateside. The Philly fans traveled in the thousands when the Eagles came to London. They’ll do it again for the Phils. It would be such a fun series because there’s never a dull moment in a Phils-Mets game. The Phanatic in London at Buckingham Palace? I can see it. The Phanatic and the queen.”
Shaw only caught the end of Utley’s career in Philadelphia, but that night 10 years ago provided Shaw a glimpse of what “The Man” meant to the fan base he is now aligned with. He has watched all of Utley’s highlights and replayed his World Series parade speech countless times, marveling at the roar of the crowd when Utley dropped his signature line.
Shaw was in the ballpark that night in 2012 almost by accident, simply looking for something to do at the end of a vacation. One swing by Utley turned him into a diehard. As Utley heads to Shaw’s home country to swing others toward baseball, the British fan would love to tell him about it.
“I just want to have a beer with him,” Shaw said. “Just one beer. Let me have five minutes with him. A picture, a chat, and one beer. That’s all I want.”
