PHILADELPHIA — All around you was a scene so familiar that it somehow felt new. The names on the jerseys, the uniform numbers, the family members who squirmed in their arms and clutched at their knees — all of it looked different than the last time around. All of it except for their faces, each of them coated in that stupefied glaze.
As dusk spread across Citizens Bank Park, the infield grass pulsed with an energy a decade-plus in the making, Rhys Hoskins looked out across the swarm of well-wishers around him and up toward a sellout crowd that was not about to leave.
“I want more,” the Phillies first baseman said. “I want more of it.”
It is addicting, isn’t it?
The line between belief and confirmation is not always obvious on the journey between the two. Whether they knew it or not, whether they understood its implications, this was the threshold that the Phillies crossed around 5:25 p.m. on Saturday afternoon when Seranthony Domínguez’s sinker missed Travis D’Arnaud’s bat and clinched the organization’s first National League Championship Series berth since 2010. A belief in oneself is important. More important is being right.
By the top of the ninth inning on Saturday afternoon, an entire stadium had long since surrendered to a reality that these Phillies had long ago embraced. They had watched a former gas can of a reliever record five of the biggest outs of his career. They had watched a Game 2 goat continue his transformation into a postseason hero. They had sung the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and “God Bless America,” and Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own.” They did not need to see Domínguez strike out D’Arnaud to know that the Phillies were headed to their first NLCS since 2010. They were already with them. They believed.
That, right there, is what the Phillies accomplished with their 8-3 series-clinching victory over the Braves in Game 4 of the National League Division Series. Barely five months ago, a moment like this seemed as distant as it had been at any point in time over the previous 11 years. Eight games below .500, another manager on the way out, a ballpark aching for the days of sellout crowds.
“First day being here, I saw how into it the crowd was,” said Brandon Marsh, whose three-run home run broke the game open in the second inning. “And I know how bad they want it, just as bad as we wanted it.”
Still, they had to show it. And that’s what they did.
The best part is watching an entire stadium arrive at the realization that it believes. Flash back through the eras and that’s what you’ll find. It’s more fun when nobody is entirely sure, when every pivotal moment unfolds against a backdrop of incredulity, that self-preserving buzz in the back of their minds reminding them of what can happen when you step to the edge and dive. The beginning is when the memories cut deepest, because you can feel them start to form.
Back when Bryce Harper first arrived in Philadelphia, it was supposed to mark the start of a new era. In reality, that era started on Saturday night. Baseball was dead. Now, it was not. This was the moment that the next generation arrived.
“I think that’s always been the goal, to get to where we are right now,” Harper said. “But to get even further than that. This is Step 2 in what we’ve been through. Step 1 being the wild card; this being Step 2 and then we’ve got two more.”
The players who turned the page were the ones who most deserved to: Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Hoskins, Harper. They walked into St. Louis and won two games. They walked into Atlanta and beat the defending champs and their No. 1 starter in Game 1. And they’ve spent the last two days shattering any doubts that might have remained. Give them credit as a team. They have recaptured a city.
“I think the city captured us,” manager Rob Thomson said. “To see what, what is it, 46,000 people, can do, to motivate a club and just the passion they have for the ballclub. And it was incredible. So loud. And from the first pitch of the game to the last pitch of the game, they never — they were like the club. They were just relentless, and just kept going and going. And it helps the players so much. It motivates them. It gives them confidence. It was a really special couple of days. Can’t wait to get back.”
There will be more where that came from, whoever the opponent happens to be. On Saturday night, though, it was time for celebration. The players filed from the field to the clubhouse, grabbing their goggles and bottles of champagne. At the back of the pack, Hoskins said to nobody in particular, “How much fun is this going to be?”
