And just like that, Phillies Phans

It never really began. One victory sandwiched by defeats and garnished with the end to their season? No, the machine ran down and died. Just like that.

I confess to you, my brothers and sisters in Philadelphia baseball, that I greatly sinned. After the Mets rattled off six unanswered runs in Game 3, I quit drinking Yuengling, the talismatic beer whose magic didn’t fail so much as it failed to show up. I lost faith. Our boys lost. Yesterday, with a sinking feeling that foretold the eventual outcome of Game 4, I didn’t watch the game, and I didn’t drink the final Yuengling in the fridge. There it is, Philly. You can blame me–although there are more than one million folks in SE Pennsylvania who certainly felt more pessimistic than I.

Now I face my most depressing season without the solace of fan-fueled postseason baseball. I detest cold weather, and autumn’s ever-cooling presence reminds me of it, like one of those guests who comes to the party late, immediately begins to suck the joy from the festive partygoers, drives away the liveliest guests first, and eventually leaves you alone in your cold, wintery room. Autumn’s first cold mornings might look pretty, but they signal the beginning of the end for summer’s warmth. I need the hopes of postseason baseball. When baseball’s postseason rolls around, fans fall into three groups: those whose teams weren’t expected to make it and didn’t; those whose teams were expected to make it and didn’t; and those who have varying degrees of hope that this time we’ll go all the way. When teams drop out of the postseason, as the Phillies just did, their fans join the middle group, the Group of Dashed Hopes. At times like this we say, “I would rather they were an up-and-coming team that wasn’t expected to make the postseason than to think they were going all the way only to watch them crash and burn.”

Of course, this isn’t true. Phillies fans suffered through two lengthy periods where year after year it seemed no one in charge had a plan for making the team better. I’m talking about the years 1994-2004 after 1993’s appearance in the World Series (the Joe Carter game!), and the period from 2012-2019 following the five-year run of 2007-2011. We know that having no hope tastes worse than this, a bland meal which becomes ever more unpleasant as the season unfolds. (Ask a White Sox fan.) But to savor a .586 season and the first division title in a dozen years, only to be served this…this…what can we call a 1-3 performance in their first round? Something steaming for sure. And to the Mets! There are many insufferable fans in baseball, but the ones who flood your ballpark from barely more than 100 miles away? Who fill your ballpark with their “Let’s go, Mets!” chants? Who have thrown beverages and even batteries at players (1999, John Rocker, Atlanta Braves) and yet somehow dodged the rep while it sticks to Phillies fans like an undeserved judgment? No, please, not to the Mets.

All because I failed to drink a Yuengling? Surely there are greater sins, oh gods of baseball. Give me back my joy. Make this autumnal chill release its grip on my baseball heart. Send me a reason to hope again.