IS GLAD SPRING TRAINING IS FINALLY HERE
This was a wilder celebration than when the Phillies clinched their division a few weeks ago. How could it not have been, given this wild series, and the way they won tonight? I don’t have to tell you anything about how intense and beautiful those past two ballgames were; whether you are a Phils fan, a baseball fan, or a prematurely jaded scribe, this was sports at its finest and most dramatic.
The series offered an uncommonly generous dose of drama. Cliff Lee began his postseason career with a Game 1 dazzler. Cole Hamels’ wife went into labor during his Game 2 loss. Snow and freezing temperatures postponed Game 3, and when they finally played Sunday night, Lidge saved a tense 6-5 win in record-setting cold.
And then this one. You can read more about it in the game story; inside the clubhouse, I witnessed several genuine moments. First, there was an exhausted Ruben Amaro Jr. talking watching with his brother David.
When the Phillies allowed three runs in the eighth inning last night, their first-year general manager resigned himself to logistics.
“I was thinking about the flight home,” he said an hour later, standing in the corner of a wild visitor’s clubhouse at Coors Field, quiet and exhausted. “Thinking about whether Cole (Hamels) would be ready for a Game 5 start, and about how tough it would be to stop their momentum.”
When they won, the Amaros fell into a long embrace. “It felt like we were hugging for five minutes,” said Ruben Amaro. “My brother and I are very close. This was special.”
Then there was Brad Lidge, who is actually fulfilling his predictions of a postseason that will wipe out his awful summer. A
“This one is pretty special,” Lidge said, when asked to compare this postseason triumph to others. “Not that last year’s division series wasn’t…but to do it two nights in a row, being in front of the home crowd, that was pretty special.”
And then there was Ruiz, a good man who feels deeply for his pitchers, talking about Lidge:
“I really feel it’s the Brad Lidge from last year,” he said, twisting his face to imitate Lidge’s fierce mound stare. “He was so confident on the mound. Now we’re pitching. We tried to force it before, but now it’s like—” after searching for the perfect word, the catcher just snapped his fingers and smiled.
Bob Brookover and Matt Gelb team up for their third straight season covering the Phillies for the Inquirer and philly.com.
This is Brookover’s second stint writing about the Phillies, having joined the coverage team after seven years as an Eagles beat writer. Brookover was hired by The Inquirer in 2000 as the Phillies beat writer after spending 13 years writing about the team for two suburban newspapers. While on the Eagles beat, Brookover, who had covered just two winning Phillies teams in 15 seasons, saw the Phillies move into a cash-cow new ballpark and begin playing a brand of the game he found unrecognizable. Follow him on Twitter here.
Gelb is in his third season covering the Phillies. He was hired by The Inquirer in August 2009 after graduating from Syracuse University. He has also covered baseball at The Star-Ledger and Cape Cod Times. Born and raised in Bucks County, he attended Central Bucks High School West. Follow him on Twitter here.
To submit a question for Matt Gelb's Phillies mailbag, click here.
 | Join on Facebook |  | Follow on Twitter |
