MILWAUKEE - What does a moment sound like? It sounds like this: a crowd of 40,000 plus, standing on its feet, hooting and hollering and screaming and yelling and banging together two inflatable plastic cylinders, the brainchild of some sadistic marketing rep, winding and whipping and pounding and transforming a normally congenial baseball crowd into a legion of rhythmically challenged bass-drummers. But that's not it - that's not the moment. No, the moment is in the silence that follows, after the crack of the bat, and the thwack of the glove, when the pounding suddenly ceases, and 40,000 hearts get their last beat of baseball season, and the entire building is overcome in a deathly pall, so silent that you can almost hear the cleats clacking up the steps of the visitors' dugout and spilling out onto the field like the bench has just caught fire.
Not this silence, anyway, the one that would have registered a negative number on the decibel meter if there was such a thing, a black hole of sound, perhaps, replaced by the shuffling of footsteps on concrete as a silent movie of sorts unfolded on the infield, Brad Lidge surrounded by teammates like Rollins and Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell, all celebrating something that at varying times this season appeared virtually impossible.
The Phillies are in the National League Championship Series. It became official yesterday, in the form of a 6-2 victory over the Brewers at Miller Park in the great state of Wisconsin, in front of a valiant home crowd that somehow maintained its zeal in the face of an early 5-0 deficit that was built largely by a three-run home run off the bat of the always-enigmatic yet ultimately triumphant Pat Burrell.
In other parts of the country, the events of yesterday evening may not have seemed all that momentous. For the vast majority of the history of the sport of baseball, including the last time the Phillies had a chance to celebrate such an occasion, there was no such thing as a five-game division series, no such thing as winning one's way into the right to play for a place on the sport's ultimate stage. In New York and Boston, a division banner is a piece of cloth with a number on it, and nothing more. But Philadelphia is not New York, and not Boston, and thereby not bound by the same restrictions on exuberance that bind the more successful among us.
Since 1993, when Mitch Williams struck out Bill Pecota to give the Phillies a berth in the World Series, five teams have not appeared in the National League Championship Series. One of them recently moved from Montreal to Washington, D.C. Another is the Pittsburgh Pirates. A third is the Brewers, who were in the American League at the time.
The other two will face each other on Thursday at Citizens Bank Park in the first game of this year's NLCS.
The Los Angeles Dodgers last appeared here in 1988, when they outlasted the New York Mets in seven games and a skinny righthander named Orel Hershiser pitched an LCS record 24 2/3 innings. The Phillies were here in 1993, when a patched-together team of castoffs and spare parts shocked the baseball world by winning 97 games and earning a date with the Blue Jays in the World Series.
That team was far different from the one that jumped all over Brewers righthander Jeff Suppan in the early stages of Game 4 yesterday. In 1993, the key players were almost exclusively exports. Of the eight regulars who started Game 1 of the NLCS, only three - Dave Hollins, Darren Daulton, and Wes Chamberlain - broke in to the big leagues with the Phillies. The squad that took the field at Miller Park yesterday was entirely different. Rollins, drafted in the second round in 1996, hit a solo home run in the first inning to provide an early 1-0 lead. Ryan Howard, drafted in the fifth round in 2001, scored a run and recorded the last out. And, of course, there was Burrell, a top overall pick in 1998, hitting two home runs and driving in four runs.
Reliever Ryan Madson (ninth round pick, 1998), didn't see Burrell's pivotal three-run home run in the third inning, which came after the Brewers issued a two-out intentional walk to Howard. Madson was in the bullpen bathroom, answering the urgent call of nature. When he went into the room, the crowd was roaring and the plastic Thunder Sticks were banging and the ground was shaking.
And, with one swing of the bat, it stopped.
"The whole stadium went silent,'' said Madson, who allowed one run in two innings of relief after starter Joe Blanton left the game in the seventh. "There wasn't a boo. It was just silence. That was cool.''
What does a moment look like? The scene was much like you'd expect, although a bit more subdued than the celebration that took place after the Phillies clinched their second consecutive NL East title last weekend. There was enough champagne and Bud Light to warrant the goggles that several players donned. But there was also an understanding that, no matter how significant a moment this series win was, the journey was not yet complete.
"This is just the next step," assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle said.
It is an important step. One look around the clubhouse illustrated that. There was Phillies chairman Bill Giles, who admitted he has dreamed about handing the trophy that bears the name of his father to current general manager Pat Gillick. There was assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., who played in 25 games for the '93 team. There was Arbuckle, who played a big role in the drafting of players like Rollins and Burrell. And there was Dallas Green, now a consultant for the team but better known as the only manager to ever lead the Phillies to a World Series title.
"This team has a shot," Green said. "They really do."
What does a moment feel like? Ask Burrell. He is the longest tenured Phillie by about 4 months (Burrell made his debut on May 24, 2000. Rollins made his on Sept. 17 of that same year). His phone always rings this time of year, when the leaves begin their gradual death and the evening air turns to crisp. On the other end are teammates from years past, names anonymous outside the city limits yet ingrained in the hearts and minds of those who have followed the largely lusterless history of this Phillies franchise.
Dave Hollins. Todd Pratt.
The phone rings, and Pat Burrell answers, and the conversation is the same.
"Those are the calls that mean a lot,'' he said as a frat party full of millionaires raged around him, "because guys are pulling for you.''
For at least 1 more week, all of them are along for the ride. *
For more Phillies coverage and opinion, read David Murphy's blog, High Cheese, at http://go.philly.com/highcheese.
