MUST BE DREAMING: TEMPLE IS 9-2?
Anyway, Chase Utley has already achieved the first.
And to get a crack at the third, this year at least, the Phillies must beat the club their All-Star second baseman grew up rooting for, in the National League Championship Series beginning tomorrow night when the Dodgers come to Citizens Bank Park.
Oh, yeah. It would help if he started swinging the bat a little better, too.
Life, like baseball, can throw you curves. Los Angeles hasn't been to the World Series since 1988. And Utley, then just 9 years old and living in Southern California, attended Game 2 against the Oakland A's.
He remembers Orel Hershiser pitching for the Dodgers, although if he remembers that the slender righthander threw a three-hit shutout, he omitted the detail yesterday. "It was a lot of fun," he recalled. "I was young at the time, but I can remember that it was pretty exciting."
Still, when the Dodgers drafted him in the second round out of Long Beach Poly High School in 1997, he turned them down to attend UCLA. "For me, it was about growing as a person and trying to get that college experience," he said. "I'm happy with my decision. I made a bunch of great friends in college and I wouldn't change it for the world.
"That was a long time ago. It was a difficult decision. The money was there. Obviously, playing professional baseball was a dream of mine. At that point in my life I felt it better suited me to go to college and start my education. And if baseball was meant to be after college, then I'd have another opportunity."
Utley is a big reason the Phillies have become the kind of team that routinely contends for a postseason berth. That was true this year even though he fell considerably short of the early hype that installed him as the preseason favorite to be voted the National League's Most Valuable Player, following in the footsteps of Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins and completing the MV3 trifecta.
He got off to a sizzling start but ended up batting just .292, his lowest average since 2005, his first full season in the majors. He hit a career-high 33 homers, but 10 of them came in the first 27 games of the season and 25 in the first half of the season, just eight after the All-Star break.
It's widely believed his relative lack of production can be traced directly to a sore hip, an injury he has declined to confirm. Charlie Manuel almost snorted when asked about that recently.
"I think when Chase Utley's hip is bothering him enough where he can't play, I think he's going to walk right in there and tell me," the manager said. "As a matter of fact, I know he will. He ain't nowhere near there yet. That's kind of how that goes."
Utley hit in 18 of the Phillies' last 19 games, though, as the team surged to its second straight division title. So there was hope that he was coming around at the right time when the Division Series against the Brewers opened.
And he batted .133 against Milwaukee. That followed on the heels of hitting .182 in the Division Series against the Rockies last October.
"I've got confidence he's going to break out," hitting coach Milt Thompson said yesterday. "For me, I'd just like to see him get ready a little sooner. I know he has a habit of waiting for the pitch to get ready. As of right now, I'd like to see him get ready just a little sooner. That's all. And I think that would solve a lot of it."
The given explanation for the team's overall lack of hitting against Colorado last year - lack of postseason experience - no longer applies to most of the Phillies hitters.
"It's hard to figure out,"
Thompson said. "Some guys, it takes a little while to get going in this type of situation. But Chase is a great hitter and he'll figure it out. I'm sure about that. Some guys have a slow Division Series and they pick it up in the Championship Series and then go on to the World Series. Hopefully he'll pick it up right here and
we'll go from there."
There are times when hitters can feel themselves getting locked in before the results begin to show up in the box score. And he is a career .339 hitter against the Dodgers, including .355 this year. So we'll see what happens next.
To say that Utley needs to get hot for the Phillies to advance to the World Series would be overstating the case. But there's no way to overemphasize the pivotal role he plays in Manuel's lineup.
Put it this way: If he hits the way he can, he'll have a much better chance to realize the final chapter of every little boy's dream than if he doesn't. *
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Photos: 2009 Phillies 
