Rich Hofmann: Phillies get to write a new chapter in their history

Philadelphia Daily News

LOS ANGELES - The clock read 8:37 on the big scoreboard above the rightfield pavilion. Historians will note that it had been a warm evening. Tension and frustration, the products of portent, were evident all night in the stands, on the field, all around the place they call Chavez Ravine. But the air was oddly still.

The final out went like this: Nomar Garciaparra, popping up foul to catcher Carlos Ruiz. He was standing on the painted NLCS 2008 logo along the third-base line when he squeezed the ball. And with that, the Phillies are going to the World Series. It is a simple sentence that masks so many emotions, that cannot come close to untangling 15 years of frustrating tangents. Yet there is beauty in the simplicity.

YONG KIM / Staff photographer

Chase Utley douses Pedro Feliz with champagne in the clubhouse after the series-clinching victory.

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