Dispelling Illusions

By Thomas Boswell
Friday, October 10, 2008

PHILADELPHIA

Throughout the Phillies history since 1883, one word has hung over the franchise: faint-hearted. When you win one world title, spread over parts of three centuries, much baggage must be shed and many franchise ghouls slain before you can add a second ring.

So, the tale within a tale of Game 1 of the National League Championship Series here on Thursday night is not simply that Philadelphia managed to beat the Dodgers, 3-2. Nor is it simply that the powerful Phils won because of homers in the sixth inning by Chase Utley and Pat Burrell off Derek Lowe or that southpaw ace Cole Hamels got the win with seven innings of two-run hurling.

In a long series, an opening victory is always excellent. But for the Phillies, this win carried much extra weight. Not only did they overcome a 2-0 deficit and capitalize on a Raphael Furcal error to open their three-run inning. Not only did they watch their own modest homers land in the third row of their cozy park in the power alleys, but they also watched Manny Ramírez hit a ball to the furthest square foot of this entire park -- 17 feet up the 18-foot wall above the 409-foot sign in center field. One foot to the right or one foot higher, it's a home and this game's still tied at 3.

"That's the furthest ball anybody can hit and not be out of the yard," said Hamels. "I'm just lucky." Found: The Abominable Snowman, a new planet, a lucky Phillie!

Perhaps most important of all, however, the Phils took the first step toward demythologizing a Dodger team that has been wrapping itself in the cloak of famous men who've won titles for other teams in recent years.

When a pennant is at stake, every player on both teams knows how things stand, especially when there's little to pick between them. Since the Dodgers and Phils met eight times in August, each sweeping a four-game series at home from the other, they know how little separates them.

So, Los Angeles did its best at psychological warfare, knowing how much the Phils love to strut and slug before their white-towel waving, utterly phanatical, but sometimes hypercritical fans.

The Phils have more established elite regulars, more experience, more wins in recent years, including this season (92 to 84). But the Dodgers have Hollywood star power. So, they rolled it out to open the show.

Here they came, the glamorous transplants, one after another, now in Dodger Blue, as if to inform the Phils of the difference in their lineages. First came Joe Torre, bringing out the lineup card with his grandfatherly limp, reminding everyone that no Yankee manager was better.

Then, in the first inning, amid the best boos Philly could muster without any real reason for hate, Ramírez mashed the second pitch from Hamels for that almost-gone RBI double. Sorry, Manny, got to cancel the home run trot.

Finally, Lowe, who won the clinching game of all three postseason series in '04 when the Red Sox finally reversed their curse, looked every bit the free-agent ace as he took a shutout into the sixth inning. A 2-0 lead in Game 1, what's that? It means nothing. Except, perhaps, in Philly.

In this town, they can almost smell weakness in visiting athletes. Long ago, poor Burt Hooton of the Dodgers was heckled so thunderously he lost control, walked the house and became the first postseason pitcher ever mocked out of the box. But the opposite is also true. Phils fans can also sense when a foe has leaders and clutch players, the kind, to be painfully specific, that this town has generally lacked during its brief 125 years in the big leagues.

Few teams have the perfect mascot. The Phils do: the Phanatic. He's the ideal emblem of a town that may understand baseball too well for its own good. In the absence of victory, Philly has had to settle for generations of expertise. Only the East Coast understands baseball properly (just ask us). Being surrounded by so many experts (real ones) can be daunting, confidence eroding. How do you breathe freely when 45,839 people a game can spot every little mistake perfectly?

As Larry Bowa, long a Philly player and manager, now a Dodger coach, says, "The [crowds here] are very boisterous. They love their teams. They let you know when you're not doing well, but they also let you know when you're doing things right. If our players thought Chicago was bad [for the Cubs series], they're in for a rude awakening, because it's not even close."

The sum and soul of all this is that, for a tight "inside" postseason game there is no place, except perhaps Cuba, where the game is more intensely (and critically) watched, pitch to pitch, with the susurrations of the crowd giving a gut-level running commentary. For the first half of this Game 1, their analysis did not flatter Phils Manager Charlie Manuel.

For instance, groans arrived in the fourth inning when Manuel didn't walk the Dodgers' No. 8 hitter with a man on third and one out in a 1-0 game. Why not try to get the slow Lowe to strike out or hit into a double play? Instead, Blake DeWitt swatted a sacrifice fly for the kind of 2-0 lead that the Dodgers usually make stand up.

The trouble with inside baseball in October is that teams like the Phils, with 214 homers, don't play fair. "They're dangerous. They're big-inning guys," said Torre. "They do a lot of things to get your attention."

In particular, the Phils wait for you to make a mistake, leave the front door unlocked, so they can ransack the joint.

The Dodgers finally left the door ajar in the fifth. Lowe, cruising with two outs, got careless and allowed singles to the No. 8 hitter Carlos Ruiz and, of all people, Hamels. Lowe escaped, but not before a deep Jimmy Rollins fly out and much bellowing from the crowd. For the first time, he'd felt the fire with which he was playing.

The idea had been planted. Don't leave that door ajar again. But the Dodgers did immediately as shortstop Furcal threw away a routine ground ball to start the sixth. Howard may be the Phils' symbol with his three-year average of 51 homers and 144 RBI, but Utley is the grit. He looked for a first-pitch sinking fastball and got it.

"I squared up a sinker. For Derek Lowe, it was up, but really it wasn't that bad a pitch," said Utley whose high fly landed in the third row of the close right field power alley.

One out later, Burrell showed patience, worked the count to 3-1, then homered into the third row of the left field bleachers, this blow a scalding liner that was gone before you could say, "Going, go -- "

The Dodgers had no answer. By the time the Phils rolled out their monster closer, Brad Lidge, 41 for 41 in save opportunities this year, this one-run win was a formality. That is, if any Phillies win in October can be.

Much more lies ahead. But for the Phillies, more than almost any franchise, opening with a victory, and keeping an all-knowing packed house off their back, is essential to postseason success.

To do it with omens -- a crucial Dodger error, two homers at the Citizens Bank discount window and, most of all, a Manny-not-quite-being-Manny double to the furthest foot of the park -- why, how eloquently unlike the Phils.

Finishing the deal will be a separate agony. But at least the Phils have made a proper beginning to their quest.