Phillies Players Take Care of Their Own

PHILADELPHIA

Not too many people understand Brett Myers. Not too many want to. But Charlie Manuel does. Typical of him.

What the Phillies manager understands about the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Myers is that he needs the occasional nose-to-nose high volume conversation in the dugout with a man his own size, even if Charlie's 64 and has survived cancer and two mild heart attacks.

Manuel doesn't care. Play the game right, you'll laugh together. Play it wrong, as Myers did this summer when he showed up Manuel after being taken out of a game, and he's in your face. You'll understand how he hit those 48 homers once in Japan. Either way, the next day, he'll say, "Go get 'em, kid." All is forgotten. And he's got your back.

On Friday afternoon in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, it was time for the Phillies to have Charlie Manuel's back, to do for him what he always does for them: pick them up when they're down.

Just hours before this game, Manuel learned that his 87-year-old mother June, who suffered a heart attack two days ago, had died. Behind the batting cage before the game, Manuel was silent, nodding as friends shook his hand, said they were sorry, patted his back and walked away. As the game approached, he forced himself to change his mood, to talk to players and seem normal.

But the whole team felt the same emotion. "Pretty upsetting," Jayson Werth said. "A team is like another family. Charlie was calm and collected, as always. But I can't imagine anything like that on a day like this."

Before the game, Myers, who might seem like the Phillie least likely to feel close to Manuel, grabbed his manager in a hug and said, "I'm going to win this game for your mom." Then Myers beat the Dodgers, 8-5, albeit with a scruffy five innings, while getting three hits and three RBI. "Charlie's been so good to us," Myers said. "We gotta show him some love, too."

So, the Phillies are now halfway to the World Series yet were so concerned with their manager's feelings that they barely noticed that they did it. "Your heart goes out to him. We all quietly felt that way," said third baseman Greg Dobbs, who had two hits and scored twice. "You want to take some of the sadness away from him."

The best of Manuel, whom coach Davey Lopes calls "a big old good-natured country boy who can be tough if he has to be," was on display through his players' response to him. Perhaps Manuel's silence on the subject, both before and after the game, also had a message. In an era when everybody talks about everything, he didn't say a word.

"It's a heavy heart," Dodgers Manager Joe Torre said. "Charlie was telling me how he talked to his mom and her concern for him was only go out there and win ballgames.