That Place Where the Wave Finally Broke...

Strange memories on this nervous night in Philadelphia. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. Phillies baseball in the middle to late 2000s was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.…

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole season comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left Citizens Bank Park half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the car towards AC at a hundred miles an hour wearing khaki shorts and some obscure soccer jersey… booming through the Egg Harbor toll at light speed,not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end.... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that…

There was madness in any direction, at any hour.… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.…

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old(losing seasons) and Evil (The Yankees). Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…

So now, less than five years later, you can go up to Section 413 and look towards left field, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back (2012). Last night was a welcome respite to days of yore for Phillies fans. It felt like 2008 again, and that was good.