After seeing the 76ers win it all in 1967, the Flyers in 1974 and 1975, the Phillies in 1980 and the 76ers in 1983 (five championships in 16 years and four titles in nine years), Philadelphia was stuck in a 25-year drought featuring heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak.
The 2008 Phillies were coming off their first National League East Championship since 1993. But the excitement of that elusive trip to the playoffs was short lived when the eventual 2007 NL Champion Colorado Rockies swept the Phils quickly in NLDS.
If you blinked, you missed the Phillies playing postseason ball for the first time in 14 years.
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“They cut through us like butter,” former Phillies left-handed pitcher Jamie Moyer told KYW Newsradio. “It was like somebody pulling the carpet out from underneath you. We had a club full of people upset, and I think that was probably a turning point for us, if you will … because we got that bitter taste of failure. And I think that’s what motivated us.”
After Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins won back-to-back National League MVP awards, Chase Utley got off to a hot start in ’08, leading to an All-Star appearance, while newcomer Brad Lidge was reviving his career as one of the dominant closers in baseball. Howard ended up leading Major League Baseball with 48 home runs and 146 runs batted in, playing every single game. Cole Hamels, only 24 years old at the time, was having another productive year.
But the 2008 season wasn’t a wire-to-wire domination by any stretch. Rollins got headlines when he referred to fans as “front runners” for the negativity that comes out when the team struggles. And Brett Myers, who did nicely as the closer by the end of 2007, wasn’t as good in his return to the rotation — and he was demoted to the minors to correct his game.
Then they got hot — and the Mets fell apart again. The Phils surge started with a four-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers at Citizens Bank Park. The Brewers and Phillies were competing for the NL Wild Card at the time.
“Anytime you can put a string of wins together, that’s gonna create momentum,” said Moyer, who won 16 games in the regular season. “Time and time, people talk about momentum and playing well at the right time. Well, for us it was a matter of having both.”
The Phils won 13 of their last 16 regular season games, clinching their second straight NL East Championship on an iconic double-play in the second-to-last game.
Lidge’s perfect save streak was in jeopardy. The Washington Nationals had the bases loaded, with only one out down a run in the ninth. They had already scored in that inning against a struggling Lidge, trimming a two-run lead to one.
The Phils finished the regular season 92-70, good for second in the National League, setting up an NLDS date with the wild card-winning Brewers.
The Phillies quickly put the bad taste of 2007 behind them by winning Game 1 over Milwaukee at Citizens Bank Park. Cole Hamels struck out nine and allowed only two hits over eight spectacular scoreless innings. Lidge made it a little too interesting in the ninth, but struck out the side to remain perfect and put the ghosts of his Houston Astro postseason failures behind him.
Game 2 was memorable for a few reasons. The Phils were facing CC Sabathia, who the Brewers acquired at the trade deadline. Sabathia carried Milwaukee to the postseason, but was clearly worn out after doing so. Myers, who had fixed his pitching issues to rejoin the rotation, and Shane Victorino took advantage of Sabathia’s off night.
Manny Ramirez and the Los Angeles Dodgers were next. The Dodgers had just upset the top-seeded Cubs. In Game 1 at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies struggled against L.A. starting pitcher Derek Lowe — who had given them issues with his sinker ball. However, as the game went on, the sinker rose. Trailing 2-0 in the sixth, it elevated enough that Utley took advantage with a two-run home run.
Pat Burrell followed with a solo blast. Hamels held the Dodgers in check after the fourth, and Lidge shut the door for a 3-2 win.
Game 2 against Los Angeles was an 8-5 victory. Myers was a machine at the plate — 3 for 3 with three RBIs — and Victorino drove in four more runs.
After the sad news of the deaths of Charlie Manuel’s mother and Victorino’s grandmother — a somber moment in what was an exciting time for Phillies baseball — the team rallied around their manager and center fielder to win two of the next three games in Los Angeles.
After winning Game 4 7-5, Hamels finished off the Dodgers Game 5 with seven strong innings — complimented by another Rollins leadoff home run.
“Cole’s ability to kinda piece things all together,” Moyer said when asked what made Hamels, the NLCS and World Series MVP, so good that postseason. “It would be a combination of his whole life. That season, everything just seemed to fall into place for Cole. His focus was phenomenal. His execution of pitches was very good, and that builds confidence … I believe a a team we really fed off of Cole’s success and he really did carry us.”
Ryan Madson, a.k.a. “The Bridge To Lidge,” pitched the eighth and Lidge recorded the final out in the ninth.
For the first time in 15 years, the Phillies were going to the Fall Classic.
After a long break, which was the exact opposite of what the American League-winning Tampa Bay Rays had, Hamels pitched Game 1 at Tropicana Field.
For Moyer, 45 at the time, the wait was over 20 years in professional baseball. He finally made it to the Fall Classic, but did so after two poor starts against Milwaukee and Los Angeles. As difficult to muster as that would’ve been, Manuel starting someone else wouldn’t have been too crazy an idea.
But he stuck with Moyer.
The first pitch at the first World Series game at Citizens Bank Park was thrown by a local guy. You can’t make that stuff up.
Even though Moyer didn’t get the victory, after the Rays tied it, the Phillies won the game 5-4 in the ninth on Carlos Ruiz’s walk-off infield single that didn’t make it far onto the grass.
Then mother nature decided to chime in and mess with a championship-hungry fans.
The weather was terrible throughout the evening, forcing then-commissioner Bud Selig to suspend the game in the middle of the sixth inning with the score tied at two.
The game didn’t resume until two days later.
“It is frustrating, but when you think back on that — what can anybody do?” Moyer said.
The Phillies didn’t let it deter them.
Manuel decided to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning with Geoff Jenkins pinch hitting for Hamels, and Jenkins rewarded Manuel with a double to set the tone that night—October 29, 2008. Jayson Werth drove in Jenkins, and the Phillies were back on top 3-2.
Lidge was perfect, Hamels was phenomenal and the core of Rollins, Howard and Utley delivered a title. And Manuel capped it off that night on the makeshift stage on the field shouting, “This is for Philadelphia!”
Two days later—a beautiful Halloween afternoon (complete opposite of the slop the Phils played in four days prior)—fans flooded Broad Street from City Hall to the sports complex. Moyer, who was at the Phillies parade in 1980 as a fan, got to live the other experience of being on one of the floats.
“Just watching just the pure joy of the fans who supported us all season long. I mean literally there were people on the curb crying, and as we went down Broad Street, it was just a sea of people … What a great way to share a special time in the Philadelphia Phillies history with the fans.”
And Utley had the line of the day when he surprised everyone by saying, “World Champions …. World (expletive) Champions!”
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