I’m enjoying it. If we get a good World Series which doesn’t feature ESPN teams, that can only help baseball.
No hearing about the ‘curse.’ No comments about A-rod and Madonna. No comments about Manny.
Kinda nice.
And I haven’t heard Jeter mentioned once!
Good win, Phillies. To take the first game in the series away from home is huge.
Great start to the series for the Phils. They hitters forgot how to hit with people on base. But, Hamels, Lidge and Madson made their 0Fer not matter at all.
I realize it is most probably just me being super oversensitive. But, it seemed to me that McCarver and Buck (Who I usually like, unlike most people, and thought they were imminently fair during the NLCS) were broadcasting a Rays game, instead of a national game. The Phillies gaffes and close plays against the Rays were rehashed endlessly. While, things going the other way were barely even mentioned. How many times did we hear that it was a balk? Oh well. Just a common homer complaint from me!
I have a feeling the Rays will find their bats tomorrow night against Meyers. But, he has been known to surprise me so you never know! Hopefully, it won’t be another rough game for the Phils (and HOWARD) with RISP.
Still! I’ll take it.
Not that it mattered, as I recall, but the Phillies runner running to first on the play where the Ray first baseman bobbled the catch should have been out for interference. Really bugs me to see the runner decidedly inside the basebath, intentionally so to make the play hard, resulting in exactly what he wanted to have happen (blocking the throw causing an error), and not get called out.
You’re being oversensitive. McCarver is an ex-Philly, and during the afternoon he acknowledged he’ll be pulling for the Phillies during an ESPN interview. The Rays are the more surprising of the two WS entrants and a really remarkable story, so you have to expect the announcers to blather a little more about how amazing their turnaround has been.
I thought I was rooting for the Rays, being the AL team and it seems right to root for the team that beat my Red Sox. But I found myself rooting for the Phillies. Who knew?
I think it still galls me that Game 7 of the ALCS people were giving away free tickets out front because ticket holders chose to go to the Bucs game instead. 
Can’t blame the team for that, and you really can’t blame the fans who had 10 years of crap to watch. If they filled the stadium they’d be accused of being fairweather fans; it’s a catch 22.
Some, maybe most, will but some won’t. Some will grow up remembering baseball through the prism of “their team” making it to the World Series. It’s the only way to grow baseball support here. Especially for the kids whose parents aren’t from Boston or New York or Chicago. And the longer the Rays do well, like if they make the playoffs again next year or at least challenge with the Yankees and the Sox, the more likely they are to retain these future fans. The big downside is that the games go so late that most kids this age probably only get to see the first few innings at most.
I was seated looking right down the first baseline and I didn’t notice that. Might have been, but I was too busy watching to see if Kazmir got off the throw. It would have been an easy out if Kazmir was throwing right handed to Pena, but he had to stop and then throw back across his body (which also means that even if the runner came a bit inside he wasn’t really much in the way.
I hadn’t heard anything about that. I know that there were a lot more tickets for sale before the game and a lot fewer folks looking for them. I think a lot of the more fair weather Rays fans thought that we would lose and so were trying to ditch their tickets. Equally weak, and probably the reason there were the most Red Sox fans in game 7 of any night. I did hear of people getting tix at face value.
In last night’s game, there were more Phillies fans than I expected, but not a huge amount. Maybe 5-10% of the fans from what I could tell. Also a lot more middle-aged half-hearted fat guy type fans than in any of the ALCS. I think that was because of the price of tickets, the spectacle of a World Series, etc. Atmosphere wasn’t bad but no where near as electric as last week.
I don’t agree. I skimmed the rules, and they aren’t particularly clear to me. But he wasn’t well inside the base path – his right foot was on or over the line on each step. (The rulebook seems to say he’d have to deviate from his line by over three feet, but again, it’s not clear if that applied here.) It’s his lane, and there’s no question he was making a run directly for the base. He’s not allowed to interfere, but he doesn’t have to go out of his way to make it easy for the fielding team to put him out.
–Cliffy
Rough game all around, but Lidge did his thing, we won, and sometime next week everyone gets a free taco at Taco Bell, so we’re OK. I’m feeling pretty confident that the Phils will shake of whatever was hanging off their bats tonight and have a much better showing.
I hate absolutely everything about the Ray’s stadium. I hate that it’s fully enclosed, I hate those catwalks, I hate AstroTurf, and I want to kill every person with a cowbell.
WRT to Rays fans…relax, guys. Ten years? You’ve got time to build up a more solid fanbase and have some more winning seasons, regardless of how this series turns out. And I wouldn’t worry about losing a lot of kids as fair-weather fans. My earliest memory of the Phillies is the 1993 World Series. If parents are parenting right down there in Florida, kids’ll be disappointed, but love for baseball in general will be more important than love of winning. (Thus concludes my sermon.)
And while I’m hating on Tropicana Field, do they have a ground rule covering what happens if someone manages to crack the right-field aquarium with a line drive? I really want to see that happen.
Oh, also, this is the best reason anyone has ever come up with not just to watch a game or series, but to love the Phillies:
(from ShibbOleth’s link)
It’s not AstroTurf (that stuff is gawdawful) but the new, much, much better kind. Still not as good as grass, but really not too bad. I’ve played soccer on the stuff and it plays about the same.
If you hit the aquarium it would be a home run. I have seen a ball land in it, but don’t recall seeing anyone bang the glass. Doubt that a ball would break it, the walls are thick.
They tried to push for a pretty cool looking new stadium on the water that would be open air, but the public was dubious and so they put it on hold for now. I hope someday they’ll get a new park that is somehow outdoors but not too freakin’ hot to sit through a game at. Or else we’ll see crowds like they get in Miami, with about 600 people in the seats.
Not only an ex-Phillie but he got his start as a Phillies broadcaster. I don’t mind the blathering about their story. I just got sick of the blathering about umpire calls. Especially since I perceived it as one sided.
Then again, I always hate when broadcasters talk about the umps too much. So, I might just be bitter about that. Richie Ashburn was awesome fun and he deserves his place in the hearts of many Philadelphians. But, he used to get under my last nerve when he would bitch about balls and strikes. COME ON WHITEY!
As far as the Phillies fielding goes. Someone mentioned that it wasn’t great last night. While, Howard and Hamels had a couple of miscues. I think those were more than made up for by the two game saving double plays that were performed.
Looking forward to tonight’s game! Fun! And, as much as I thought the Rays ballpark looked bad (Especially compared to CBP) I love that rays tank in the outfield. how neat!
“God Bless America” is a stupid f’ing Yankee tradition, but I think the Rays may have mercifully killed it with that awful performance.
Please.
Uh, Tampa, you’re not Chicago. Throwing the baseball back is stupid. Get your own traditions.
This is the World Series. The Cubs don’t have any claim to World Series-related actions.
We did this in a thread a while back, but I can’t find it. I agree, it’s a Cubs tradition that shouldn’t propagate. But I also think since Tampa has had crap for baseball the last 10 years they can absorb a few random things in the guise of tradition.
Another good game. I enjoyed the broadcasters a bit more this time, but did not enjoy the result nearly as much. Myers pitched a pretty good game, I think it was a bit of a hard luck game for him. And, damn, I wish the Phils could start hitting with Runners on base. As GOB says, COME ON.
Oh god damn it. I literally ran back from class, just in time to see bottom of the 9th, two outs, man on first, Ryan Howard up with an empty count. “Goddamn,” I think, “Maybe we’ll see Howard actually hit a homer and we’ll get some extra innings!”
God it sucks when you can only watch one play of a game and that’s when your team loses.