Wet, Wild, Wacky, and Eventually Wonderful

Note to the baseball gods: If you made 45,900 Phillies fans wait seven hours for the home team to lose another heart breaker of a World Series game, you are not baseball gods, you would be SATAN!

Whether it is fate, or luck, or whatever you want to call it these days, the Fightin' Phils narrowly pulled out a game three victory at 1:47 am to take a 2-1 series lead over the Rays in the first World Series game ever to be played in Citizens Bank Park. Truth be told, this game shouldn't have even been this close. However, you throw in a combination of more blown calls by the umpiring crew and the Phillies still struggling to hit with RISP and you had the gut wrenching feeling that nothing is going to come easy for this team and their fans, no matter what the final result of this World Series is.

The game was the latest starting game in the history of the World Series. This was because all of your typical World Series games for the Phillies over the last quarter of a century have this common denominator: RAIN. Look it up. Game three of the '83 series didn't exactly feature rain, but rather a storm from the night before resulting in wet turf that in all likelihood cost the Phillies game three (look up Ivan DeJesus). And as far as 1993 goes, we played two games in a downpour and I think we don't really need to rehash them. So needless to say I was not very optimistic when rain was in the forecast for yesterday. And by the way, the previous openers in '83 and '93 also featured left handed starters for the Phillies- and YES, Steve Carlton (who threw out the game's first pitch) and Danny Jackson were both the losing pitchers in those games.

Enter left hander number three- Jamie Moyer. The script is all too perfect: Local guy from Souderton who skipped school in 1980 for the Phillies World Series Parade. At 23, he made his big league debut and beats Steve Carlton, his boyhood hero. 22 years later at 45, he shouldn't be pitching in a softball league let alone the Major Leagues. Nonetheless, here is Moyer, in the twilight of his career and oh yeah, about to pitch THE biggest game of his life. After two rough outing in the playoffs, there was question as to whether Moyer should even start this game. Manager Charlie Manuel stuck with the guy who led the Phils in wins this year and he did not disappoint: allowing three runs in 6 1/3 innings (and two of the three runs were avoidable). Made even more impressive was the fact that Moyer pitched the game with a stomach virus. Needless to say, my fellow Hawk Hill alumni made us all proud last night. Truth be told, I wanted Moyer to win this game almost as badly as I wanted the Phillies to win the game.

Lost in the mix is Carlos Ruiz, who went two for three and shrugged off a crucial eighth inning throwing error that tied the game to have the only game-winning, walk off, infield hit in World Series history. Ruiz, who may have been the most inconsistent hitter on the Phillies this season, is the most consistent hitter in this World Series. His second inning homer off starter Matt Garza was just his fifth this season, but all five of his homers have tied the game or put the Phillies in the lead.

A story that surfaced after the game was that Tim McGraw, son of the late Phils reliever Tug, scattered some of his father's ashes on the pitcher's mound prior to the start of the game. Ya gotta believe that Tugger was looking out for the Phils and the fans this night.

If the Phillies lost this game, it would have gone down in the top five heartbreaking losses in this club's checkered history. Instead, they pulled it out for their first game three victory in six World Series appearances. The team will be the death of all of us for how they do things, and I may not live to see my next birthday. If there are two more wins and a parade down Broad Street, I think I have a chance. They have never won a game four in their World Series contests either, so Joe Blanton will need to be on his best tonight against Rays starter Andy Sonnanstine.

Last night they made the impossible just two steps closer.