Let the games begin

October 24, 2023. Citizens Bank Park.

Your Philadelphia Phillies are down 4-2 in the seventh and final game of the National League Championship Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. It’s the bottom of the ninth inning. After blowing series leads of 2-0 and 3-2, the Phils have three outs left to find some postseason magic.

Nick Castellanos flies out to right field.

Brandon Marsh flies out to left field.

Jake Cave lofts a ball to right.

D-backs rightfielder Corbin Carroll squeezes his glove around Cave’s pop fly. He raises his arms triumphantly and runs to the infield. Arizona celebrates the National League pennant in the Phillies’ own ballpark, in front of the Phillies’ own fans.

Despite the long, tortured history of your professional Philadelphia baseballers, this loss somehow inflicted a new kind of pain. The Diamondbacks won just 84 regular season games. The Phillies were favored to start the series, heavily favored after winning the first two games, and favored yet again after winning game five in Arizona.

If you’re like me, you turned off the television after the final out of the NLCS, murmured some profanities, and decided that you’ll never get emotionally invested in a baseball team again.

They say time heals all wounds. Sadly, that’s not entirely true. This particular October wound is very deep, and it will hurt forever. It will leave a scar.

But.

Autumn turns to winter, winter turns to spring, and our hearts begin to warm and heal. There’s something magical in the humid air every year as our squad reports to Clearwater. Sure, in 141 seasons of Phillies baseball, only two have ended in a World Series championship. The odds are pretty good that we will get our hearts fractured yet again. Here in February, though? Anything is possible.

The only true cure for a broken heart is to find a new love. We had a lot of fun with the ’23 Phils, but now we move on. As we watch Bryce Harper take batting practice under the Florida sun, we leave the past behind and think about what the ’24 Phillies might accomplish.

And hell, it’s not like we’re delusional as a fanbase. Just about any MLB observer considers the Phils to be in the mix for a championship this year. The starting pitching should be great, the bullpen looks solid, and the lineup will score runs. Rarely does a Phillies team have everything it needs as it embarks on a new 162+ game campaign.

So here we are. Hoping for the best and expecting the worst, in true Philadelphia fashion. Should we expect a championship this year? Absolutely not. But do we have a chance? We absolutely do.

That’s enough to keep my cold broken heart ticking for another year, and I hope it keeps yours ticking too.

On Saturday, 123 days after the loss I’ll never speak of again, the Phillies will play a baseball game. They’ll play another on Sunday. And if all goes well, the Fightins will play games into October and November. Baseball season, once again, is back.

Hope springs eternal.

Let the games begin.