Phillies Finally Lose a Playoff Game in 2010

Terrible news: the Phillies lost.  If this is the first you’ve hear of the debacle, I’d recommend upping your general awareness level quite a bit before the shock of Heath Leger’s death wilts your spirits.

Unless my computer wants to spontaneously update/restart without any warning, let’s get this funereal recap underway.  Ready, computer?  I can wait.

*Waits*

*Keeps waiting*

*Loses 9th game of Hearts in a row and breaks off several keys on keyboard by angrily pounding fist*

Okay!

I was at a concert in San Francisco for most of Saturday, so the NLCS was on my mind, just not furiously overtaking it like normal.  The band started playing, and they were so good I was willing to forgive the toilet blocking 90% of my view.  Then the crowd started doing that thing that it always does at outdoor concerts where people trying to force their way into spaces that were alredy occupied by matter.

Why does this happen?  Why do thick-rimmed hipsters always assume that no matter how vaccum-packed a crowd is, they can fit through even the most condensed sea of human beings?  Do they think they can put on skinny jeans and suddenly be granted the power to slip through the smallest crevice?  You’re just as much a solid material as you were before you put your pants on, hipsters.  There’s no law saying that just because you know the lyrics to the song the band is playing, you get to “‘scuse me” and “watch it” all the way up to the stage.

So that was irritating enough, until somebody shouted “GIANTS WIN!” and the crowd went wild, most of them only doing so because the powdered molliies they’d been railing were finally taking hold and they were merely reacting to a loud noise.  Earlier I’d passed somebody in a Green Man costume with a giant stain shaped like Africa starting at his mouth and ending halfway through his torso.

“Green Man is wa-asted!” he gargled as he walked by, supported by two compatriots who looked like they had already explained that they’d help him to the car, but if he wanted to get out of his bright green puke-suit, he was on his own.

With a couple Phils hats and a Green Man in the audience, I thought maybe there’d be some therapeutic commiserating should the unthinkable happen.  But as the announcement of the Giants’ victory tainted the whole experience, I realized this wasn’t so and I, for the first time, was in truly unfamiliar territory.

Naturally, I tried to balance out the cheering with a chorus of hearty boos until I went hoarse, but people just assumed I was booing the band, and some even joined in, so I was forced to explain what the target of my boos were, and even then the only reaction I could get from people was “Yeah, bro!” or “What time does LCD Soundsytem go on?!” so I decided call it a wash.

Now, we find ourselves 0-1 in the NLCS.  Doc got touched, the offense reminded us just where we will be without J-Dub, and the Giants prove once again that they’ve got just enough baseball to squeak by.  Ryan Howard K’d himself habitually (3x) then fled out of the locker room faster than you could say “God damn it, Ryan,” Cody Ross took Roy Halladay to school, and Chooooooch blasted a home run to right off Timmy Lincecum, but the Phillies left five runners on base, and couldn’t climb out of the might one-run deficit these Giants are so used to defending.

As per our sometimes tradition, I give you the shame, fear, and impromptu sexual encounters that occur during a heartbreaking Phillies loss, courtesy of my phone’s text message inbox.

(717): Nice strikeout Jayson Werth. That makes 148 by my count.

(267): I’m watching the Philies.  Please love me.

(717-2):  it is good ur not watching this. Fucking horse shit.

(484): the phils have convinced me that this game is worth leaving early to go hook up with this boy i met.

(818): I’m not feeling good about this man.

(630):  I can’t prove it but im almost positive this bartender is trying to set my face on fire