For long-suffering Phillies fans in Delaware, World Series is just reward

There were 45,485 fans at Citizens Bank Park on Sunday when Bryce Harper sent his eighth-inning, game-winning two-run home run into the late afternoon mist, much to the euphoria of an entire region.

Phillies fan Erik Keller was among those in the ballpark, and when Harper hit his home run, he said it felt like "the whole stadium moved.”

Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins said it has been like that throughout the postseason, describing the feeling as "bliss, pure bliss. ... It's so loud that it's almost not loud. You don't really hear it."

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Those sounds were echoed throughout the region, especially in Delaware where fans celebrated the Game 5 NLCS-clinching 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres.

They did so whether they were at the game or watching from their homes, restaurants or bars throughout the state. Even first lady Jill Biden was seen sporting a Phillies jersey as she and her husband, President Joe Biden, returned to the White House on Sunday night.

All of which made it seem like you could add a few zeroes to that 45,485 attendance total to get a sense of what it's been like throughout the region.

That feeling will only intensify as the Phillies get ready to open the best-of-seven World Series on Friday night against the Houston Astros. The Phillies will play the first two games at Houston's Minute Maid Park before returning home to play Games 3, 4 and 5 (if necessary) at Citizens Bank Park from next Monday through Wednesday.

The Astros might have won an American League-best 106 games this season and are playing in their fourth World Series in the last six years. But no one from Delaware is counting out the Phillies, who won just 87 games.

If the Phillies win the series, they'll have the third-fewest victories of any World Series champion.

Who saw that coming back in April when the Phillies were predicted to finish far behind the Mets and the Braves in the National League East? And, well, they did finish far behind those teams, as both won 101 games.

But MLB added an extra wild card team this season in both the National and American League. The Phillies got in as the sixth and final playoff team.

They knocked off the Cardinals in the wild-card round, the Braves in the NLDS and finally the Padres in the NLCS.

"One of the players said this − they’re just resilient," said Smyrna resident Michael Keen, who added that his grandfather was friends with the parents of Dallas Green, the late Phillies manager and Delaware resident who led the Phillies to their first World Series championship in 1980.

"No matter what happens, it doesn’t seem to bother them," Keen said. "They can be down, and then, 'Wham!' There’s a two-run home run and they’re back in it. I’ve yet to see them give up. No matter what has happened, they don’t let it affect them. They don’t give up."

That has endeared the Phillies to area fans, especially as this season went along.

Keller was walking along the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk on Tuesday, celebrating his wedding anniversary with his wife, proudly wearing his Phillies hat. The Philadelphia-area resident was at Citizens Bank Park on Sunday.

After Harper hit his home run, Keller said he and other spectators were saying to one another: "We’re all going to remember where we were, just like the space shuttle and like the JFK assassination. It’s like one of those things you’re never going to forget where you were when that happened."

Why should anyone?

Roller-coaster season

This entire Phillies season has been one big thrill ride, seemingly left for dead one minute before finding a way to climb back into it the next.

There was the 22-29 start that cost manager Joe Girardi his job. He was replaced by Rob Thomson, a baseball lifer getting his first chance to manage.

The Phillies won their first eight games under Thomson.

Then Harper, off to a hot start after winning the National League's MVP award last season, broke his thumb and was out for two months.

The Phillies kept winning anyway. That is, until September, when they appeared on the verge of blowing a playoff spot. They lost nine of 12 after getting swept by the woeful Cubs. They still had seven straight road games remaining to close out the season.

They recovered, clinching their playoff berth, ironically, in Houston where they finished out the season with a three-game series.

A quick aside: That playoff-clinching loss to the Phillies on Oct. 3 was also the last time the Astros lost a game. They won the last two games to close out the season, then swept the Seattle Mariners in the ALDS and the Yankees in the ALCS.

As for the Phillies, they were down 2-0 in the ninth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 1 of the wild-card round. They scored six runs in the ninth to win it, then took the best-of-three series in Game 2, with all games played in St. Louis. The Phillies then stunned the Braves, in four games in the NLDS, before taking care of the Padres in five games.

In between, there were Jean Segura's seeing-eye singles that ended up beating the Cardinals and the Padres; Rhys Hoskins' famous bat slam after his home run gave the Phillies a 2-1 lead in games in the best-of-five NLDS; and Kyle Schwarber's so-called "Schwarbomb" that traveled 488 feet in Game 1 against the Padres, the second-longest home run in postseason history.

What kind of magical moments await against the Astros?

For Dave Humes, a lifelong Phillies fan and Attack Addiction board member, this Phillies' ride has come full circle. He attended the series-clinching win in Game 6 in the 1980 World Series against the Kansas City Royals.

His wife, Gail, saw the Phillies win it all in 2008 at the famous rain-delayed Game 5 against the Tampa Bay Rays. And now, his son, Dave, and daughter-in-law Sam, saw the team secure its place as National League champions.

Humes told his son that he'd pay for the ticket if the Phillies won.

When his son sent him a video of the winning home run on Sunday, Humes jokingly passed it along with the message, "Here's the home run that cost me $325."

"I'm just really excited because (the Phillies) got off to such a bad start and then all of a sudden ... they're playing like what we expected to happen when the season started," Humes said.

Red is everywhere

That excitement is evident not only from the sea of red-clad Phillies fans in schools, restaurants and on the streets, but in the record merchandise sales. The Phillies set a 24-hour record for merchandise sales by an MLB team after winning the NLCS on Sunday, breaking the previous mark held by the 2016 Chicago Cubs.

Dolores McCaffrey was one of dozens picking up Phillies playoff merchandise Tuesday at the Dick's Sporting Goods in Brandywine Town Center.

McCaffrey, like many Phillies fans, endured the dark times. That included the previous 11 playoff-less seasons. During that time, the Phillies went 10 straight years without a winning season until they finished 82-80 last season.

McCaffrey said her daughter and son-in-law had season tickets for most of that playoff drought and that she would attend some games with them.

"They're sort of back on the bandwagon," she said about the fans.

Brian Safian, sporting a Bryce Harper pinstripes jersey and a Phillies cap, had already purchased four World Series hats. On Tuesday, Safian was in search of another, the official on-field cap with a World Series patch.

Safian said he believed in the Phillies before the postseason run and thought the Cardinals matchup was favorable. Once the Dodgers lost to the Padres (in the NLDS), the National League was the Phillies' to lose, he said.

"I knew we had something special," Safian said.

Area businesses are feeling that, too.

Not only are there possibly seven World Series games ahead to draw rowdy crowds, but the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles are slated to play on both World Series travel days. The 6-0 Eagles play the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday and then the Houston Texans on Thursday, Nov. 3.

That means there could be nine straight nights of must-see Philly sports on television. And for Serge Zborovsky, owner of the Homebase Delaware sports bar on Concord Pike in Brandywine Hundred, he almost feels like he won the lottery.

After opening two months ago, his 4,500-square-foot bar with two levels and 30 large-screen televisions has been riding the wave of the on-field Phillies and Eagles success. Not only do the wins increase bar sales, but it acts as a lure for new customers.

"It's a huge deal for a new place like mine to have this happening," said Zborovsky, a University of Delaware graduate who also runs bars in New York. "The chants are getting louder with every home run. Every score, the place explodes."

Then he added with a laugh, anticipating a constant flow of orders for wings and other types of bar food: "I feel bad for my kitchen. Whoever we can get to work will work."

Loyalty rewarded

The Phillies' run this season is rewarding fans' loyalty.

Caravel Academy athletic director Craig Bailey has been rooting for the Phillies since he was a kid in the 1960s.

"This was very unexpected," he said. "Right now, they're just playing together, playing as a team. They have that 'It' factor. They believe in themselves and that stems from Thomson, who sets the tone. They're a hot team right now."

Nick Bekeshka lives in Rehoboth Beach, yet when he was a kid, his family had a Sunday season ticket plan at the old Veterans Stadium. Every week, he’d fight with his brother Joe in the backseat of his parents’ Chevrolet Celebrity as they drove the 2½ hours to the stadium.

“As painstaking as the rides were, we loved every minute of being at the stadium watching the team we love,” Bekeshka said.

That love affair continued into adulthood. Bekeshka, who's 40 with a wife, Cari Bennett, have their own Sunday season ticket plan.

“I just love the game and want to see my team succeed,” Bekeshka said. “That’s made the past decade-plus a little difficult, but my fandom has been unwavering.”

Bekeshka took his two oldest children, 9-year-old Addie and 6-year-old Ben, to Game 3 of the NLDS against the Braves. His wife joined them for Game 4 of the NLCS.

“(The kids) had an absolute blast, waving their rally towels proudly with a level of excitement I rarely see from them,” he said.

He attended Game 5 with the same brother he used to fight in the backseat with.

When Bryce Harper hit the home run to give the Phillies the lead, Bekeshka broke down in tears of joy.

“I knew how much it meant to me, to my dad, to my brother sitting next to me, to my kids watching at home," Bekeshka said. "To be in the City of Brotherly Love, experiencing that with my brother, was priceless.”

He already has tickets for Games 4 and 5 of the World Series.

Chris Greenwell of Newark has held season tickets for the Phillies for nearly 25 years. But he’s never experienced Citizens Bank Park like it was on Sunday after the Phillies beat the San Diego Padres to earn the National League pennant.

“The stadium was the loudest sporting event I ever attended," said Greenwell, who saw the game with his son, Brandon. "We even got decibel alerts on our phones advising of how loud the stadium area was."

During the game, Greenwell took a screenshot of his phone at 4:42 p.m., to capture a text notification he received that read: “Sound levels hit 90 decibels. Around 30 minutes at this level can cause temporary hearing loss.”

But that didn’t scare him away.

“It could have been 200 decibels at the last game and we wouldn’t have left,” Greenwell said with a laugh. "When [Bryce] Harper hit his home run, the roof came off the building.”

He recalled suffering through a lot of bad baseball over the past decade. But it was worth it to see the Phillies win the pennant. People joke that there’s no crying in baseball, yet he witnessed some Phillies fans doing exactly that on Sunday.

Greenwell and his son will be attending all of the Phillies’ home games during the World Series.

“There were grown men and women crying everywhere − like myself!” he said.

“I wouldn’t bet against the Phillies right now,” he said. “Hopefully, we can top it off with a championship.”

Generational happiness

Padua Academy athletic director Rick Shea has been going to Phillies games since 1967 at Connie Mack Stadium.

But he had been to only one playoff game – a loss to San Francisco in 2010 – before this season.

Through connections with some generous friends, Shea was able to attend the Game 4 clincher against the Braves, and Games 4 and 5 against the Padres.

And he may make it to the World Series.

But when he isn’t there in person, he likes to lock in from one spot in his North Wilmington home.

“My back room,” Shea said. “I’ve always preferred to watch games at home. I get distracted if I watch them outside of home.”

Greasing the poles

So it's little wonder that an entire region erupted in euphoria when Phillies pitcher Ranger Suarez got Austin Nola to fly out to Nick Castellanos in right field for the final out Sunday night.

Thousands of fans took to Broad Street in Philadelphia. Many blasted “Dancing on My Own," which has become the anthem of the Phillies' postseason run. Beer and champagne were sprayed on the dancing crowd.

It wouldn’t have been a true Philly celebration without the climbing of the poles, which had been greased earlier that day in anticipation.

Harper had always longed for these moments as soon as he signed a then-record $330 million contract over 13 years in March 2019.

Harper said it was worth every minute.

"It's Philly, man," he told reporters after Game 5. "Unless you're wearing Philly red, (the fans) don't like you, and I love that. I love every emotion that they have.

"They just want you to work hard. They want you to play hard. They want you to be who you are, no excuses. They don't care if you're hurt or you're not feeling good or if you didn't sleep the night before. They don't care.

"If you've got Phillies across your chest and you're a fan, you're part of our team. You're part of our organization, and you fight with us each day."

Staff reporters Andre Lamar, Molly McVety, Shannon Marvel McNaught, Emily Lytle, Kevin Tresolini, Ben Mace, Brad Myers, Hannah Edelman, Brandon Holveck and Ryan Cormier contributed to this report. Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @Mfranknfl.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Phillies fans in Delaware embrace a World Series team that never quit