Why I tweet ‘beloved heroes’ after each Phillies win and what it means — to me and my kids

My kids begged to stay up a little past bedtime on Oct. 3, when the Phillies were poised to clinch a playoff berth in a game against the Houston Astros.

“The Phillies need us,” my 9-year-old said, eyes pleading, smile broad. I am typically a bedtime stickler but let myself be swayed by the gravity of the moment. I let Kieran and Julian stay up for one inning with promises to update them of the results the moment they opened their eyes the next day.

When Kieran woke up in the morning, he had two questions: Did the Phils win? And did you tweet it?

That is: “beloved heroes” — always with a sizable collection of exclamation points — the phrase I tweet every time the Phillies win a game. (My day job, and 98% of my Twitter feed, centers on Philadelphia schools, so people who don’t know the backstory are often confused by the phrase; it was one of the first things new Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. asked me when we first met this year.)

Affirmative to both.

I have been a Phillies mega-fan for as long as I can remember. When I was young, I would sometimes run around our Northeast Philadelphia house shouting “beloved heroes!” when the team won. (I don’t know what compelled me to use that particular phrase, which is not exactly child-speak, but I was a quirky kid who liked big words.)

When I turned 16, my parents offered either a big birthday party or a regulation Phillies jersey. The answer was obvious; I still wear the jersey, No. 21 in honor of Dickie Thon, who played shortstop for fairly hapless Phillies teams from 1989 through 1991.)

I don’t remember when I first tweeted “beloved heroes,” but it’s become a thing. (I post it on Facebook, too.) People who don’t follow baseball tell me they know if the Phillies won based on my posts; if I fall asleep before a West Coast game ends and there’s no tweet, people check in on me: Is everything OK?

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When I was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2012, my all-time favorite Phil, Shane Victorino, called me to congratulate me. He later sent me a baseball, with his signature and “beloved heroes!” written carefully near the stitching. Needless to say, it’s displayed in a place of honor in my house.

I watched and loved the Phillies when they were terrible (2015 — remember that offense? Couldn’t buy a run some days) as well as when they were on fire. I have covered unimaginably disturbing and heartbreaking stories in my career while managing to maintain my professional composure. But I sobbed on assignment in 2008 when I was in the stands for the final out of the Phils’ last World Series win.

It’s safe to say that the Phillies’ improbable playoff run has been giving me soul-deep joy. A huge part of that stems from sharing baseball with my kids, particularly Kieran whose encyclopedic baseball knowledge rivals my own. (Julian, 6, has started loving the Phillies, too, recently, but when he’s annoyed with me, he knows nothing gets to Mom like saying he loves the Mets.)

My dad taught me to be a Phillies fan, not by insisting on it, but by revealing the beauty of the game on long summer days, Harry and Richie’s voices narrating the experience. I wasn’t foolish enough to strong-arm my kids into watching baseball, but somehow Kieran absorbed it by osmosis. He devours stats, binges baseball podcasts, and doesn’t want to leave Citizens Bank Park before the last pitch at any game we attend.

You’re welcome in my family even if you don’t like baseball — my husband didn’t grow up a fan, and that’s fine. But the Phillies, no doubt, help make up my family’s shared language.

Several of us share a partial-season ticket plan, and we snagged eight tickets for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.

My sister, Amy — a nurse practitioner in Bucks County who one day treated patients dressed head-to-toe in Phillies gear, including a furry Phanatic hat — nearly screamed herself hoarse, frantically waving her Phillies gloves with built in pom-poms (yep, it’s a thing). Our cousin Rosemary wore giant plastic ears to that game, rubbing them with Vaseline periodically, a nod to Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove’s alleged use of an illegal substance on his ears earlier in the playoffs. We Grahams don’t mess around.

I promised my editors I would write some fan feeds from the stands at that game; Kieran agreed to be my junior reporter and walked around with his own notebook, delighting in asking other spectators what they loved so much about the team. He carefully wrote down everyone’s score predictions, too. (Cousin Courtney was the only one to get it right — a 4-2 Phillies win.)

Like so many families from around the region, the Phillies connect us.

“Mama, will you be sad if the Phillies lose the World Series?” Julian asked me recently. I was honest: I would be sad but not crushed. The highs have been so very high since that night my kids asked me to stay up late. Bryce? Rhys? Aaron? Jose? Jean? Philly Rob? No matter what comes next, they’re my beloved heroes.