Phillies fans ‘live for next year’ as they cope with yet another heartbreak

Vince Phillips knows heartbreak.

He saw Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum in a pitcher’s duel in the 2010 National League Championship Series that ended with the San Francisco Giants advancing to the World Series.

Phillips was also present during one of the most agonizing moments in Phillies history: Game 5 of the National League Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011. It was the final at-bat and Ryan Howard could barely make it out of the box, hobbling on his way to first base, eventually incapacitated by the pain, capping an era of Phillies baseball.

The 58-year-old Delaware County resident was with his wife and two of his children during Tuesday’s Game 7 loss against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“I would like to win,” he said, a bit deflated. “I think we all want to win.”

It was a hunger that resonated throughout a muted city Wednesday, paired with anger and disappointment. The Phillies were not going to the World Series after losing their 2-0 series lead and failing to take back control in Games 6 and 7 at home. The Red October banner hanging in front of City Hall was quickly swapped out to honor the Union and, unlike the day before, there was almost no red clothing to be seen in Center City or South Philly. No dogs with fun Phillies bandanas around their necks in Rittenhouse Square, no punny T-shirts that read “Bohmer 4ever.”

The ache permeated the region. Zach Wilcha, 45, woke up with an ache in his chest reminiscent of a breakup.

“You’re feeling sad and you’re not exactly sure why,” he said. “It takes a moment or two to get clarity.” Then, he remembered what he had witnessed on his TV hours earlier. He had watched the Phillies lose, grunting in agony, alone in his Collingswood living room (his husband went to bed in the fifth inning). Then, he tossed and turned all night.

But as Wednesday went on, Wilcha — who is CEO of the Independence Business Alliance, the LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia — felt his pain mix with gratitude.

“I sort of made peace in 2008 that that might be the peak of my sports fandom life,” he said. “One of the reasons you find such passion in Philadelphia fans is because we’re with these teams through the down times.”

“We’ll be right there next year,” he added, “rooting for the Phils.”

In the light of day, other fans also tried to find a silver lining. Some found solace in how much they’d save on World Series tickets.

For Kristopher Cramer, 32, of Perkiomenville, that’s a $550 refund that he and his wife, Monica, can put toward “boring” and “adult-y” things, such as student loan payments or costly medical bills from months of IVF treatments, or use to pay for part of an upcoming Disney vacation.

Yet the refund is little comfort. For the couple, the Phillies “are a very good distraction from real life,” said Cramer. They were at the Bedlam at the Bank game during last year’s NLCS. Cramer said it was incomparable to anything they’d ever experienced.

“The feeling of relief of $560 vs. what could have been, being at the game … I’d much rather have been at the game, just for the mental health” benefits, he said.

Danny Conroy, a 41-year-old software engineer from Collingswood, opted to look at the team’s future potential and the Eagles’ current 6-1 season.

“Yeah, they lost,” he said. “But they were there last year. They’ll probably be there next year, and the Eagles are doing good. It helps for the city that there is another team that is doing good.”

He was supposed to attend a World Series game. Now, instead, he said, he plans to spend his $550 refund on two tickets to the Eagles-Bills game. Throwing himself into the Eagles, he said, will help numb the sting of the Phillies’ elimination.

In Manayunk, Mallory Minor, 30, spent Wednesday figuring out what to do with $300 to $400 of World Series-related merchandise she ordered last week for her gift shop, Minor Details Philly.

”Last week I was watching the games, and they were doing so well,” she said. “I was confident.”

The decision ended up being “a grave error,” she said.

Online, however, fans were slower to move on, doubling down on gallows humor and collective sports trauma.

“Philadelphia sports exist to see how far you can push a human being before they break,” read an evergreen post on X (formerly Twitter) from 2020, which fans recirculated Wednesday.

Accounts that didn’t understand the memes or heat-of-the-moment dispatches quickly came for Philly fans, accusing them of turning on their team or “going silent” after the loss.

But how could anyone understand, responded Philly fans, listing the deep losses from the last year alone.

The Phillies lost the 2022 World Series matchup against the Houston Astros; the Union lost the MLS Cup to the Los Angeles FC in penalty kicks; the Eagles lost in the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs; the Sixers collapsed against the Boston Celtics in Games 6 and 7, failing to get out of the second round of the playoffs, and now this. Expand the lens and fans have lived through other scarring losses. The Kawhi Leonard buzzer beater that sent the Sixers home in the Eastern Conference semifinals, Ben Simmons passing that dunk against the Hawks, the Phillies’ collapse of 1964.

Back in Delco, Phillips coped in his own way, listening to sports radio and going over the pitfalls of the series — bringing back Craig Kimbrel after a bad night of pitching, not swapping Johan Rojas when the bases were loaded. Phillips said the Phillies only wanted to hit the long ball and they were beaten with speed and singles.

Still, Phillips laughed off a suggestion that the city’s teams are cursed, and like so many others, he shrugged off any talk of ditching his team.

“I’m not tuning out,” he said. “I mean, I live for next year.”