The date was July17, 1953. My grandfather and I boarded the
36 trolley at Erie and Lycoming Streets in the Juniata Park section of
Philadelphia on our way to the Broad Street subway and then 21st and Lehigh Avenue for a Phillies
game at what my grandfather still called Shibe Park, even though it had been
renamed Connie Mack Stadium earlier that year. As we walked from the subway to
the stadium by way of a railroad underpass, I can remember vendors selling Phillies gear and huge balloons that
were white splotched with red. We entered the gates of the aging edifice,
bought some popcorn and made our way to our seats down the left field line.
Coming out of the bowels of the dank stadium into the bright artificial light I
got my first glimpse of a major league ballpark.
The field at Connie Mack Stadium was the greenest, green I
had ever seen. I stared out over the lush landscape, mouth agape, as if my
grandfather and I had just entered into Oz. The Phillies players in red
pinstriped and woolen uniforms with huge numerals on the back stood out like
ruby red slippers on the green grass under the brilliant lights. As Richie
Ashburn, the great Phillie center fielder of the 50’s would recall, "[Shibe
Park] looked like a ballpark. It smelled like a ballpark. It had a feeling and
a heartbeat, a personality that was all baseball."
Before we even got into our seats, number 14, Del Ennis, had
rocketed a ball off the left field fence for a double. I could hear the crack
of the bat and the thwack of the ball off the old wooden fence as clearly as if
I were alone in the park. Mel Clark scampered home from second as the crowd
rose to cheer. I held my grandfather’s hand and we made our way through the
cheering fans to our seats. I knew right
there that I had entered into my own little contained heaven. That evening a
Phillies fan was born.
By the way, the Phillies lost that game, which was probably
a good introduction to a new fan of what life was going to be like for the next
60 years. On July 15, 2007, nearly 54 years to the day I became a fan, the
Phillies famously became the first team in major league history to lose 10,000
games. In part this was a tribute to their longevity; the team had been around
since 1883 , but it was also a testament to the team’s futility. If we count
from that July day in 1953, the Phillies had lost 4,558 of those ten-thousand, nearly half, while I was rooting for them. Now it takes some resilience and perhaps some
willing suspension of reason to remain a fan of this team of legendary losers.
But it is one of the perversities of fandom that I never
saw them as losers. I never viewed the coming season with dejection, the slow
April start as a harbinger of more bad things to come, the latest bust of a
pitching or hitting prospect as business as usual. I just kept my head down and
my spirits up and I kept on rooting. I was a fan. This was my team and while I
could engage in criticism of the team with other Phillie fans, woe betide the
Yankee or Dodger or Met fan who had a bad word to say about our squad. Because
there it is you see, this was our squad,
our players and they were and remain inextricably linked with our identity as a
city as the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin and cheesesteaks. The Phillies are a part my personal identity as well. This is what makes for the faith of a Phillies fan.
