At the Phillies' 2025 home opener, we decided that it was our year.
As my friend Dana and I stood next to the giant balloon arch and let someone take our photo, people around us were feeling optimistic about "winning it all" and "getting a ring." Dana and I talked about how happy we were to be back, how good it felt to return to the ballpark we spend all summer in each summer, how fresh the grass smelled, and how grateful we were that the long offseason was over. This first game was against the Rockies, so it was also fun because we never doubted that the team would win. They did, 6-1.
We were happy to be back in our seats, which were the same seats we'd sat in the year before, and the year before that. We were happy to watch our team, which was mainly the same as the team we'd watched last year, and the year before that. It felt like a gift that all our guys were back. They were good in 2024. They would be good again. And it was nice to see them. I caught myself, during that first game, grinning so hard I felt like a kid again.
At one of those early games we attended, they gave us an NL East championship banner as the door gift. A few weeks later, I took it to a tailgate. It was my first time tailgating a Phillies game, but some friends purchased a share of a red school bus (I love Philadelphia) and invited us to go hang out with them before the game. The bus was so cute, and it was surrounded by people grilling and yelling and playing catch and having fun. I gave my friends the little pennant to decorate the bus.
That game stands out in my memory because the Phillies got wrecked by the Brewers. But—but!—they got destroyed so badly that people left early and Rob Thomson put WESTON WILSON (outfielder) in to pitch, and he didn't give up a run! I cackled in the stands. What a ridiculous game to care about, to watch, to enjoy. Weston Wilson! It felt ludicrous to have that much fun at a game they lost.
"It's a perfect game for a baseball day," my friend said at a game in June. A slip of the tongue, but it was. Every day this season was a perfect game for a baseball day! The team won and they won, and they won some more. I went to 19 regular-season games this year, and the Phillies won 15 of them. The crowds were postseason crowds on Tuesdays in June. They would clap for strikes in the first inning. They would boo throw-overs to first. No one was doing the wave. The fans were locked in. We were locked in!
Once, after a day of reporting in hell, I walked through a tailgate parking lot and one of you, a subscriber I didn't know, yelled my name. I whipped around, and then she clarified we hadn't met, but would I like a hot dog and a tequila shot? Yes, I would! Thank you! Go Phils! The whole season felt like this: full of possibility.
Like every fan, I have watched a lot of bad baseball teams in my life and loved them anyway. I have sat in the stands with a frown on my face, watching a bunch of men kick ground balls and whiff at pitches and throw meatballs right over the plate. I know what it feels like to watch a terrible team every day and every night for a whole summer, and it does not feel good. The 2025 Phillies felt great to watch. They smashed homers. They connected on tiny base hits, one after another. They dove for balls and caught them. They had off nights and off series, but rarely an off week.
Sometimes, in the middle of the summer, someone I don't know would ask me casually, "Oh, do they play today?" and I would say, "They play every day." A great baseball team still loses 60 games out of 162. But when that person would ask "Do you think they'll win?" I could always say "Yes." It was always possible—likely, even—that this Phillies team was going to win.
The last game I attended this season ended up being the game where many Defector subscribers joined us. There were 43,336 fans in the stadium, which was another sellout in a year of sellouts. In our section, a woman was having a bachelorette party. She and her 20 friends were all wearing T-shirts with her cat's face printed inside a baseball diamond. I watched her late in the game, after the team brought her a celebratory white hat. She attached her veil to the back of it, leaned back, and opened her mouth while her friend poured an entire beer down her throat. When Jhoan Duran's closer music played in the ninth, I was sitting on the stairs with a couple of subscribers, fully in the middle of the aisle, and I felt so full of gratefulness, joy, and beauty that I thought I could burst. What a blessing to have a team worth watching every day. What a joy to be rewarded for your devotion with a good team. What a rare happiness, in this terrible year, to win a few stupid baseball games. I loved every second of the regular season.
On Monday, I went to the stadium and watched these same Phillies lose to the Dodgers in the playoffs. All the hope drained from my body, and I knew it was probably over. The saddest part for me was leaving. I made poor Kathryn walk through the concourse one last time instead of going the shorter way outside. I was afraid that walk with those terrible vibes might be the last time I got to be there with this team. Goodbye, stadium. Goodbye, baseball.
And it was, of course, the end. The Phillies managed to win one game in Los Angeles and then beat themselves on Thursday night. A walked-in run, a brutal error, a miserable loss. Baseball is like that sometimes. You can have a great year, then get the yips in a handful of strange, small, fateful moments. You can never guarantee that a team will win three out of five in October. All you can do is build a roster that gets you there, and the Phillies did that.
It is really hard to imagine a better Philadelphia Phillies team than this one. Despite all the moaning and groaning on sports radio, and the Phillies' Reddit this morning after such a brutal, embarrassing exit, the team should absolutely try to run this exact same team back next year. Something has to change, I heard a man saying this morning. This team can't win a World Series. But he is wrong. This team can win a World Series. In the last four years, with a good portion of the same players, they have made a World Series, and an NLCS, and won the NL East two years in a row. That's a successful franchise. That's winning. That's giving yourself a chance. I hope they do it again next year. I hope they do it again forever.
