So what? We lost again. Is there any Philadelphian who doesn't know that feeling? Not the losing so much as the intuitive and fatalistic process of preparing to accept defeat. The numbness before the inevitable. The certainty before the final out. I felt this eerie calmness as early as the second inning of Game Six. Not a sense of doom or even disappointment. Just an odd familiar mental clarity, a serenity amidst a floodtide of emotions. I never lost faith. I never stopped believing. But my brain knew what my heart refused to acknowledge. It isn't our night.
I felt the same way in 1993 during Game Six in Toronto and I reacted the same way. I needed to be alone, away from the shouts and groans and curses of others, not friends, not family, not strangers. I needed private time by myself to mourn the passing of a dream. Just me and the TV and what might have been. When Joe Carter hit that three-run homer in the ninth inning against Mitch Williams I was sitting alone in a darkened room except for the unforgiving glow of a black and white television screen.
Last night I managed to keep the lights on and refused to assume the fetal position. I also refused to look at the TV. I didn't want to give reality the pleasure of my attention. It isn't denial if you refuse to participate in the ceremony.
My seven stages of grief bypassed shock, disbelief, bargaining, guilt and anger, while pole vaulting over depression and landing safely in acceptance -- all in the span of a Budweiser commercial. This is a self protective speed response learned from surviving bitter years of dashed hopes. Imagine being a 14-year-old boy in 1964 when the first place Phillies blew it dramatically and unforgettably, losing 10 of their last 12 games in diabolically ingenious ways. I was that boy.
That two weeks of agony in September of '64 was spiritual death in slow motion, almost like being a Mets fan today. And my faith, my confidence, my Philadelphia sports pride was in hospice care for years. I barely paid attention to the epic '67 Sixers championship. It took twin Stanley Cup titles by the Flyers in the mid-70's to rekindle the passion. And it took World Series victories in 1980 and 2008 to convince me that the monkey on the Phillies back was not just dead, but truly and sincerely dead.
So congratulations to the New York Yankees. They were the better team, not to mention the best team money could buy. They represent everything we have come to expect from the perennial American League champions of the national pasttime -- including a most valuable player who can't speak English after six years and tens of millions of dollars earned while playing baseball in America. It required a translator for MVP Hideki Matsui to say nothing in Japanese that he couldn't have learned to say in English off a placemat at Friendly's.
And of course that awkward post-game interview came after Game Four hero Johnny Damon mentioned that he was in the final year of his Yankee contract while expressing his joy about winning a second World Series ring. Somehow I can't imagine anyone in a Phillies uniform saying such a thing at a time like that.
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