Euphoria at 8:43 PM

I don't even know how to react. It's almost 24 hours later, and I still can't even process it. Every other hour or so at work today, I'd spend about 10-20 minutes and just look at pictures and read articles, just to remember that it's real. Yeah, I shed a few tears last night, and I still feel a little misty every time I think about it.

They did it. For the first time in my life, I'm happy at the end of a sports season. I've watched the Phillies my whole life. I love the Eagles, but I was a baseball guy long before I was a football guy. I used to stay up late and listen to Harry Kalas call the games on my walkman when I was a kid. I remember Mike Schmidt hitting his 500th homerun in Pittsburgh, and the call that Harry made on that long drive. I was one year old when the Phils beat Kansas City in 1980 for the only other title in their 126 year existence. Since then it's been heartbreak after heartbreak. From seasons of futility right down to Joe Carter sinking the dagger into my heart in 1993. But this Phillies team did it. For the past few years, they would get so close. They'd be one game out of the playoffs. Two games out. Coming so close, but never getting in. Then there was last year, when they ran into the buzzsaw Rockies. Finally getting into the playoffs, then back home four days later. But not this year.

This year things were going to be different. The Phillies were notoriously bad in April for the past few years. They would always stumble out of the gate. But this year they came out on fire. They had some speed bumps along the way, but it always felt like they would get into the postseason. Then once they got in, they were underdogs against the Wild Card Brewers, and then against the LA Mannys. They smoked both teams, losing one game in each series. You see, we Philadelphia sports fans are not used to postseason dominance. We're used to high expectations, high hopes, and almost making it. So when they cruised to the World Series, the feeling should have been ominous, but it wasn't. For once, I felt like I could believe that this team would win it all. It was a dangerous prospect, because I get seriously messed up when my teams get this far and flame out. But I allowed myself to kind of think that it was possible to see my team actually win.

And in the end, it was classic Philly, except for the end result. All sorts of things happened that should have stopped the Phils from doing it. Slumping power hitters. Stranding guys on base. Playing against a young team with nothing to lose. Terrible calls by umpires (yeah, it went both ways, but more went against the Phillies. I counted.) And of course, game five. I mean seriously. They essentially wasted a start by their best pitcher, in the last home game of the Series, with the chance to clinch, and they had to play one more defensive inning in terrible conditions than the other team did (say what you will, but it was no coincidence that the game was suspended when it was.) Every other Phillies team I've watched would have let the tying run score in the top of the ninth. Every other Philadelphia team would have given up the game at the end. In any other year, with any other group of guys, it would have been too much to overcome. But not these guys.

These guys did it.