They have this quality about them - cool, cojones, whatever. Everybody can see it, everybody who has watched the Phillies through the last few summers. It is what separates them from every team in every franchise in this city in most of our memories. The Phillies can read a scoreboard with the best of them, and act accordingly. They can read a calendar better than almost any of them, and turn it on in the money months of September and October.
We all can see it. It will always mark this group as special and identify this epoch. And now, this. They just keep doing it. Amazing, stunningly, etc.
They had to fight back last night, again, to win another postseason game in 2009. They trailed by 4-2 in the sixth inning and by 4-3 in the ninth inning before Rollins did it, rocketing a two-out double into right-centerfield that scored pinch-runner Eric Bruntlett and Carlos Ruiz and handed the Dodgers a deflating, 5-4 loss.
After an entirely memorable assault on the nerves against the Rockies in the National League Division Series, the League Championship Series against the Dodgers has been just as compelling. The Phillies' 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series belies the fortitude it has taken for them to win these games.
After it was over, after they had beaten Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton, reporters entered the Phillies' clubhouse and the players retreated en masse into a back area and toasted Rollins, away from prying eyes. They had just lived another miracle. They had sat in their frigid dugout, sat there into the ninth, and watched it all unfold again. Matt Stairs walked, Ruiz was hit by a pitch, and it was on.
"Stairsy walked and you hear everybody in the dugout yelling, 'Same seat, same seat,' " reliever Scott Eyre said, recounting the baseball superstition. "All that stuff we yell all the time. Then Carlos got hit and they were yelling even louder, 'Same seat, same seat.' "
