By the time the Phillies were just three outs away from failing to repeat as World Series champions, the fans in Blarney Stone were already thoroughly inebriated and ready to forget the evening.
But they weren’t ready to admit as much.
“We’re not that drunk!” a group of Phillies fans chanted.
Nursing senior Sara Harder, though, was very drunk — on the Yankees. Her team clinched its 27th World Series moments later when Mariano Rivero forced a routine ground ball by Shane Victorino.
“All these Phillies fans are just scared of losing and that’s the only reason they’re giving me a hard time,” Harder insisted. “I’m sorry for the Phillies but we deserve it.”
College senior Lauren Kennedy and Wharton senior Jamie Seltzer, both diehard Phillies fans, weren’t so peaceful towards their soon-to-be-abandoned friend. Shaking their heads after each pitch and cursing Harder after every pro-Yanks declaration — “I’m so excited, but I wish I was in New York!” — Kennedy and Seltzer were ready to forsake the Riverbale, N.J., native.
“I want to stab her!” Seltzer declared. “I want her to go back to New York.”
Others were equally dejected as they watched their beloved Phils’ second consecutive World Series run come to a screeching halt.
“Why God? Why have you forsaken me?” third-year Penn Law student Jimmy Creegan moaned, somber face in arms.
Down the street at Cavanaugh’s Restaurant, the low din of a packed house made it abundantly clear that the Phillies were on the verge of defeat. The few cheers of the scattered Yankees fans hardly pierced the somber night.
That might have been a result of some mild denial by the Phillies fans.
“I feel bad for her, because the Phillies are about to spank the Yanks,” Drexel junior Nadia Fernand said of her friend Sarah, a Philadelphia native but a Yankees fan.
“They’re not going to lose. They’re just not going to,” she decried with one out in the top of the ninth.
Drexel senior Mike Avatto was slightly more realistic, admitting he was “pretty disappointed” but maintaining the Phillies “still had life” with just one out of life remaining. He was getting through it with the memories of the Phillies’ 2008 championship.
“I’m still happy about last year,” he said, grinning slightly, appearing to temporarily forget about the imminent end of the season, “but it’s definitely upsetting. You come in with high hopes and it’s kind of a let down.”
He lamented his experience attending Game 4 of the series Sunday night at Citizens Bank Park when the Yankees won, 7-4, calling it “the most depressing fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
Watching at Cav’s from the start of the game, Avatto mentioned that the atmosphere was raucous early on in the game, “but as it’s gotten closer to the end people are definitely getting pretty angry.”
When Victorino fatefully succumbed to the unflappable Rivera, Yankees fan Lisa Desai from Clifton, N.J., chucked her beer in the air to the dismay of the nearby Phillies fans.
The man who fell victim to her airborn beer shoved her and shouted “F you and the Yankees,” which elicited what may have been the biggest cheer of the night.
Most of the dejected fans didn’t leave after the game ended, preferring to stick around to ensure that they forgot what happened in the morning. As Drexel senior Matt Bermingham put it, “we’re just back to the same old, same old.”
The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.
DonatePlease note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.