Phillies take celebrating seriously

WASHINGTON — Sometimes life’s moments are fleeting. They pass by without pausing ever-so slightly to allow someone to run out to the car to get the camera or go to the Men’s Wearhouse for the proper costume.

Of course if a person has to abide by a dress code to properly commemorate anything, it probably isn’t worth it.

Nevertheless, with folks in the regular, old square world, certain passages of time are celebrated. Only instead of reveling when the moment actually occurs, we plan parties, send out invitations, order a cake and drinks, establish a dress code and then allow everyone to come over and treat their space like it’s a hotel room.

But major league baseball players don’t live like the rank-and-file. No, they live in the moment, take them on day at a time and don’t go planning for big events down the road when games remain on the schedule. They don’t dance if there is no music and don’t party if there is nothing to celebrate. More than keeping it real, ballplayers simply do not sweat the small stuff.

Isn’t that a good way to be? Sure, baseball players are blissfully ignorant and live life inside an insulated cocoon, shielded from such scary things like the news or weather reports and ushered from city to city via a cortege of busses, shuttles and chartered flights where only suckers stand in line or can’t get after-hours room service.

Hey, that $81 per diem isn’t going to spend itself.

But there is something pure about living in the moment. It’s a lot like baseball before the American League instituted the designated hitter and Tony La Russa began batting his pitcher in the No. 8 spot. It’s very real and in the workaday world where we’re continually told what we’re supposed to like and what we have to consume in our diets—media or otherwise—it’s refreshing to know that ballplayers still no how to party.

Sure, the Phillies’ goal is to sew up the NL East as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, the team’s Amtrak train was probably just outside of Baltimore on Sunday night when they learned they were eligible to advance to the postseason. Seeing as the iPad has rightly surpassed the Bluetooth ear piece as the must-have bit of uncommon man, geek couture in the Phillies’ clubhouse, the ballplayers likely knew instantly when the Reds sealed the deal by beating the Padres and secure a spot for the local nine in the playoffs. As such, Brad Lidge said he and his teammates thought about adjourning to the club car for a tall, cold one and raise a glass to leaping over the first hurdle, but once the moment came it was a little too anticlimactic.

“We didn’t do anything,” Lidge said with a shrug. “I suppose another team would be doing back flips, after all, you want to just get in the dance.”

But?

“You know…”

It’s not quite a been-there-done-that jawn for Lidge and some of the team’s veterans, but at the same time, it is. This ain’t the first rodeo for most of these guys so if they are going to dance, there better be some music. Besides, it’s important to take the time and celebrate manager Charlie Manuel says.

“If you go all season and you win your division you should celebrate,” Manuel said. “I think the team should have some free time—cocktails, a little drink or whatever else you want to throw in there. I think it’s a time to celebrate and rejoice. You did something and it’s been a long year. You’re fighting to get to the World Series, but I call it the first step. There are four steps to it and the first one is to get in.”

But what about the guys who haven’t been there before?  Every season there are a few new guys who are integral to the success of the team, but haven’t danced the dance before. This year it’s Roy Halladay and Mike Sweeeney ready to make their first ever playoff appearances. Only the interesting thing with Halladay and Sweeney is they have played a combined 29 seasons without so much as a sniff at the postseason.

Needless to say, after 16 years in the big leagues to finally sew up a playoff spot while riding an Amtrak train to Washington, was a bit anticlimactic to say the least.

But no worries there, says Sweeney.

“It was a bit anticlimactic, but over the past few months my goal has changed,” Sweeney explained. “It went from, ‘Golly, I’d really like the chance to play in the postseason.’ And now that it’s becoming a reality, my goal has changed because of my teammates in this locker room. It’s no longer, ‘I just want to play in a playoff game.’ It’s, ‘I want to win the whole darn thing.’”

With Halladay pitching on Monday night with the chance to seal it, Manuel expects him to amp it up a notch. Oh, he won’t let on that anything is different, but Manuel knows better and it appeared as if Halladay and his catcher Chooch Ruiz spent some extra time going over the Nationals’ hitters before the game.

Hadn’t they already seen the Nats plenty of times this year?

No way… Halladay isn’t leaving anything to chance.

Neither is Sweeney, who is solely focused on the task at hand.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet, so hopefully we win tonight and get to splash some champagne and it feels like a reality,” said Sweeney, nothing that he and his high school teammates sprayed apple cider after a schoolboy championship. “I hope we can get the win tonight so I can really embrace that emotion.”

Sweeney poised to seize the moment

When Matt Stairs joined the Phillies in late August of 2008, no one really thought much of it. Stairs was going to be a pinch hitter — an extra left-handed bat off the bench — for the September playoff race. There were no illusions as to why the Phillies traded for Stairs.

Then again, Stairs was just another late-season pick-up by general manager Pat Gillick in a long list of such moves. In 2006 Gillick swung a post-deadline deal for veteran Jeff Conine as well as less splashier moves to get veterans Jose Hernandez and Randall Simon. Jamie Moyer also came aboard in a late-season trade in ’06 and still hasn’t left.

Sometimes those additions have a smaller impact. For instance, in late 2007 the Phillies picked up Russell Branyan for two weeks in August before trading him to the Cardinals just before the September postseason rosters had to be set. But in nine at-bats with the Phillies, Branyan hit two home runs to go with six strikeouts.

That’s pretty much the definition of hit-or-miss.

Stairs wasn’t quite as extreme as Branyan during his 2008 run with the Phillies. He got into 19 games during the final month, hit two homers (three strikeouts) and even started three times. But even then Stairs just kind of blended in.

Until the playoffs, that is…

Stairs, of course, hit a home run in Game 4 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium that very well might be the most clutch hit in franchise history. After that homer that propelled the Phils to the win in Game 4 and the clincher in Game 5, it didn’t really matter what he did afterwards. That home run was enough, but the fact that he said all of the right things and embraced the Philly fans was the icing on the cake.

So it’s with that nod to cult-hero worship that Mike Sweeney arrived in Philadelphia as yet another shrewd, post-deadline move. In fact, Sweeney was quickly dubbed, “The Right-Handed Matt Stairs” upon his arrival as a backup first baseman to Ryan Howard as well as the quintessential “professional hitter” for late-game pinch-hitting situations.

Still, for a guy who has driven in 144 RBIs in a season, batted better than .300 five times and a 200-hit season, before injuries cost him much of the past five seasons, comparisons to Stairs didn’t seem to fit Sweeney’s career arc when he broke in with Kansas City in 1995. With the Royals, Sweeney the team’s best player and biggest box office draw. In fact, the Royals’ only winning season since George Brett retired came in 2003 when Sweeney and Raul Ibanez, with Carlos Beltran, were just a few of the eight guys on the team to club at least 13 homers.

Sweeney was a star in Kansas City even though he and Stairs were teammates during three straight 100-loss seasons. Nevertheless, it’s kind of strange that just a handful of years removed from being teammates, the star of those teams hopes to follow in the footsteps of the quintessential journeyman.

“It’s an honor to be compared to Matt,” Sweeney said before Monday night’s game against the Astros at the Bank. “He’s a great competitor, a great teammate and a good friend.”

What Sweeney has going for him is that just like Stairs he’s the kind of player manager Charlie Manuel likes to have around. The manager likes hitters with track records and even though Sweeney hasn’t played in more than 74 games since 2005, Manuel is confident in his veteran hitter for one big reason…

“I’ve seen him. I’ve seen him his entire career,” the manager said.

“Sweeney hadn’t played much this year and he got to play some, which was good for him,” Manuel said. “I look for Sweeney to really help us coming off the bench when Howard comes back. That will cut into his playing time, of course, but in September having him and (Ben) Francisco on the bench gives us two really good right-handed hitters.”

Before the injuries became chronic, Sweeney once had a streak of 171 consecutive games played that was snapped when he was suspended for beating up Angels’ pitcher Jeff Weaver when he reportedly insulted Sweeney’s devout Catholic faith. So to find himself on the bench after two decades of being at the heart of his team, admittedly, has been an adjustment, but not one that has been difficult.

After all, the Phillies are just the third team Sweeney has played for that will finish the season with a winning record and he has appeared in the fourth-highest number of games amongst active players without a playoff appearance.

Stairs had something of a playoff drought himself while playing every day in Kansas City, Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Montreal and Chicago during some lean times. But these days he’s working on a third straight playoff appearance with the resurgent Padres in a limited role. Actually, limited doesn’t seem to describe it considering Stairs has started just 12 games this season.

Since joining the Phillies two weeks ago, Sweeney nearly has Stairs beat in starts.

“I’ve always been an everyday guy, but my role is to come off the bench,” Sweeney said. “That’s what is great about this game. One day you’re playing every day and the next day you’re called on to be a pinch hitter and both days you’re called on to help the team. That’s what it’s all about.”

When he first joined the Phillies, Sweeney called it “a dream come true.” But that was before he spent any time in the clubhouse with his new teammates. The notion of getting to the playoffs and mixing it up in a pennant race was enough.

However, since coming aboard Sweeney has blended in. As a pinch hitter he’s 3-for-8 with a walk, sacrifice fly and two RBIs, and often can be seen talking baseball with rookie Dom Brown, the Phillies’ top prospect who started the season at Double-A.

More than a dream, the stay in Philadelphia has been even better than Sweeney imagined.

“Love it,” he said. “The guys have been great. It’s the best group of guys I’ve ever been around. We’re winning and that’s what we’re here to do.

“It’s awesome. The guys in the clubhouse have a great makeup and fire and passion, so yeah, it’s a joy to be a part of.”

Sweeney can often be found taking extra batting practice before the game before playing catch with his six-year-old son, also dressed in a No. 5 uniform top with "Sweeney" written on the back. In fact, young Sweeney is already such a fixture in the team's clubhouse that he already has a signature handshake with boss of the romper room, Shane Victorino.

Matt Stairs used to talk that way, too. In fact, he still talks fondly about his time with the Phillies, and not just because it allowed him a chance to become a folk hero. Still, comparisons are tough to live up to and even more difficult to rationalize—especially when it’s about something as rare as amazing playoff moments.

But there something about Sweeney that makes one believe that he’s going to make an impact on the season. After all, he’s waited too long to allow the moment to simply slip by.