Forty years ago tonight

[Philsmania]

Enjoy!

Extended version...

[gmwannabe]

Thanks phils, i was there. a fellow worker received a phone call that morning from a friend that had tickets and couldn't go. he asked me if i wanted to go and i said yes and would drive. we sat in the yellow (600 section) in right field. What an exciting night and lefty was great. it was surreal when the police on horseback started coming out onto the edge of the field in the Ninth. The place was going crazy. i might have mentioned this, in another thread, but if you ever have seen some footage after the game just ends, near the third base dugout there is a red flash of a flare that lands behind it. The person that sent that flare off was sitting in the next section over from us and i saw it take off. beautiful night and a great part of Phils history. i still have the program and ticket from that night.
gm

[gmwannabe]

Well, i jumped the gun. i just saw the top video from Phils and saw the flare land. i guess that would never happen in today's times.

[California_Dreamin]

Just curious from those [allentown, julio, others] who were young phans in 1964? Whenever I read that the 1980 World Series title put the "64 collapse to bed I couldn't find a theory further from the truth. The '77 Black Friday collapse? Yep. The '78 painful loss when Gary Maddox dropped a fly ball? Sure. Because the main roster, sans Rose and Trillo were on all those teams. Schmidt, Luzinski, Bowa, Boone, Carlton, Ruthven, Christenson, McGraw, Reed, Brusstar, Unser, McBride were all on those 3 teams so 1980 made the pain and suffering from that group all worth while.

But 1980 had absolutely nothing at all with putting the ghosts of 1964 to bed, nothing at all. Callison, Allen, Short, Bunning, Mauch and the rest of that plucky team never went to a World Series, either as Phillies or elsewhere. And, for the most part, none of them did. Oh, Dalrymple made a short appearance with the Orioles and Covington and Roebuck had been in the fall classic previously with other organizations. But that team was never again to capture lightning in a bottle and by the late 60's they were all on other teams or out of baseball.

Just curious if others feel as I do who witnessed both 1964 and 1980?

[Philsmania]

I wasn't alive in '64 but I do remember in 2008 people saying Mitch Williams was off the hook for Joe Carter's home run. A matter of opinion, I guess. Red Sox fans embraced Bill Buckner after winning two WS in the '00's.

[flyers19rw]

‘64 was a rough season through which to live. Being at the head of the pack for so long but then to fall flat. The season proved what should always be remembered-the season is a long distance race, not a sprint. There have been many times when September proves to be the downfall for a club. The ‘64 club just wasn’t as good as the Cardinals. Put the lineups against each other and an unbiased fan will see that. Mauch had squeezed all that could be had from that club. The ‘80 club was different. They were the best team In the game and, after a Green took over, prodded them on to show it.

[LoneStarPhan]

I think that for many of us who had only known Phillies teams that had been pretty bad, it took most of the season to finally believe that the Phillies could win the pennant.

A lead of 6 1/2 games with 12 games left in the season. It sure felt good that the Phillies were going to be in the World Series. What we saw unfold just could not have happened. That first game with Cincinnati where the Reds won 1-0 on a steal of home. I was following the play by play on radio and I can still remember how upsetting that was. The other game that stands out was on TV (must have been a weekend) where Callison hit 3 home runs but the Phillies still lost. Loss after loss piled up until it got to ten. Such a huge opportunity for the Phillies just going up in smoke. It was a very difficult pill to swallow. All they had to do was win 4 of the final 12 games and the dream of playing in the WS would have been realized.

[julio]

Just curious from those [allentown, julio, others] who were young phans in 1964?

I was 10 years old in 1964, living in rural central PA, where professional baseball existed only on TV (snowy TV), only on weekend afternoons - when, weather permitting, I wasn't in the house, much less camped in front of the TV Sit and watch TV instead of going to the community pool? Instead of bike-riding? Instead of exploring the forest that abutted our back yard? Fat chance. I wasn't a "phan" at that point - that developed about the time I was 15-16, around 1970...and even then, it was fairly casual, because when you're 16, there are other interests.

Serious fandom required regular access - which came with local cable that allowed access to some weeknight games (channel 43 out of York, and WGN, which provided regular Cubs games). Particularly when I dropped out of college and was working (7-3 at a factory), weeknight baseball entertainment in the mid-1970s was routine. But that's well after the 1964 roster was gone.