November 02, 2022
One of my favorite sports stories to tell is that the loudest I've ever heard a stadium is Patrick Robinson's interception return touchdown during the 2017 NFC Championship Game. Sitting in Lincoln Financial Field that night, it was if the Linc itself was shaking just as the Eagles were shaking off the ghosts of their past on the way to the Super Bowl.
I was not in attendance of Game 3 of the 2022 World Series, but Citizens Bank Park might have matched that atmosphere with a record-tying, five-home run effort from the Phillies. My parents, living in deep South Philly about a mile-and-a-half from the Sports Complex, said they could step outside their house and hear the fans after that homer barrage on Tuesday night. No, not the ensuing fireworks after the home runs, but the fans screaming their heads off after every blast. The South Philly Bombers were out in full force.
How many Instagram stories of fans losing their minds home run after home run do you need to see that the Phillies' have an indisputable x-factor with their fans? Yes, the Phillies aren't winning much of anything if it's not for Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber launching dingers into the stands, but they no doubt feed off the crowd and vice versa.
Philadelphia is a special play for pro athletes. No one cares this much elsewhere. The bonds are different than in other places. Losing takes a greater toll. The Philadelphia Phillies have lost more games than any team in the history of professional sports. That's not an exaggeration. That's a fact, a saddening one for a fan base that will go to hell and back for a team that gives it their all. 10-plus years as a doormat in Major League Baseball have left Phillies fans waiting for the slightest chance to return to prominence.
Armed with a group of bearded sluggers and a EDM remix cover of an all-time great pop song, the Fightins are smashing and dancing their way to World Series wins. The fans are reveling in it and providing a backdrop to one of the sport's greatest underdog stories.
I'm left wondering this... do the Phillies' have the best home-field advantage in the entire sport? In all of North American sports?
Nick Castellanos compared the atmosphere at Citizens Bank Park tonight to a Liverpool match at Anfield. pic.twitter.com/GxQ2qtQXM2
— Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham) November 2, 2022
The Phillies have yet to drop a game at home this postseason, going 6-0. During the team's 2008 championship run, the Phils went 7-0. The Phillies are 22-9 all time in playoff games at Citizens Bank Park. Over the course of an entire 162-game season, that's a 115-win pace. The MLB record for wins in a season is 116. These games, of course, are coming against the best teams in all of baseball too with three total World Series appearances, another trip to the NLCS and two more NLDS series having played out. They're not simply squashing the Pittsburgh Pirates out here!
The players know too:
Me: Have any of the away crowds come even close to…
— Destiny Lugardo (@destiny_lugardo) November 2, 2022
Bryson Stott: No
Me: Not even a little bit?
Stott: No.
Said his PitchCom was set to the max volume of 20 today. Max on the road has been 12.
CBP is somehow perfectly constructed to have all 45,000-plus people screaming and yelling and cheering in unison in a way that ignites Phillies players and brings doom for the opposition. Two more wins down in South Philly and the Phils will once again have an unblemished postseason record at home and hoist The Commissioner's Trophy.
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