For as long as Zoe Tucker can remember, she has always watched Phillies games at home with her family. But she had a superstition that if she stayed at her apartment to watch Game 5 of the National League Championship Series with her roommates, the Phillies would win, she said.
“Our eyes were glued to the television for the entire game and no one was moving,” Tucker, a junior public relations major, said. “As soon as we won, the immediate reaction was to go to City Hall and we ran straight out of our door and went to the subway stop.”
On Oct. 23, the Phillies defeated the San Diego Padres 4-3 to advance to the World Series. Students across Temple’s Main Campus are extremely excited about November baseball returning to Citizens Bank Park for the first time since 2009.
The Phillies entered the season enduring Major League Baseball’s second longest postseason drought, not qualifying since 2011. For each of the last four years, the team fell out of the postseason race during the last month of the season.
As students walked to class on Monday morning following the victory, Phillies jerseys, hats and T-shirts were in abundance around campus.
“They have been so bad for the past 10 years but I’ve still watched the whole time,” said Koy Zdimal, a sophomore communications major. “All those years of being terrible, it makes this whole run that much sweeter and right now all those years of watching us fall apart in September and now finally getting there makes all those years worth it.”
Prior to the game, Philadelphia city workers greased poles and blocked off portions of city hall in an attempt to subdue potential celebrations. Philadelphia Police also blocked off the streets surrounding city hall due to the crowds of fans. Despite their effort, many Temple students joined Philadelphia residents in celebrating on South Penn Square.
“The celebrations were really awesome because everyone was just really united,” said Kristina Vo, a freshman political science major. “Everyone embraced each other and I think it really sends a positive message.”
For the next few days, Phillies fans on campus aren’t thinking about what will happen during upcoming games of the World Series. Instead, fans are taking time to let the unlikely postseason run sink in after more than a decade of missed playoff appearances.
Fans all across the Philadelphia Sports Complex erupted following the final out of the game, said Isiah Phuong, a sophomore sport and recreation management major. Phuong works across the street from Citizens Bank Park at the Wells Fargo Center, where the Flyers play their home games.
“It was about 30 minutes before puck drop when we were setting up for the Flyers game and that’s when the Phillies clinched it,” Phuong said. “The feeling of it was unreal and I just couldn’t believe it and being in the sports complex the moment it happened, that is something I can tell my kids and grandkids about in the future.”
Despite a strong desire for the team to bring home the franchise’s third World Series championship, Phillies fans will still be proud of the season the club put together no matter what happens, said Ashton Decerio, a freshman actuarial science major.
“At the end of the season we were on a bad stretch,” Decerio said. “We came into the playoffs and everyone was down and we just caught fire and you can’t complain about winning the NLCS.”
The Phillies will travel to Houston to take on the Astros on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29 before returning to Philadelphia on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. The Phillies will play a third game at home on Nov. 2 if the series reaches a fifth game.
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