Broad Street

I don't follow baseball, and haven't since my age crossed the double digits, no longer the kid who pretended to care so it might impress his mother who could in turn impress her father, once almost a pro ball player himself. Those days are long past and I have no shame in admitting that I just don't care, and never will care. So in the days leading up to my Philadelphia visit, I had only the most peripheral knowledge that the Phillies were in, and were leading, the World Series, but when I arrived here, I discovered, or was reminded, that sports are a big deal here, big in a way that exceeds my capacity for understanding. The night before I arrived one of the games, potentially the series-ender had been called due to rain with three innings to go and a tied score, and the first day I was here it rained all day so there was no baseball, and there was a tension present, palapable, electrifying and taut, as strangers would talk to me about it, just assuming as strangers sometimes do, that I shared their interest.

Last night, out of curiosity, the same curiosity that might catch me watching the finale of American Idol even though I'd never watched one episode all season, I watched the game, from the top of the eighth inning on, and in the broadcast I found myself getting excited as well, and found out a few things that made the city's shared anticipation more understandable. No major Philadelphia team has won a pennant since 1983. Around that time, the gentleman's rule in the city that no structure should rise higher than the hat of the William Penn statue on top of City Hall was broken, and since then, Philadelphia has lost, lost, lost. Until last night. I could see the stadium from the window where I watched the game, and I saw the fireworks erupting simultaneously on the horizon and on my television, and immediately I could hear the sounds of neighbors screaming with joy. People poured out of their houses and headed to Broad Street, and Peter and I went too, to check it out.

Cars honking and honking and honking. People screaming and screaming, people of all ages, all sizes, and some variation in color, out on the street and drinking at eleven p.m., on a Wednesday, riding on their cars, shouting "Go Phillies" and "We did it," and most strikingly, moving up the street or down it as if making a pilgrimage to both the stadium and to City Hall, slapping hands and bumping chests with everyone who passed, friends and strangers alike. My immediate reaction to the mob scene was fear, with all that yelling and running and jumping it seemed like someone was going to get hurt, but then I relaxed as I realized that, at least for the moment, the mob had no enemy, and the mood was not bloodthirsty but self-congratulatory. It was very cold out but it was impossible to feel it as we walked south for about twenty minutes, impossible not to get swept, at least a bit, into the enthusiasm until we turned around just past Wolf Street and headed back home.

Later it would get ugly, after we were safe in our warm haven, with vandalism and fires in the street and inevitably, I'm sure, someone got hurt somewhere. But for a minute there it appeared that Philadelphia had earned its nickname, as strangers filled the pavement and the roadway on a night cold enough to keep anyone indoors, congregating in a massive impromptu celebration, and for that minute there, treating strangers as friends, it felt like I had actually found the city of brotherly love.