Jamie Moyer

Very cool profile by Thomas Boswell of local boy made good Jamie Moyer, who got the win in the biggest game of his career for the team he cheered for as a child. The most moving graph: “Moyer talked about what it meant to be a Phillies fan, wedded to a team famed for failure.

 

As the 44-year-old southpaw headed to Citizens Bank Park on Sunday morning, preparing to pitch the most important game of his life, he drove past a Little League field near the park.

 

‘There were kids playing. If I hadn't been pitching, I might have stopped. It brought up a lot of childhood memories for me, growing up less than an hour from here, rooting for Steve Carlton, going to the Phillies' parade after they won the World Series’ in 1980, Moyer said. ‘I got those warm and fuzzy feelings. It made me appreciate what I was going to have a chance to do. To be able to win in this city where I grew up, to be able to stand in this clubhouse now, I'm at a loss for words,’ said Moyer, who fell silent and calmly, as he does everything, started to cry.”

 

And the Boz neatly captures what it means to be a Phillie fan.

 

“Few understand the life of the Phillies fan, linked to a franchise that, this season, actually celebrated its 10,000th loss. Decades of frustration, all the way back to 1883, are interspersed with rare seasons -- like this one -- of precious but perishable opportunity. Maybe no one understands better than Moyer, the third-oldest player in the game, his history tangled with Philly's baseball fatalism -- expect the worst, hope for anything else. Phils fans don't call themselves a Nation or wear their disappointments on their sleeves. And they boo a lot, and with cause, since 97 years is quite a while to wait for one World Series win. No wonder Moyer played hooky from high school to see that parade.”