Top 5 Phillies moments I’ve seen live

Red October, also known as “the most wonderful time of the year,” is finally here! The number 2 seed, the Philadelphia Phillies, will await the Los Angeles Dodgers for game one of the NLDS on Saturday night as they hope to make more lifelong memories for their fans in the stands.

Speaking of lifelong memories for fans, I have been to about 50 Phillies games since my first in August of 2012, when I was six years old. The amount of amazing moments I’ve seen while inside Citizens Bank Park since then is honestly impressive, especially when considering that most of the games that I have attended were in the midst of the Phillies’ long, tedious, 10-year playoff drought.

I have been so lucky and fortunate enough to have been at my second home in Philadelphia for so many of these special moments that will last a lifetime. In honor of a fourth straight Red October, here are my five favorites that I will never forget:

5. Vince Velasquez dazzles in left field

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzM8iAxrp5I

It was early August of 2019. My dad and I were sitting in the upper deck along the third base line towards home plate for a game against the Chicago White Sox. What originally was a half-full stadium started clearing out as the game was still knotted up at 3 after 13 innings.

My dad and I stayed, as one rule he has always taught me is to never leave a game early, and this moment asserted that in my 13-year-old brain.

Entering the 14th inning and a new day, the Phillies ran out of pitchers, and I remember Phillies’ PA announcer, Dan Baker, announced that center fielder Roman Quinn was coming in to pitch and pitcher Vince Velasquez was entering the game to play left field. My dad and I were both skeptical and confused, but in an instant, Velasquez did the unexpected.

On a base hit to left, the Phillies’ usual back-end starter fielded the ball on one hop and threw a 94 mph dart to nail Jose Abreu at the plate. Everyone who stayed went absolutely nuts as I sat there laughing at what I had just witnessed.

To top it off, Velasquez almost threw out the eventual game-winning run for Chicago in the 15th, and made a diving catch to end the inning. It was easily the best Phillies loss I have ever been to, and the ultimate lesson to never leave a game early.

4. Tyler Goeddel throws home to win it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0b3AP90_fM

This is about as good an ending as you could ever wish to see in person. The Phillies, in the middle of their grueling rebuild, were up 4-3 on the Cincinnati Reds in the top of the 9th. My dad and I were sitting in the 300 level on the first base side behind home plate as the Reds were threatening with runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out.

We watch in disappointment as a fly ball is hit to left fielder Tyler Goeddel, assuming the Reds are about to tie the game. Eugenio Suarez breaks for home after Goeddel catches it, and he fires an absolute bullet to home plate as Suarez collides hard with catcher Cameron Rupp to get the 7-2 double play. Citizens Bank Park went nuts.

After a lengthy review, the umpires finally called him out, securing the Phillies' victory. I went home thinking about how I’ve never heard the Bank that loud, but that would just be the tip of the iceberg.

3. Rhys Hoskins’s bat spike

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvi9xqPd3SU

I was ecstatic when the Phillies finally made the playoffs in 2022 after 10 long years of never seeing them make it.

I was in a Chickie’s and Pete’s when Edmundo Sosa made the final catch to beat the Cardinals and move on to the NLDS, and I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, we’re actually getting playoff baseball in Philadelphia!” I never thought I’d see the day, and I especially never thought that the night before game 3, my dad would surprise me with tickets.

Walking into that packed Citizens Bank Bark for Red October for the first time was like a fever dream, and what would happen next made it all the more special.

From the upper deck along the first baseline, I watch as Rhys Hoskins comes up to bat with two runners on in the 3rd. He was in the middle of a slump, and I leaned over to my dad and said, “He better not ground into a double play here.”

Strider threw the first pitch to him, and the rest is history. As I watched the ball leave the yard, I blacked out and started going crazy with the rest of the stadium as I felt it shake beneath me.

In that moment, the wretchedness, disappointment, and frustration of the last 10 years were all let out in one collective scream.

2. Weston Wilson’s cycle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkrlUc8oQnI

Every year, my extended family plans a trip to the Phillies game together, a night we affectionately call “Welsh Night.” Since Welsh Night 2023 against the Washington Nationals couldn’t have gone any better, we decided to make Welsh Night 2024 against the Nationals as well.

Weston Wilson is usually a bench player for the Phillies, so we found it funny that he happened to be starting again this year after we saw his MLB debut last year. Wilson hit a triple in his first at-bat, then an infield single later on. This game was a Phillies blowout from the start and kept getting more lopsided.

In the seventh inning, Wilson hit an opposite-field home run to make it 10-3. We knew that he was a double away from the cycle, but there was no way he was getting another at-bat, right?

Miraculously, he did.

Wilson hit the ball to the opposite side for a third time, just out of the reach of the Nationals’ right fielder, and pulled into second with a double. I started screaming “CYCLE, CYCLE” as the rest of the crowd got to their feet. My entire family was in awe that we lucked into witnessing history for the second Welsh Night in a row.

1. Michael Lorenzen’s no-hitter

It’s been two years since this occurred, and I’m adamant that a Phillies World Series clincher would be the only possible game that could top this.

We hadn’t done Welsh Night in years, but my cousin Jane, who usually organizes everything, decided that we should start doing them again. Everyone was on board with this idea, and she picked August 9, 2023, as the day to resurrect the family tradition.

And what a day it was.

We all sat in the upper deck in right field and watched Weston Wilson hit a home run in his first career at-bat, which was already cool enough. Then Nick Castellanos hit his 200th career home run, and we started to realize that we were in for more than a treat, but a whole five-star buffet.

I went out into the concourse in the middle of the fifth inning to use the bathroom and buy some baseball cards from the team store when I noticed Michael Lorenzen hadn’t allowed any hits yet. It was interesting, but nothing to write home about since he still needed 12 more outs.

Fast forward to the eighth, and he gets out of it unscathed. Things are getting REAL. Everyone in the stadium thinks that he won’t be coming back out for the ninth since he had thrown over 110 pitches, but the Phillies go down quietly in the eighth, and a roar comes out of nowhere as Lorenzen walks up the dugout steps, determined to finish the job.

He gets the first two guys out, and is one out away from history….I’ll let the video I took of what happened next tell the rest of the story:

https://youtube.com/shorts/u69Uy0IL_Bg?feature=share

Brady Welsh is a second-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email bdw5435@psu.edu.