Daily News | Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins and the 2022 Phillies have made themselves immortal
It happened fast. So fast. The way great things often do. The way the great ones do them. One moment, it was cold and gray and wet and the spaces between the roars were getting longer and more distinct as the anxious murmur of impending defeat settled over Citizens Bank Park.
The organization’s attempt to marry the past with the present was not a simple marketing gimmick. It was a reminder to each of the 26 players who took the field that they did so with a chance to earn lifelong citizenship. They were playing for a reward far more precious than a trophy. They were playing to have done something that lasts.
It happened as it should have: with another brilliant pitching performance by a player who has waited an entire career to pitch on this stage, with a game-winning home run by a transcendent superstar who would have happily traded the MVP trophies for this kind of chance, with all of it set up by a pivotal third-inning home run by a player who’d shouldered more of mediocrity’s weight than any member of the clubhouse.
The combination could have been suffocating. Yet there he was in the third inning on Sunday afternoon, swinging 3-0 with a man on second and blasting a Yu Darvish cutter in the left-center seats to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead. It was Hoskins’ fifth home run of the postseason, fourth-most in franchise history, one behind Chase Utley and Lenny Dykstra, two behind Jayson Werth.