Michael Shannon.

Friday the Philadelphia Phillies were out west playing the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine. Philadelphia brings not only coaches and ballplayers to your park but a well deserved reputation for hard-nosed baseball. Actually, hard nosed period.

Philadelphians are known for their distinctive affinity for their home sports teams. Philadelphia sports fans have quite the reputation. From “burning down the city” to dragging down opposing team’s enthusiasts, fans of the city’s national sports teams are constantly criticized for their ornery nature. There is something to be said about “throwing all your hopes and dreams” into something that you have no impact on.

Don’t tread on me. Nick Castellanos. ESPN

Founded in 1883, the Phillies are the oldest, continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional sports and one of the most storied teams in Major League Baseball. Since their founding, the Phillies have won two World Series championships (against the Kansas City Royals in 1980 and the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008), eight National League pennants (the first of which came in 1915), and made playoff appearances in 15 seasons. The team has played 120 consecutive seasons and 140 seasons since its 1883 establishment.

The sports website Bleacher Report ranked Phillies fans as having the “most insufferable fan base” in sports. A tough blue collar city Phillies fans revel in that particularly the “Insufferable” part. My friend Jim, who’s from Philly says no one in Philadelphia has ever used that word in a sentence. Just more ammunition to hate highfalutin, self satisfied fans from other cities. Letting the air out of other teams balloons is the Philadelphia national sport.

My son and I watched the game and saw, perhaps the application of a little Voodoo. Gris-Gris personified. A Doctor John example of a talisman, amulet, voodoo charm, spell, or incantation capable of warding off evil and bringing good luck to ones team while bringing misfortune to another, the Dodgers in this case.

The outfield camera was looking in towards home plate and just to the left of the catcher a middle aged blonde woman carefully lifted a small box with a glassine cover. She deliberately turned the transparent part towards the camera and if you looked closely you could see that inside was bobblehead doll, a Chase Utley bobblehead in a Dodger uniform. Yes, that Chase Utley, the one that played 12 years at second base for the Phillies, a perennial all-star and quiet team leader. He was perhaps the steadiest leader of the Phils since Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt. A man you could build on, a man you could admire, a man who upheld the fans notion of a true Philadelphia Phillie, tragically traded away for money to those wretched old Trolley Dodgers who now resided in that west coast city, den of iniquity, land of the Lotus Eaters, Lost Angeles. Phil’s fans were surprised, hurt and then angry. Really angry, really, really angry.

Take that. SSI photo

Fast forward to 2024. As the woman, her face twisted with a kind of glee you might see on the face of a righteous believer waggled her little box timing it to the time the camera waited for the pitcher to deliver the ball to home plate. Her companion monitored the TV feed on her Cell phone so she knew when the camera man was focused on her antics.

With a demonic look she stared straight into the camera and slowly puled the little doll out of the box, holding it so its little painted eyes looked straight into the lens and then reached up with her right hand and slowly, ever so slowly twisted poor Chases’s little head clean off. Getting to her feet she turned back to the crowd and raised the headless doll up high and the turning back to the camera, slam dunked the poor little deceased thing to the concrete. With an obviously demonic laugh she sat back down and shared a high five with her companion, the spell complete.

Phillies 6, Dodgers 2.

J T Realmuto vs Chris Taylor. AP

Dodger management needs to find that woman, she is quite clearly the reason the Dodgers have more players on the injured list than in the dugout.

Gonna have to go through this guy first, seriously.

As you can see the writer is a fan.

Michael Shannon is what was once known as a baseball Crank. Baseball can save your sanity. Try it.